0:01

The 12-string guitar isn't actually all that

0:03

different from a 6-string guitar. Each string is

0:05

just strung twice, which gives it its distinct

0:08

sound. You finger notes and

0:10

chords the same way and approach the fretboard the same

0:12

way too. The biggest difference is how long it takes

0:14

to tune it. Welcome

0:23

to Strong Songs, a podcast about music.

0:26

I'm your host, Kirk Hamilton, and I'm

0:28

so excited for a brand new season

0:30

talking about 12-string guitars, 6-string guitars, 5-

0:32

and 4-string bass guitars, and, you know,

0:34

other instruments too. This

0:37

is the sixth season of Strong Songs, which

0:39

is kind of incredible to me. I've been

0:41

making this show this whole time with nothing

0:43

but direct listener support. Your support

0:45

really does make this whole thing possible, so

0:47

I hope you'll consider going to the Patreon

0:49

or donation links in the show notes and

0:51

chipping in. On

0:53

this season premiere, we've got a widely requested pop

0:56

classic that dares to go big, so big that

0:58

it requires two of almost every instrument just to

1:00

begin to contain it. It was a ton of

1:02

fun to take it apart, and I'm excited to

1:04

put it together again, so let's grab the talking

1:06

drum, double up the bass, and get after it.

1:29

Some songs are small and focused.

1:31

They tell a specific story about

1:33

a certain character or experience, and

1:35

through that specificity, they allow the

1:37

listener to truly understand that single

1:40

experience and transpose it outward and

1:42

onto their own life or experiences

1:44

in a sort of expansive translation.

1:47

Other songs are big. They're so big

1:49

that it's hard to even talk about

1:51

what they're really about. They're so big

1:54

that they can hold an endless number

1:56

of different interpretations. They can mean something

1:58

different To each individual. The listener.

2:04

A song that I'm going to

2:06

be talking about today. Owner Season

2:09

Six Premier definitely falls into that

2:11

second category. It is a huge

2:13

song in more ways than one.

2:15

A layered since arrangement filled with

2:17

overlapping parts and sympathetic reverberations, all

2:20

of in the service of a

2:22

broad, near universal story of a

2:24

lost soul seeking the census, seeking

2:26

connection, seeking. Seeking

2:29

a home. On

2:42

this episode I am so excited

2:44

to finally talk about Peter Gabriel

2:46

and his Nineteen Eighty Six hits

2:48

in your eyes. Of.

2:52

Series So much to talk about with the song.

2:55

it's even more incredible that I realize So yeah

2:57

let's with no more time and get right into

2:59

as. Peter

3:13

Gabriel, an English singer songwriter, first became

3:16

known through his work as lead singer

3:18

and cofounder of the rock band Genesis.

3:20

He left that group and Nineteen Seventy

3:23

Five, putting the vocal chair in the

3:25

hands of drummer Phil Collins, and Gabriel

3:27

subsequently struck out on a solo career.

3:29

His music was great from the start,

3:32

but he wasn't an immediate superstar is

3:34

pretty experimental. He made some pretty strange

3:36

stuff i those are We'd records. It's

3:38

really, it's not all that commercial. in

3:47

your eyes is than his nineteen eighty

3:49

six album so which is is that

3:52

studio album after reading genesis it's interesting

3:54

the thing to sew up against those

3:56

earlier albums each of which is self

3:58

titled their own given numerical does Ignations,

4:00

Peter Gabriel 1, Peter Gabriel 2, that's

4:02

how you tell them apart, along with

4:04

a single word subtitle, Car, Scratch, Melt.

