26. Genesis--Genesis
#26: Genesis--Genesis (1983)
Top-Notch Tracks: "That's All" (HJ200 #86), "Just a Job To Do," "Mama," "It's Gonna Get Better," "Taking It All Too Hard," "Illegal Alien," "Home By the Sea"
Album Depth: "Second Home By the Sea," "Silver Rainbow"
Weak Links: None
Problematic Song: "Illegal Alien"
Stand-Out Lyrics: "Why does it always seem to be me looking at you, you looking at me? It's always the same. It's just a shame. That's all."--"That's All"
"Bang, bang, bang, and down you go; it's just a job I do. 'Cause the harder they run, the harder they fall. I'm coming down hard on you."--"Just a Job To Do"
"Now listen to me mama, mama, mama. You're taking away my last chance! Don't take it away!"--"Mama"
"Up to the counter, to see what they think. They say, 'It doesn't count, man, it ain't written in ink."--"Illegal Alien"
"Everything's a game to you. Old days are gone, and they're better left alone. I cannot help you, it's much too late."--"Taking It All Too Hard"
"Reach out, hands in the air, don't care just what they're saying. Hold out, just keep on hoping against hope it's gonna get better."--"It's Gonna Get Better"
"Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down. As we relive our lives in what we tell you."--"Home By the Sea"
"I can't feel a thing from my head down to my toes."--"That's All"
"Keep running, keep running, from city to city. Even if you are innocent you can cause too much embarrassment."--"Just a Job To Do"
"I got a cousin, and she got a friend, who thought that her aunt knew a man who could help."--"Illegal Alien"
"No, not this confused again. No, not the same mistakes again."--"Taking It All Too Hard"
"If it's gonna get better, it starts with a feeling. If it's gonna get better, it's gonna take time. If it's gonna get better, we've gotta start now."--"It's Gonna Get Better"
"I could say day, and you'd say night. Tell me it's black when I know that it's white."--"That's All"
"Ha ha, oooh. Ha ha heh, oooh."--"Mama"
Album cover: 7 out of 10. Not bad. Simple, yet distinctive and memorable. (In the beginning, there was Genesis. And in the beginning, we all had that blue and red ball with the yellow shapes.) (Back in the day, I could shape-ball with the best of them!) (Still can.)
Comments: As I've noted before, the song "That's All" reminds me very specifically of being in the band room, up on the top, back row with the other tromboners, looking down at a specific girl in the woodwinds section. I would sneak a look at her whenever I could (which wasn't as often as I would have liked), and occasionally she would look back up at me. I never knew if she was looking at me because: A) she could sense that I was looking at her; 2) she was looking at me because I was incredibly charming; or C) her eyes just randomly looked around the room, and every once in a while they would happen to focus on me.
I also had a little hand gesture routine that I would use when I sang along to "That's All." It would involve both of my hands in the finger gun position, similar to those shown here by my good friend Hank.
My little routine would go something like this: "Why does it always seem to be, me [point thumbs at self] looking at you [point fingers at person of interest], you [point fingers at person of interest] looking at me [point thumbs at self]. It's always the same [point finger guns at each other until fingers are touching], it's just a shame [briskly move fingers apart, using a motion similar to a football referee indicating an incomplete pass], that's all [no longer using finger guns, throw hands up in the air in a gesture of frustration.] (It was one of my few forays into the world of choreography.)
When I first heard "Mama," my initial thoughts were, "What the hell is that thing?" But, after a while it definitely grew on me. (Even though I still have no idea what the hell it is.)
"Just a Job To Do" is a fantastic, upbeat song about a hired killer. It wasn't released as a single, but I did hear it on the radio a few times. It's one of those "album depth" songs that kicks a good album up a notch to a great album.
"Taking It All Too Hard" is such a good song that a few years later Genesis recorded it again as "Throwing It All Away" for the "Invisible Touch" album. Okay, so the two songs aren't exactly the same, but they're close enough in both title and musical style that it's almost impossible to separate them in my mind. (The "Invisible Touch" album just missed making my Top 60 Favorite-ish Albums list. It'd definitely fall somewhere between 60 and 70, and probably would have been higher if it hadn't been released right smack dab in the middle of my two-year musical quarantine.)
"It's Gonna Get Better" is a feel better song that's actually helped enhance my mood from time to time. Optimism--it's a good thing!
And then there's "Illegal Alien." Is it offensive that a British guy sings a song in an exaggerated Mexican voice and performs in the video in a horrible toupee, fake mustache, and sombrero? I think that's a yes. Even more offensive is the line where he not so subtly implies that he'll arrange for his sister to have sex if it'll help him cross the border. The line, "I've got a seester who'd be willing to oblige. She would do anything now, to help me get to the outside," has been removed from the video, and many of the lyric websites.
