If I had to pick a quintessential Peter Gabriel song, it would probably be Here Comes the Flood. While Wallflower is my personal favorite, there is a depth to the lyrics of Flood that allows it to take on various meanings, lending itself to reinterpretation through different performances. That helps to explain why I own four different recordings of the song.
Originally recorded in 1977, Gabriel was reportedly unsatisfied with the bombastic nature of the full band performance on the track. He favored a simpler piano accompaniment. I first became familiar with the version Gabriel recorded in 1990 for his first greatest hits compilation, Shaking the Tree (it also appears on his 2003 compilation Hit). It is a stunning departure from the original, just Gabriel's voice and his piano. While I usually give credence to original versions, I had always viewed the 1990 version as the definitive recording of this song.However, the completist in me couldn't resist checking out the other available version of the song. Gabriel had developed a close working relationship with King Crimson's Robert Fripp over the recording of his first two solo albums. This yielded a collaboration between the two on Fripp's 1979 solo album Exposure. Gabriel got to re-record Here Comes the Flood with the simple piano accompaniment he wanted, while Fripp added an intro and outro (Water Music I and II) and some frippertronics to the track, and Brian Eno stitched a few sparse keyboards into the whole thing. To me, it contains the perfect balance between the full band version and the simplified ‘90 recording.
It gets better though. After a mess of record company obstructions and objections altered the 1979 release, Fripp ended up remixing and re-releasing Exposure in 1983. This resulted in yet another version of Here Comes the Flood. Basically the same track, the vocals were brought more to the forefront and the whole thing was given a much warmer, fuller sound. Some of Fripp's guitar on the first chorus was removed, and another keyboard section was added over both choruses.
I loved how the extra guitar tracks from the earlier version build up through the first chorus. If I ran the world, I would have kept the instrumentation as it is on the '79 version and given it the polishing it received on the '83 version. But I don't, so for now I'll have to live with competing versions of the song until one day when I do run the world (In fact, I think the '90 version has the best overall vocal performance, so I would slap that on the '79 version too if I could). The whole Exposure album has been beautifully remastered and contains both versions of the song.
I've never been able to put my finger on what exactly the song is about. I first heard it during my senior year of college while I was studying philosophy. At the time every song seemed to deal with the existential crisis of modern man lost in a cruel universe without God, values, or hope. I do think there is an element of that in the song. Stranded starfish waiting for the "swollen Easter tide" seems like a reference to modern life without religious hope. What the flood itself is, is harder to pinpoint, but I think it has to do with the ever-changing world in which we live. Existence is not static being, but rather, fluid becoming.The song also has important associations with the end of the year for me. It actually sounds a little bit like Auld Lang Syne. The lyrics deal with continual change, and there is an ominous tone of something about to break which has been holding back "the flood" until now. Reflection, transience, and expectation all seem to meet in the lyrics and instrumentation. The Fripp version includes a sound clip during Water Music I of a narrorator describing cataclysmic climate change, rising sea levels, and the flooding of major cities. I think this song captures the essence of uncertainty and frailty in a world, seemingly, without absolutes or hope in anything beyond the natural order of things. Humanity tossed along on a sea of chance. It is the dreamer, the one who chooses his own reality, who will be able to survive in such a world. "Drink up dreamers you're running dry."
A rare song that merits multiple interpretations and repeated listenings.
When the night shows the signals grow on radios
All the strange things, they come and go as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
Still waiting for the swollen easter tide
There's no point in direction
We cannot even choose a side
I took the old track, the hollow shoulder across the waters
On the tall cliffs they were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
In waves of steel held metal at the sky
And as the nail sunk in the cloud
The rain was warm and soaked the crowd
When the flood calls you have no home, you have no walls
In that thunder crash you're a thousand minds within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you've seen
The actor's gone there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn
They'll use up what we used to be
Lord, here comes the flood
We will say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up dreamers you're running dry
2 comments:
Brad,
I listened to it twice and feel that the interpretation that fits best is that the song is about the artist. He is the stranded starfish. He is the one who must give up his island to survive. Otherwise "they'll" use up what we used to be. I think he is saying that when the night shows, artists tend to retreat to isolation, becoming individual. True art becomes lost. The industry fills the void with "what we used to be" - the reputation of the artist and his work becomes the parodied standard. All the while, art is what is needed to survive the night. Without it, the dawn will not come. Now, what the flood is, I think is both a good and bad thing. A stranded starfish needs water, but a flood could kill him. An artist stranded on an island is safe, but has no experience to draw from, nor is he any help to those without an island.
I do not feel satisfied with this interpretation. It does not feel quite right, but now I'm used up. What do you think?
Phil
Hey Phil, the following interview excerpts are a little disjointed, but shed some light on the subject. I think you were on the right track. It seems the "Flood" is sort of a breaking point, where a change will come and usher in this idea of openness and relational unity. The stranded starfish are people isolated from each other, and the radio signals are attempts at true communication.
"I try to
maintain the subject from my point of view, and say what I am." Increasingly, it seems, the lyrics to his songs form one part only of a mentalpicture which is coloured and completed by the sound as a whole. As a result, perhaps, our questions about lyrics in isolation tended to get sidestepped, and P.G. seemed at pains to stress their context in the music.
B.R. Do you think apocalypse has any meaning as an idea, or is it another
symbol to be used?
P.G. "It's a powerful image, and that's probably more important than
wether it actually comes to be or not. I was thinking in 'Here Comes The Flood' more in terms of psychological breakthrough, where there'd be some change that would take place and people would know what was said and thought all the time, for instance. An evolutionary leap. And if I know that you know what I really think then there's no point in me bullshitting any more; and if that became commonplace, which I think is not inconceivable, those who are used to opening and baring their soul would find it a
lot easier."
Interview link:
http://www.deltaforce.net/~jnu/pg/interviews/bristol.recorder
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