4:07

All of his albums are like that,

4:09

and so continues that trend. It's definitely

4:11

a more commercial sound on this record,

4:13

and that's borne out by the success

4:16

of the album and the success of

4:18

several singles off of it. First

4:20

and foremost is Sledgehammer, a killer tune that

4:22

I talked about a bit last season in

4:25

a Q&A episode. That was a big hit

4:27

stateside as well. That was probably the first

4:29

time I ever heard Peter Gabriel as

4:31

a kid. I

4:36

came back to it as an adult and really

4:38

just came to appreciate a lot of things about

4:40

it. It is, like a lot of Gabriel songs,

4:42

more unusual of a song than I initially gave

4:44

it credit for. It's got a

4:47

kind of strange chord progression I got into it

4:49

on that Q&A episode. Anyways, Sledgehammer was almost the

4:51

song that I talked about for my Peter Gabriel

4:53

episode. It would have been a great episode. In

4:56

the end I decided to go with something different,

4:58

but there are a bunch of great songs on

5:00

so, each of which could have gotten their own

5:02

episode. There's Don't Give Up, which was a killer

5:04

duet he recorded with Kate Bush. In

5:20

Just a Placeless in Time, this was a

5:22

year after Bush had released Hounds of Love,

5:24

her breakthrough album that featured Running Up That

5:26

Hill among other songs, and on which she

5:29

was experimenting with some of the same electronic

5:31

musical instruments that Gabriel was experimenting with on

5:33

so. There's Big

5:35

Time, one of my personal favorite Gabriel songs

5:37

with a really great music video. And

5:46

then of course, There's In Your Eyes. In

6:01

Your Eyes is perhaps Gabriel's most

6:03

famous song, thanks in large part

6:05

to its role in the Cameron

6:07

Crowe film Say Anything, in which

6:09

John Cusack's lovelorn character, Lloyd Dobler,

6:11

famously stands outside his crush's window,

6:13

holding up a boombox as it

6:15

blasts the song. Gabriel's words presumably

6:17

summarizing the huge feelings that this

6:19

teenage kid can't quite express for

6:21

himself. It's

6:24

a remarkable

6:26

scene. Crowe

6:30

has a real sense for music, of course,

6:32

and the scene itself has no dialogue. Dobler

6:34

really lets Gabriel's words speak for themselves, and

6:36

as a result, the scene is a real

6:38

showcase for the song. You

6:44

can feel that longing in the lyrics, and you

6:46

can see it on John Cusack's shockingly young face.

6:48

Say Anything is a pretty unusual movie, actually. I

6:51

hadn't seen it for a while, and I remembered

6:53

it being odder than I had thought it would

6:55

be even the first time that I saw it,

6:57

but this scene is great. It's a classic for

6:59

a reason. But

7:01

of course the song stands on its own

7:03

separate from any cinematic placement, and live performances

7:05

of it double down on many of the

7:07

elements that make the studio version remarkable. So

7:11

yeah, let's get into it. In

7:20

Your Eyes was written by Peter

7:22

Gabriel, working closely in collaboration with

7:24

two other very important musicians to

7:26

flesh it out after he wrote

7:28

it. First is his longtime guitarist

7:30

David Rhodes, and the second is

7:32

the album's producer Daniel Lenoir, himself

7:34

a legendary producer who's worked with

7:36

all kinds of incredible artists over

7:38

the years. The track also features a number

7:40

of incredible studio musicians who played on a

7:42

bunch of albums in the 1980s. The

7:45

great Manu Kache played drums in

7:47

percussion, Jerry Morota also played drums,

7:49

Master bassist Tony Levin played bass, as well

7:52

as Larry Klein, I do think there are

7:54

two bass parts on some parts of this

7:56

song anyways, and the outro features a vocal

7:58

performance from a remarkable Yes, the Senegalese

8:00

singer Youssou N'Dour, whose presence underlines the

8:03

strong West African influence that Gabriel was

8:05

demonstrating in his music at the time,

8:07

and really that has remained an influence

8:09

on his music over the years. That's

8:22

at the very end of the song though.

8:24

Let's hit the rewind button for now and

8:26

go back to the very start and get

8:28

familiar with some of the sounds that define

8:30

In Your Rise from the beginning. This

8:36

intro is relatively stripped down compared to

8:38

what the song eventually becomes, but it's

8:40

still pretty layered, it's by no means

8:42

simple. It

8:45

starts with just keys, synths, and percussion before

8:47

the drums enter, which you just heard. It's

8:51

followed by Gabriel's striking vocal entrance on

8:53

a single word. So

9:02

like I said, there's a lot going on,

9:04

even just in the intro and the opening

9:06

verse, even though this song becomes so much

9:08

more complex and layered by the time it

9:10

hits the pre-chorus and the chorus. So listen

9:12

back to just those opening bars and see

9:15

how many distinct parts you can pick out.

