Watcher of the Skies (translated from the English. - "Guardian of heaven") - an introductory track from the album Foxtrot British rock band Genesis . One of the most famous songs of the band's early work.
| Watcher of the skies | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Executor | Genesis | |||
| Album | Foxtrot | |||
| Date of issue | October 6, 1972 | |||
| Date Recorded | August 1972 | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock , art rock | |||
| Duration | 7:23 a.m. 8:34 (live version on Genesis Live ) 8:40 (version on Genesis Revisited ) | |||
| Label | Charisma records / virgin records | |||
| Author | Genesis | |||
| Producer | Genesis , David Hitchcock | |||
| Foxtrot Album Track List | ||||
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Content
Title and Content
The name of the song is taken from a line of the sonnet entitled "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" by the English poet John Keats . The plot of the song is quite dramatic - “the end of a long union of man and the Earth”, but this does not mean the apocalypse , but the extinction of the human race in the “ocean of being” and its gradual replacement with new creatures . Eternal and unshakable remains only the "Guardian of heaven", which is an interplanetary world. The lyrics are not written by the main author Peter Gabriel , but jointly by Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford .
Sound Features
The song begins with Banks' bright, measured solo on the Mark II model’s mellotron , played with both hands on two keyboards. Solo is considered one of the most recognizable in prog-rock . Then, with increasing volume, Rutherford's bass guitar and Phil Collins drums infuse, setting a very high tempo, and at the same time giving the sound a solemnity, which makes the composition resemble an anthem . The rhythm of the song is very complicated, in some places there is polyrhythmia . At the end, prolonged losses of the mellotron are again heard.
Recognition
The song became one of the group's calling cards and was performed many times at concerts. During her live performance, Gabriel put on a long white hoodie and bat wings, and his face was painted with luminous paint.
The song, like the entire album, considered a prog rock classic, was warmly received by critics: in particular, the authoritative portal PopMatters included it in the list of 25 best songs of the genre, giving it 5th place [1] .
After the breakup of the classic Genesis prog, in 1996, the song was included on Steve Hackett's solo album Genesis Revisited .
In 2010, at the ceremony of introducing Genesis to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the American rock band Phish presented cover versions of two Genesis songs - this one and No Reply At All.
Notes
- ↑ Sean Murphy. The 25 Best Progressive Rock Songs of All Time . PopMatters (05.22.2011).