With their first double album, Genesis set their sights high – a film adaptation was even planned. During the recording sessions, Gabriel temporarily left the band to work on a screenplay with director William Friedkin. The film never materialised. Perhaps that was for the best. The storyline – more a loose sequence of cryptic scenes – is hardly the strongest aspect of the project anyway.
Among Genesis aficionados, there is disagreement over which album represents the band at their peak. Yet The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is widely regarded as the ultimate concept album of prog – or art rock. It even offers undecided fans the option of choosing between its two halves.
The first contains the hits. Chief among them the gently propulsive earworm »Carpet Crawlers« and the swirling eight-minute trip »In the Cage«. On the second half, the band push their prog finesse even further. In particular, »The Waiting Room«, which follows seamlessly after the rock number »Lilywhite Lilith«, recalls a freely improvised psychedelic jam. Keyboardist Tony Banks does not use his synthesisers for endless solos here, but instead creates seething sound structures without melodies or chords. Synthesisers play a more prominent role throughout the album anyway – for instance in the sawing bass sound of »Back in N.Y.C.«. Some of the electronic effects (dubbed “Enossification”) were provided by Brian Eno.
A lot going on – but I like it
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is also packed with pop references. The title track quotes the opening lines of the Drifters’ »On Broadway« (»They say the lights are always bright on Broadway…«). In »Broadway Melody of 1974«, Gabriel strings together names such as Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Marshall McLuhan, Caryl Chessman and Howard Hughes. Later, in »In the Cage«, he sings the line »Raindrops keep falling on my head« – a quotation from the song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, famously used in George Roy Hill’s film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). The final track, »it.«, closes with the line »’Cause it’s only knock and know all, but I like it« – a tongue-in-cheek parody of the Rolling Stones classic »It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (But I Like It)«, released in the summer of 1974, shortly before Genesis began recording.
A frequent criticism of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is that it is overstuffed. Perhaps. But you don’t have to take it all in at once. What makes the album truly stand out is Peter Gabriel’s absurd humour, which here begins to supersede the band’s earlier, historicising pathos. Instead of bombast, there is playful irony. And when Gabriel, in the bizarre »The Colony of Slippermen«, momentarily draws on canonical high culture – William Wordsworth’s famous poem »I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud«, for instance – the whole thing kicks off with a hearty »Buppity-bup«.