9:30

Let's start with the harmony and then we can get

9:32

a little bit more into the groove, because both are

9:34

interesting and both are a big part of what makes

9:36

this song sound the way that it does. So

9:39

harmonically speaking, this song moves through a

9:41

few different key centers. to

9:44

do on a lot of his songs, this verse

9:46

is in the key of D, basically, in the

9:48

key of D major. It kind of bounces back

9:50

and forth between B minor, which is the first

9:52

chord, and G major, which is the second chord

9:55

it spends a while on, and it uses D

9:57

major as a kind of pivot point in between

9:59

those two. two chords. So it starts

10:01

on a B minor chord, then it

10:03

passes through D and lands on G,

10:05

then it passes through D

10:08

again and goes back to B minor. Now

10:25

as for the specific sounds Gabriel is getting, I

10:27

can say for sure each specific instrument that was

10:29

used on this tune. I know that Gabriel was

10:32

fond of the Fairlight CMI sampler, which Kate Bush

10:34

was also using. I've talked about that a bunch

10:36

of times recently on the show. It's a super

10:38

cool device. I'm not sure exactly what he was

10:41

using it on, though I think he might have

10:43

sampled his voice a little bit later. But I

10:45

know he used it on this track. He also

10:47

liked the Prophet synthesizer. I used the Prophet for

10:50

some of these sounds in the recreation that I

10:52

built. And in addition to Peter Gabriel, the pianist

10:54

Richard T. also has a credit on

10:56

this. So there are these kind of

10:58

layered electric piano parts going on that

11:01

were kind of a trick to try

11:03

to recreate. I didn't get too down

11:05

in the weeds trying to do every

11:07

single hit because there are multiple parts

11:09

and they kind of stagger and bounce

11:11

off of one another in some ways

11:13

that just are almost impossible to recreate

11:15

unless you get truly scientific with it.

11:25

It's pretty simple here at the beginning and

11:27

you can hear everything. It just gets a

11:29

lot more complicated once the tune gets cooking.

11:31

So here at the start I just use

11:33

Arturia's acoustic lab to kind of build a

11:36

combination electric piano, acoustic piano

11:38

sound that was a little bit close to

11:40

what Gabriel is doing and I think that

11:42

will suffice for my recreation. So that's what's

11:44

on top. It's a hybrid acoustic piano and

11:46

electric piano sample. And

11:56

then under that to capture that kind of

11:59

overdubbed layered sound. I recorded the

12:01

second electric piano part that's just a little

12:03

bit darker and I played the part just

12:05

a little differently. Maybe this is Richard T's

12:07

part just to convey that stacked sound. Put

12:14

a bunch of digital reverb on this one too. So

12:21

you can hear there's just a few extra notes

12:23

in that second part. Let's put those together and

12:25

you'll get something that's just a little bit fatter

12:27

and a little bit richer than a single keyboard

12:29

part would be on its own. That

12:38

second part just adds a little bit of richness. So

12:43

that's layer one, the keys. Layer two

12:45

is the synths, which are playing what's

12:48

generally known as pads. When

12:50

you're talking about synths, a lot of

12:52

times you're using synths to play pads.

12:54

Those are long drawn out notes that

12:56

sit behind the more active parts in

12:58

the arrangement and the mix they add

13:00

atmosphere and harmonic texture. I used a

13:02

Prophet 5 for this one or a

13:04

recreation of a Prophet 5 and it

13:07

makes this nice kind of vocal sound.

13:09

I've always thought that kind of synths sounds a

13:11

little like Kermit the Frog like Kermit

13:16

Kermit the Frog pad. Let's

13:18

call it the lily pad. In

13:21

my recreation the lily pad is just kind of

13:24

sitting on a D which is common to all

13:26

three of those chords B minor, G major, and

13:28

D major and it really ties the whole thing

13:30

together. Here I'll start with just the keyboard part

13:32

and then I'll layer in the synth and check

13:35

out what a big difference it makes despite just

13:37

being a single note. Here we

13:39

go this is just the keys to start.

