The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Genesis

album cover

Gotta Get In to Get Out

This sometimes talky art-rock epic is more than two hours long. That's a significant time investment, considering that the primary lyricist, Peter Gabriel, intended audiences to follow his tale of a half–Puerto Rican juvenile delinquent on the loose in New York from start to finish. Inevitably, you lose something by parachuting in somewhere in the middle.

Still, by parachuting in, you can quickly determine whether you're temperamentally disposed toward Lamb, one of the towering peaks of progressive rock. Cue up the eight-minute "In the Cage," on disc 1. Listen to its mad-hatter keyboard arpeggios and thrashing tilt-a-whirl rhythms. Check out the manic edge in Gabriel's voice. If the fitful, sometimes suffocating, trapped-in-a-psychodrama feeling of the tune makes you curious about what happens next, go back to the beginning and settle in for a rare treat. If, however, you're not completely enthralled, stay away. (Instead seek out the less demanding Genesis album Trick of the Tail.)

While Lamb's lyrics overflow with visions of majestic grandeur (practically a prerequisite for British art-rock), the music exhibits a grind-it-out grittiness, with muscular, at times even funky, polyrhythms. It's possible to love Lamb and not care at all about the story: The band's cohesive attack is intriguing enough to atone for any stray moments of overblown pageantry.

When Lamb was released in 1974, drummer Phil Collins told an interviewer that "It's about a schizophrenic." Gabriel called his primary character, Rael, a "split personality." Attempting to rescue his brother John, Rael finds himself swept underground, where he encounters grisly video game–style fantasy figures that impede his progress. As the work goes on, the real and subterranean worlds interconnect in odd, hallucinatory ways. By the end, it seems that Rael is on a youth's quest to discover himself, not his sibling. Cosmic? Yes. Go down that rabbit hole. All will become clear.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1974, Atlantic
Key Tracks: "In the Cage," "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"
Catalog Choice: Selling England by the Pound; Trick of the Tail; Genesis
Next Stop: Supertramp: Crime of the Century
After That: Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs
Book Pages: 305–306