It's one of the worst examples of sibling hostility set to music. (But, it's nothing compared to Vicki Lawrence's "The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia," wherein the narrator/singer murders her brother's cheating friend and her brother's cheating wife, then stands by idly while her brother is convicted of the crimes and is hanged, all while trying to shift blame to a backwoods lawyer, a blood-stained judge, and a seemingly totally unrelated power outage. Now that's some sibling hostility!)
"Illegal Alien" is a total mess. And yet, I still find myself singing along. Does this make me a bad person? Probably.
Up next: I'm hearing voices in my head again.
When we started doing these lists, I knew this Genesis album was going to be on your list and on my list. It was a definite double-lister from the get-go. So I'll save up most of my comments for my own write-up. However, I must have my say about a two things right now.
ReplyDeleteFirst, why is this the first time I'm hearing about the finger choreography to "That's All"? It's brilliant! No, wait. It's better than that. It's LEE BRILLIANT! But I find myself wondering how this particular routine could be safely carried out while driving. I do a considerable amount of finger choreography while driving because (a) it's damn fun and (b) it sometimes makes Julie laugh. If I could somehow pull of the "That's All" routine while driving, well...it would be damn fun and it might make Julie laugh! But if I couldn't, it would be just a shame. That's all.
Second, eyeballing girls in band is problematic at best. If they catch you looking at them while they're looking at you, that's just embarrassing. But if Banyas catches you looking at her while she's looking at you looking at her, that might bring about an abrupt stop to the entire song, as we're supposed to be looking at him all the time, even though he is slightly less cute than 27% of the flute and clarinet players. But you looking at that particular woodwind player--and I'm pretty sure I know which woodwind player you are talking about--was just downright dangerous and life-threatening! I mean, if you see that she sees you seeing her while you're playing "25 or 6 to 4," you might lose control of that trombone slide, and it could fly right out of your hand and debrain a trumpet player!
Well, that would be the case if trumpet players had brains. We mostly are just lips attached to lungs, and what little brains we need to play are located just above the medulla oblongata and to the right of the bulbul amir, which controls long-term memory formation, which is also protected by the skull so well that the only way to really damage it is to receive multiple hard thickhead slaps to the back of the head so that...um...so that...what was I talking about?
Oh! Yes, your finger choreography. What a brilliant idea! No, wait. It's better than brilliant. It's LEE BRILLIANT! I wish I could figure out a way to do it while driving, because it would be damn fun and probably make Julie laugh.
Nardo
Joke Diagram!
ReplyDeleteYou do remember playing "Abdul the Bulbul Amir" in the early days of band class, right? Or did you skip over those years of band and go straight to playing "Celebration?" Because if you didn't play "Abdul the Bulbul Amir," then my brain anatomy joke went right over your head.
My memory is a little fuzzy on when you took up the trombone. I know that you weren't in band for a while, but then you joined up so that you could eyeball cute girls in the woodwind section while you...while your trombone slide had...the illegal aliens were...of course I sing along to "Illegal Alien" too, but I imagine I'm singing about aliens from another planet that speak the Queen's English with a Spanish accent...and they're wearing toupees and mustaches while they can't dance...and then they make a gun gesture with their extra-long E.T. fingers where they're pointing both fingers together...but their fingers are really guns that shoot mind bullets during touchdowns...and the referees wear shirts that they tell me are black, but I know that they're white...and the fans are wearing these big chunks of cheddar cheese on their heads in the shapes of stars and squares and quarter circles and trapezoids...and Vicki Lawrence pays Hank for a hit job on her Mama character...and the blood-stained judge bangs down his gavel and says, "Ha ha, oooh. Ha ha heh, oooh."
Oh, no! Not this confused, again?!
Nardo
"Taking It All Too Hard" would have been in contention for my theme song for The Great Depression if "That's All" hadn't been on this album. And you'd think that I'd pick a Billy Joel song for the theme song for The Great Depression, but "That's All" is just too damn good of a song for expressing the confused anger that comes with unrequited teenage love. It's a good thing that I didn't know about that whole finger choreography thing back in 1983 or 1984, or I probably would have run the tractor into the sagebrush.
ReplyDeleteWait. I did run the tractor into a sagebrush. Maybe I was listening to some other song by Twisted Sister that involved finger choreography in which both middle fingers pointed straight up.
Nardo
No, I don't remember "Abdul the Bulbul Amir." But that's okay. I long ago came to the realization that I might not get EVERY joke. In those cases, I just pretend it's like one of Dennis Miller's SNL Update jokes that I would ASSUME were funny if I only knew what the hell he was talking about. (You know, back when Dennis Miller was funny most of the time.) Cha Cha.
DeleteOh, and the That's All finger choreography can work while you are driving if you drive with your elbows. (As long as there's not too much traffic around.) (Definitely NO finger choreography while driving through a roundabout, because Yearsley never taught us how to drive in a roundabout.)