13:48

And now let's layer in the synth on a

13:50

single note on that D. You hear

13:56

how different that sounds? Now

14:00

listen for the same thing in the recruiting news sounds. So

14:15

that brings us to the other prominent

14:17

element that you can hear, the percussion,

14:19

which is such an important part of

14:21

In Your Eyes, that groove, the beating

14:24

heart of this heartfelt song comes from

14:26

the percussion, played so beautifully by Manu

14:28

Kache. The primary drum, which you can

14:30

hear hard-pan to the left and the

14:33

right here and throughout the recording, is

14:35

the West African Talking Drum, which is

14:37

a drum played by a variety of

14:39

different peoples of West Africa, particularly in

14:42

Senegal and Gambia, both of which feature

14:44

prominently in the styles of the West

14:46

African music that Western artists like Peter Gabriel

14:48

started incorporating into pop music in the 80s.

14:54

The talking drum comes in a variety of

14:56

shapes and sizes, but it basically allows the

14:58

player to manipulate the drum's pitch by applying

15:00

pressure to the body while hitting it with

15:02

a mallet, sort of like what an orchestral

15:04

percussionist might do with a tunable timpani. This

15:09

is a talking drum demonstration that I

15:11

found on YouTube. It's being performed by

15:13

the Ghanaian-American musician Kwame Ansabru at

15:15

Frostburg State University in 2008.

15:20

It's worth checking out the video just to get a sense of

15:22

how the instrument works. I

15:27

also get the sense that Ansabru is a

15:29

pretty amazing guy. So I'll link that video

15:31

in the show notes. For my recreation, I

15:33

do not own a talking drum, unfortunately, nor

15:36

do I have a very good sample library

15:38

for one, so I did my best with

15:40

some other similar-ish sounding drum samples that I

15:42

did have just to capture the general pulse

15:45

of the song, but there is no substitute

15:47

for the way the original sounds. There's no

15:49

real way to recreate it, particularly the way

15:51

that Kace played those drums. Now

16:00

there is another percussion instrument that's missing from

16:02

the recreation so far. It's a tiny but

16:04

mighty instrument that I've talked about many

16:07

times in the past. The humble

16:09

triangle, a pingy, tingy bit of

16:11

metal hand percussion that, used correctly,

16:14

can cut straight through a mix

16:16

and completely redefine a song's pulse.

16:20

Listen to the original recording and see if you can

16:22

hear that triangle. It's hard to miss once you know

16:24

to listen for it. Along

16:32

with the triangle, I'm hearing a very

16:35

slight symbol hit from the drum set,

16:37

which just emphasizes that lifted triangle groove.

16:39

So when I combine those drums that

16:41

are panned left and right with the

16:44

triangle and that symbol, adding that lifted

16:46

element to it, you get a pretty

16:48

different and nicely sparkly groove. The

17:00

final percussion part to add is that

17:03

big old thump, this hit on the

17:05

downbeat. Sounds like a floor tom, maybe

17:07

a kick drum, maybe a talking drum.

17:09

It's a bunch of low drum hits

17:11

all together on the downbeat every other

17:14

bar, just a big ol' boom on

17:16

one. So

17:23

that's all of the percussion. Of course, that leaves the

17:25

drum set, which comes in with a pretty killer fill.

17:29

And it plays a pretty straightforward four on the floor

17:31

kick drum, high hat pattern through the verse. Manukache's

17:38

drum set playing on this tune is great,

17:40

and the often chaotic interplay between the

17:43

drum set and the other percussion is a crucial part

17:45

of this song's heartbeat. There's a lot

17:48

of musical redundancy in In Your Eyes. The percussion and the

17:50

drum set are kind of bouncing around off of one another,

17:52

all of those overdubbed keyboards, even the fact that there

17:56

are two different bass lines. Everything is

17:58

kind of happening twice, which adds... this

18:00

sort of reverberant bouncy quality to the

18:02

recording and it makes it sound really

18:05

big. Here the drums are pretty simple

18:07

though, it's just a steady four on

18:10

the floor thump in the kick drum

18:12

thump thump thump on the downbeats with

18:14

a steady sizzle of eighth notes on

18:16

the hi-hat. And

18:22

that's it! Those are the core instrumental elements

18:24

of the intro to this song. So let's

18:27

listen back to my recreation of all of

18:29

that and keep your ears peeled for everything

18:31

I just talked about. The layered rich

18:34

electric piano bouncing back and forth

18:36

between B minor and G major.

