Today is Peter Gabriel’s 74th birthday, and it’s good timing. Lately I’ve been thinking about the way his Genesis years influenced my writing.
Ed. note: This post was updated with more content in September 2025.
It might not be obvious mainly because he’s a singer and I’m a writer. Of course, though, in Genesis he did write many of the lyrics he sang. And, oh, those lyrics. So absurd, so vividly narrative:
666 is no longer alone
He’s getting out the marrow in your backbone
And the seven trumpets blowing sweet rock and roll
Gonna blow right down inside your soul
Pythagoras with the looking glass reflects the full moon
In blood, he’s writing the lyrics of a brand-new tune
That’s from “Supper’s Ready,” or as I like to call it, “Supper’s Cold” because it’s 23 minutes long. It’s definitely a good choice for a desert island disc because it’s like seven songs in one (and the lyrics are just part of the reason it’s one of my favourite songs).
He was just so weird in Genesis. He decided to perform in character wearing elaborate costumes: his wife’s red dress and a fox’s head; a batwing headpiece, black eyeliner, and a wedge shaved into his hairline; a flower mask. Along with elaborate stories, this was a way to keep the audience entertained while his bandmates tuned their instruments. He didn’t ask said bandmates before the first red dress appearance, by the way. And sometimes he sang his weird lyrics with seemingly his entire being, as if someone was trying to take singing away from him. He was the personification of “artistic vision.”
I’m inspired by him in general, his commitment to his own creativity. He inspires me to play with language, to fall backwards into emotion and imagery and even historical events if I want to, why not. I’ve always craved his no-fucks-to-be-had energy for my own work even if it’s different in tone. I mean, just look at him.
Listening to a PG-Genesis song while writing the ends of my books, crying a little, is a ritual I hold very dear. And I wrote a short story called “Stone Grown” inspired by a song he wrote lyrics for: “Cuckoo Cocoon.” You can read about the process here. The album “Cuckoo Cocoon” is on was Gabriel’s last with the band, and he told his bandmates while on tour that he was going to leave once they got home.
I’d always known about the conditions that made Gabriel want to leave Genesis – feeling stereotyped in a role he didn’t relate to, growing family priorities, and as he said in the documentary “Genesis: A History,” “I just felt I was getting to be part of a machine.” But my favourite explanation was one he gave to Melody Maker on September 6, 1975:
“As an artist, I need to absorb a wide variety of experiences. It is difficult to respond to intuition and impulse within the long-term planning that the band needed. I felt I should look at/learn about/develop myself, my creative bits and pieces and pick up on a lot of work going on outside music. Even the hidden delights of vegetable growing and community living are beginning to reveal their secrets. I could not expect the band to tie in their schedules with my bondage to cabbages.”
He looked like that, making himself the bright red shouting centre of attention most of the time, and when the show was over, he wanted to go back to his family and cabbages. The older I get, this is what I find most drawn to about his creative life. I’m not outgoing. I’m not flashy. I’m sure as fuck not exuberant. But I authentically am the person who, when my writers’ group once posed for a photo, asked them if I could do a deep lunge in the front. For that short moment I wanted to be a bit of a spectacle. It’s nice to remember that it’s okay to flare out like that and then return to quiet and sitting still.
The funny thing is, I’m not much of a fan of Gabriel’s solo work after Genesis. Some songs, sure, but just a handful*. And I’m certainly not a fan of Phil Collins’ Genesis. Yet somehow that ultra pickiness makes the Gabriel influence even sweeter to me. He was in the band for eight years and six albums. Not much, considering how many albums both he (solo) and his former band created afterwards. So when I want to tap into that particular flavour of Peter Gabriel weirdness I crave, I have a small amount of options to choose from.
But I always get what I need from those limited options. My writing isn’t as theatrical as Gabriel’s performances, but that’s why I need him. I never have more fun than when I just open the tap and create unrestrained. I need a little nudge to just let go, to embrace what my curiosity and imagination want me to do, and fuck everything else. This is true of writing, photography, or both. That “fuck it, get weird” feeling is something I’ve been drawn to for most of my life, but also something that can feel difficult to hang on to.
Oh, and let’s not talk about how Peter Gabriel was in his early-to-mid-twenties, like, half my age when he was in Genesis creating his absurd magic. Will I ever get over that? The hell I will. Instead, we can talk about how I was in my early twenties when I was introduced to Genesis by my friend and then-roommate David. I’m sure he explained why he liked Gabriel so much, but maybe it was unneeded. Maybe he sensed the inevitability of Peter Gabriel in my life. Maybe he knew he just needed to crack open the door and I’d slide the rest of the way down myself. And for that I’ll be forever grateful.
I’ve never really been a technical singer as such, or a musician. I’m someone who goes for the feel of something and tries to build pictures.
*(That said, I do appreciate the way his creative weirdness still pops up in some of his solo stuff, like the video for Games Without Frontiers, from which I got the screenshots in the black-and-white photo montage above.)