The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (sometimes called simply The Lamb) is an ambitious two-record concept album recorded and released in 1974 by British progressive rock band Genesis. It was the their seventh album (sixth studio album) and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.

Overview

The album tells the surreal and dreamlike story of a half-Puerto Rican juvenile delinquent named Rael living in New York City, who is swept into an alternate dimension filled with bizarre creatures and nightmarish dangers in order to rescue his brother John. Several of the story's occurrences and places were derived from Peter Gabriel's dreams, and the protagonist's name is a play on his surname. The individual songs also make satirical allusions to everything from mythology to the sexual revolution to advertising and consumerism. The title track, as well as "The Carpet Crawlers" and "In the Cage", were still live favourites for the band into the 1990s.

Most of the music on the album was written by band members Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, and Mike Rutherford, without Gabriel's participation. Gabriel insisted on writing the story and all the lyrics himself, which caused friction. Gabriel's absence from the album's writing and rehearsal sessions were due to personal problems — his wife was having difficulties with her first pregnancy — and added to the strain. However, Banks and Rutherford wrote the words for "The Light Dies Down on Broadway", as Gabriel could not come up with a linking piece between "Ravine" and "Riding the Scree".

During the album's pre-production, Gabriel was contacted by filmmaker William Friedkin, (at the time enjoying great success with The Exorcist), about a possible film project. Despite his bandmates' disapproval, Gabriel left them to work on some early script drafts. However the project come to nothing (Friedkin instead working with Tangerine Dream to make his next film, Sorcerer), and Gabriel returned to the band.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was released to mixed reviews, and reached #10 in the UK, while nearly cracking the U.S. Top 40, reaching # 41 and eventually going gold. The band went on a world tour upon its release, performing the album in its entirety 102 times. Early into the tour, Gabriel decided he would be leaving Genesis, although he would finish the tour amicably with the band and not go public until August 1975.

Detailed description

Musically, the album is a mixed effort, filled with brilliant moments linked in a collage which doesn't always cohere, just like the ever-changing dream-scenery of the lyrics. Banks continues to dominate, with his use of synthesizers coming to increasingly define the band's sound, while Collins' drumming continues to get technically more adventurous, even if his playing is sometimes a bit sloppy compared to the tighter Selling England by the Pound. Like the Beatles' White Album, this double album gains in diversity what it loses in coherence, providing in fragments the various members of the band a chance to take risks, even if the final result is more like a quilt than a tapestry. Full of short, more pop-oriented tunes than previous outings, but linked by a diverse set of instrumental interludes, this album opts for a series of short, linked segments, over the more long form compositions of previous outings. Thematic repetitions throughout the album work to bring these various fragments towards a greater unity, with mixed results.

Compared to the folkish whole of Selling England... the Lamb is more extreme in all senses - the soft songs whisper ("The Lamia", "Cuckoo Cocoon"), the harder songs have an almost proto-punk edge to them ("Back in N.Y.C.", "In the Cage") and there are even songs that integrate musical experimentation in an extremely compact form ("Anyway"). "The Waiting Room" is reminiscent of the sonic stylings of avant-garde producer Brian Eno (who contributed to the album's recording sessions, in return for Collins playing drums on Eno's Music for Films and Another Green World albums).

Following this album, Genesis would lose Gabriel, and with him the sarcastic whimsy of his lyrics as well as his flamboyant live performance, both of which many saw as essential to the band. Still, even with the loss of Gabriel's idiosyncratic melodic sensibility, the band's evolution towards melody, intensity, and compositional focus would continue with the next album, and while the band most definitely changed, its reputation as one of the most influential progressive outfits would continue — with varying degrees of success — for years to come.

Aftermath

In 1994 Kevin Gilbert and his band Giraffe performed the entire album at Progfest '94, celebrating its 20th anniversary.

In 2003 work began on a 5.1 surround sound remix of the album for either DVD-Audio or SACD, though new information on its proceeding has turned into a trickle, and the release is still pending.

In 2004 and 2005, the entire Lamb was performed by a Genesis tribute band called The Musical Box during their worldwide tour, celebrating its 30th anniversary.

In April 2006, following months of intense speculation regarding a Gabriel-led Genesis reunion, Collins confirmed in a radio interview that the Lamb-era band members were in initial discussions to reunite and present a new live staging of the album.

Track listing

All songs are written by Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins.

Disc one

LP side one

"The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" – 4:50
"Fly on a Windshield" – 2:45
"Broadway Melody of 1974" – 2:10
"Cuckoo Cocoon" – 2:12
"In the Cage" – 8:13
"The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging" – 2:45

LP side two

"Back in N.Y.C." – 5:43
"Hairless Heart" – 2:13
"Counting Out Time" – 3:40
"The Carpet Crawlers" – 5:15
"The Chamber of 32 Doors" – 5:41

Disc two

LP side three

"Lilywhite Lilith" – 2:42
"The Waiting Room" – 5:25
"Anyway" – 3:08
"Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist" – 3:00
"The Lamia" – 6:56
"Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats" – 3:07

LP side four

"The Colony of Slippermen (The Arrival/A Visit to the Doktor/Raven)" – 8:14
"Ravine" – 2:04
"The Light Dies Down on Broadway" – 3:33
"Riding the Scree" – 3:56
"In the Rapids" – 2:24
"it." – 4:17

Track Notes: The 1994 CD remaster of the album tracked "Fly on a Windshield" at 4:23 and "Broadway Melody of 1974" at 0:33. In fact, the songs merge together seamlessly and seem to be divided only for lyrical reasons, which led to an error by the manufacturer.

Personnel

Peter Gabriel – vocals, flute
Steve Hackett – guitars
Tony Banks – keyboards
Mike Rutherford – bass, twelve string guitar, bass pedals
Phil Collins – drums, percussion, vibraphone, vocals

Additional personnel

Brian Eno – "Enossification" (Eno basically helped to add and tweak Gabriel's vocal effects on "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging")

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1974	Billboard Pop Albums	41

Certifications

Organization	Level	Date
BPI – UK	Gold	February 1 1975
CRIA – Canada	Gold	May 1 1978
RIAA – USA	Gold	April 20 1990

External links

Rock operas | 1974 albums | Genesis albums | Double albums | Concept albums

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