18:38

That synth lily pad holding a

18:40

D and tying all that harmonic

18:42

information into a broader picture. The

18:45

left and right pan percussion wilting

18:47

along with that pingy triangle holding

18:49

the whole thing together. That powerful

18:52

low drum hit on the opening downbeats

18:54

followed by the drum sets entrance with

18:56

that steady four on the floor groove

18:58

all setting up the vocals.

19:00

Ears on, here we go. Even

19:29

before Gabriel has brought out

19:31

his strongest musical asset, his

19:33

incredible voice, the song already sounds

19:35

like nothing else. So then

19:38

of course it's time for him to sing. Love,

19:45

I get so

19:51

lost sometimes. Days

20:00

pass and this emptiness fills my

20:02

heart. What a way

20:04

to start a song! In Your

20:06

Eyes is this searching, yearning song.

20:08

It's about a quest for love

20:11

and completion. It conjures these huge,

20:13

universal feelings. While leaving the specifics

20:15

open to interpretation, it could be

20:17

about a quest for romantic love,

20:19

or familial love, or spiritual love,

20:22

or even some broader, more abstract

20:24

love, the love of life and

20:26

existence. It almost becomes more of

20:28

a chant or testimony at times,

20:31

particularly when Gabriel performs it

20:33

live, and these opening lines

20:35

set the mood immediately. Just

20:38

the amount of space in this opening melody,

20:40

the amount of space between that first word,

20:43

love, and the idea that follows

20:45

it. I get so lost sometimes.

20:49

I get

20:54

so lost sometimes.

20:58

I mean, come on, there are worlds

21:01

contained in the space between the first

21:03

and second words of this song. I

21:10

get so lost sometimes.

21:14

Even this melody moving

21:16

around between a resolute B, very

21:18

comfortable, in Peter Gabriel's range up

21:20

to this pushier, more demanding F

21:22

sharp on I Get So Lost,

21:24

it's conversational and introspective in terms

21:26

of how it's paced, but it

21:29

jumps between emotions and leaves so

21:31

much space between each lyric. The

21:33

listener just spends all this time

21:35

pondering what it all means and

21:37

what could be coming next. The

21:49

next two phrases expand the range of the

21:51

melody, climbing

21:55

up to a high A in this lovely

21:58

head voice. Right

22:10

up until that final line, it's

22:12

such a lost, uncertain opening verse.

22:15

Hesitation is built into the melody and the rhythms. When

22:18

I want to run away, he

22:20

sings floating upward, drifting off into

22:22

an airily sung nothing. When

22:29

I want to run away, I drive off in

22:31

my car. But after those

22:33

uncertain opening lines, the final line of

22:36

the verse leads to something more certain.

22:38

But whichever way I go, I come

22:41

back to the place you are. And

22:51

just like that... The

22:56

song kicks into an entirely new year for what

22:58

I'm going to say is one of the greatest

23:00

pre-choruses ever recorded. So

23:13

here at the pre-chorus, I want to introduce

23:15

a concept, and it's something that I'm going

23:17

to come back to throughout season 6. It's

23:20

something I've talked about before, but I'm really

23:22

going to focus on it this season because

23:24

I think that it's a cool aspect of

23:26

music and something that is good to listen

23:29

for. That concept is

23:31

the idea of directionality when it

23:33

comes to composition and songwriting.

