Supper's Ready

I'm not sure if this one is happier or not, but I feel it needs to be mentioned.

Supper's Ready by Genesis.

And that's the marriage supper of the end times.

Yeah.

There's much about this which reminds me a little bit of, um, Stonehenge, the Druids, the West Country, Bill Bailey, uh, and other sort of oblivious, um, parallel universes inhabited by otherworldly beings.

"Six shrouded saintly men," it's one of the lines that comes from 'Supper's Ready' by Genesis, I seem to remember.

Um, do you know what? I can actually remember being in a band 50 years ago called Moose, which I loved, who did all these incredibly complex prog rock things.

I used to love it.

I, I think we were all influenced to a large degree by, uh, Jimmy Webb's, uh, MacArthur Park.

Um, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I think the idea of the seven-minute single was the, the, the template for a lot of what Genesis were to do, so you've got room for extra verses, and you've got room for an instrumental workout as well, and by the time we were doing Supper's Ready, I suggested to the band that we could do a long form piece with a number of things all linked together.

Um, uh, so we, we linked together a number of disparate ideas, uh, with the occasional song in the middle to join that up with, uh, bridge passages, uh, bits of, um, uh, sonic glue like trains arriving and the slamming of doors and station master's call and all of that sort of stuff.

So it took on a slightly cartoony quality, uh, by the time Peter Gabriel was doing Willow Farm in the middle of that song.

Uh, there was something about it, that it was something quirky and comedic, but at the same time arresting.

I don't think there was a bad note from anybody on, on Willow Farm.

I think that for me was the, uh, was the zenith of it quite apart from any religious connotations that go with Supper's Ready, but, um-

Mm

How can this be down to his dad? I suppose he could have inherited Phil's stamina.

I mean, have you heard his drumming on Supper's Ready by Genesis? An entire 23 minutes of syncopated prog rock skin bashing across multiple time signatures, on top of which he's also providing backing vocals.

Peak Phil Collins had an insane VO2 max.

If Matthew's inherited half of it, it's no surprise he's a professional athlete.

Uh, [laughs] and also they, they dressed up, didn't they, in flower costumes?

Yeah, they did it for Supper's Ready too.

Yeah, Genesis.

So fascinating.

So we're breaking from the way the Duke album was put together, but we're staying true to the way the guys wrote the music, and what they were originally intending to do was to put the entire suite on one side of this vinyl.

Uh, they decided not to do that because they just knew that the comparisons to Supper's Ready would kinda bring them back into the past.

Uh, and so they e- ended up, uh, you know, finishing Guide Vocal and going on to put, uh, Man of Our Times as the next track.

Uh, but we're gonna stay true to the Duke suite tonight, and we're gonna get right into Turn It On Again.

I believe that Dean was the actual person who invented the whole term of gaslighting, which is one of the current flavors of the decade.

Because to actually get away with saying such a comment, that Harvest of Souls is nothing more than a remake of Supper's Ready, it's quite obvious that he hasn't listened to either song properly.

Mm-hmm.

Because it has nothing to do with it.

And I thought, well, I'll give it a listen.

And I found it quite interesting.

Of course, it's not a rip-off of Supper's Ready, because that's Grendel.

Agreed.

That's difficult.

The one I know almost verbatim, because my brother, who as you know is a massive fan, um, in fact he's here watching this, but was Supper's Ready was the one-

Oh, yeah

...

Yeah

...

this is what we're about, I mean, Supper's Ready would be the animal because it's, um, it's lots of little songs-

Yeah

People, people, e- even if they came up with symphonies, you know, they, they'd have 20 minutes.

The nearest thing to that is Supper's Ready, of course, and it's been asked for so many times that if I don't do it, I feel as though I'm letting people down from the progressive fraternity.

So I, I do that.

Uh, there are certain, certain things that are, that are, you know, the most favorite tracks.

I think, um, uh, but they might be the odd changed thing.

It, it's just the way it is.

Particularly End of Supper's Ready, I've just gone completely off the map there.

And, um, I've been known to do that for a while.

And yeah, it's backwards.

Well, hey, I mean, Supper's Ready was on the second side of Foxtrot, so take it for what you will.

Small Creeps Day is on the second side of my recording here.

But we're going to do it the way he intended and we'll listen to the second side now.