23:35

All music has some kind of directionality,

23:37

which is to say each chord or

23:39

note in a sequence of notes in

23:41

a melody or a chord progression, it

23:43

moves in a direction relative to the preceding

23:46

note or chord. A chord progression or a

23:48

melody, it might move up or it might

23:50

move down or it might stay put. And

23:52

I think that it's interesting to work on

23:54

being able to see those lines as they're

23:56

happening and to understand the shape of a

23:59

piece of music. of music as it's

24:01

entering your ears and igniting within your

24:03

brain. Now as it happens, In Your

24:06

Eyes is somewhat static to me in

24:08

terms of harmony. It's not dramatically climbing

24:10

or dropping, it tends to repeat figures

24:13

over and over in this kind of

24:15

churn. It's floating and suspended

24:17

and that works beautifully with the emotional

24:19

qualities of the song. But

24:22

while it doesn't climb and fall

24:24

dramatically in terms of harmony or

24:26

melody, it certainly expands and contracts

24:28

in terms of density. It grows

24:30

thicker and then thinner, layering more

24:32

and more parts before pulling back

24:34

and then coming crashing down. You

24:36

can picture a trickle of water

24:38

slowly becoming a gushing stream before

24:40

pulling back and then gushing

24:43

again. This pre-chorus is a

24:45

significant increase in the intensity of

24:47

that flow compared with the verse

24:49

that preceded it and it introduces

24:51

a bunch of new sounds, timbres

24:53

and rhythms acting as a dramatic

24:55

build, a bridge reaching out toward

24:57

the revelation of the chorus. It's

25:00

an incredible feat of composition and

25:02

music production. All

25:06

my wings are

25:08

very blue, the

25:10

grime is bright, the

25:12

feeling is ever... So

25:15

yeah, let's take it apart. Let's start

25:17

at the bottom with the drums. So

25:20

during the verse the drums were only playing on

25:22

the hi-hat and the kick drum. There's a little

25:24

bit of snare on a snare fill but there

25:26

wasn't a strong backbeat. In Strong Song's parlance that

25:28

means there's a sizzle and a thump but there

25:30

was no pop. You

25:34

can feel that missing pop, right? You can

25:36

see what an important element it is to

25:38

have that kind of hit offsetting the downbeat.

25:43

On the pre-chorus and later on the

25:45

chorus, Cachet adds a triumphant pop to

25:47

the groove that completely transforms it. Now

25:49

an ordinary backbeat pop on the 2

25:51

and the 4, that would sound like

25:53

this. and

26:00

sound great, but that is definitely not

26:02

the groove of In Your Eyes. Instead

26:04

of doing that, Caché drops a big

26:07

glorious snare hit just a bit earlier

26:09

than that backbeat. He hits on the

26:11

fourth sixteenth note of the bar, which

26:13

is one sixteenth note earlier than the

26:15

backbeat would be. The result is a

26:18

syncopated hit that pushes the whole groove

26:20

up onto its toes and thrusts it

26:22

forward. He

26:28

follows it with these tom hits. It

26:33

really emphasized the sixteenth notes as well.

26:35

So you've got this groove that's much

26:37

bouncier than a standard backbeat would be.

26:45

Add that talking drum and the triangle

26:48

to flesh it out and you get

26:50

a much bouncier, more sixteenth note-driven take

26:52

on the groove from the verse. It's

26:54

a significant escalation just in terms of

26:56

how much it makes your body want

26:58

to move. Not

27:05

bad, right? Of

27:14

course, as you can hear, drums and

27:16

percussion are only a part of a

27:18

story when it comes to this pre-chorus.

27:20

Just like the verse before it and

27:22

the chorus after it, this pre-chorus is

27:24

bouncing back and forth between two chords.

27:26

This time it's going back and forth

27:28

between A major and G major, though

27:30

that's kind of a G-sus-major kind of

27:32

a thing, with a B minor chord

27:34

as the stopping point between them. It's

27:37

very similar to the verse and it

27:39

reinforces how the song always feels like

27:41

it's floating. Each section is just batting

27:43

itself back and forth between two points.

27:45

So while the snare drum

27:47

makes a noticeable entrance on this pre-chorus, so

27:49

too does the bass. And again, I believe

27:51

there are two bass parts going on here.

27:54

I think that Tony Levin and Larry Kline

27:56

are both playing for simplicity's sake and just

27:58

because my ears have their limits,

28:00

I'm going to focus on the

28:02

most prominent bass part and just

28:04

to a single bass recreation, which

28:07

just very straightforwardly bounces between A

28:09

and G. Of

28:15

course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention

28:17

the excellent way the bass makes itself known

28:19

and makes that first entrance. There's a killer

28:21

dive bomb leading into that first A, and

28:24

I love a good bass dive bomb. I

28:29

love that any time I play bass, I find myself doing

28:31

that a lot. Boom! There's

28:36

actually a lot of good slipping and sliding on

28:38

the bass over the course of this song that

28:40

I'm not going to totally recreate on my end,

28:42

but it is definitely a lot of the fun

28:44

of the bass part on this song. So let's

28:46

add that bass to the drum and percussion parts

28:48

that we've already done. So

28:56

nothing too exciting on its own, but it

28:58

does add that all-important low end to the

29:00

arrangement. Okay, now let's get into the

29:02

fun stuff. So two guys

29:04

played guitar on this track, both of

29:06

whom I've already introduced. There's

29:08

Gabriel's longtime guitarist David Rhodes, and as

29:10

it turns out, producer Daniel Van Gogh

29:12

also played guitar on this, though he

29:15

doesn't have a credit in the liner

29:17

notes. In an interview on producer Rick

29:19

Beato's YouTube channel, Van Gogh says that

29:21

he actually played the iconic 12-string guitar

29:23

part on this song, so there you

29:25

go. I'll link to that interview in

29:27

the show notes. It's really cool and

29:29

worth checking out to anybody who

29:31

thinks that might be interesting. So let's get

29:33

into these parts, starting with that 12-string part,

29:36

because it's such an important part of this

29:38

song. According to La Noire

29:40

in that interview, he used an electric 12-string guitar

29:42

that they had in the studio to record this.

29:45

Now a 12-string guitar, it's like a

29:47

cross between a regular 6-string guitar and

29:49

a mandolin, where each string is really

29:51

two strings, so there's twice as many

29:53

tuning pegs and twice as many strings,

29:55

even though you can still kind of

29:57

play it like a 6-string guitar. Because

30:00

of the way it's set up, each

30:02

note actually sounds twice, which gives a

30:04

thick chorusy effect to each note. Acoustic

30:07

12-string guitars are pretty common in folk

30:09

music, you've doubtless heard one before, they

30:11

add a nice thickness to strummed chord

30:13

progressions. Electric 12-strings are a

30:16

little bit less common. This song's

30:18

12-string part is arguably its defining

30:20

guitar part. It's two slightly

30:22

different arpeggios that mostly stay put in

30:24

contrast to the two-chord harmonic back and

30:27

forth being played by the rest of

30:29

the band. It starts with

30:31

that first chord, an A chord, with

30:33

a nice suspended fourth on top. It

30:35

goes back and forth between the C-sharp

30:37

and the D, the third and the

30:39

fourth, which gives it this lovely floating

30:41

sound. The specific notes here are E,

30:44

A, C-sharp, and D, with those top

30:46

two notes alternating back and forth. For

30:48

the second chord, which remember is a

30:50

G chord, the bottom note drops, the

30:52

E drops to a D, but the

30:55

rest of the guitar part stays the

30:57

same. So it's almost a static guitar

30:59

part, even while the band is moving

31:01

between two chords. The second chord also

31:03

implies this sort of sharp four Lydian

31:05

sound, an A major over G, which

31:08

is a central tonal vibe to

31:10

this pre-chorus, this lovely evocative

31:13

Lydian sound. But the thing to really

31:15

listen for with this guitar part is

31:17

the way that it's remaining almost entirely

31:19

motionless while the rest of the band

31:21

is moving up and down. Now for

31:23

my recreation, I do not own a

31:26

12-string acoustic guitar, let alone a 12-string

31:28

electric guitar, so I sort of combined

31:30

my electric guitar running through a 12-string

31:32

effect pedal with a sampled 12-string guitar

31:34

to get something that would kind of

31:36

suffice for my recreation, though I think

31:38

it would be very difficult to get

31:41

this exact sound from this record. It

31:43

may have just been a unique moment in

31:45

time. Anyway, here is my version on its

31:47

own. And

31:51

now let's add the bass. really

32:00

hear how static that guitar part is

32:02

compared with where the rest of the

32:04

band is moving. Now

32:16

there's another guitar part happening here and it's

32:18

extremely cool. I had never noticed it until

32:20

I sat down to make this episode and

32:23

all at once it was the only thing

32:25

that I could notice. So pan to the

32:27

left and the right you can hear David

32:29

Rhodes on what sounds to me like a

32:31

fender strat just smacking these octaves on an

32:33

A along with these spanked harmonics that he

32:36

does every so often. I can't quite get

32:38

the sound that he gets because I'm just

32:40

not quite good enough at guitar. There's a

32:42

certain percussive skill you have to have at

32:44

smacking the strings in that certain way but

32:46

it was very fun to try to get close

32:49

to what he's doing so here's my approximation. It's

33:02

really as much percussion as it is harmonic so here

33:04

it is mixed in with the drums and the percussion.

33:11

It's so cool even in my

33:13

less than amazing recreation it's so

33:15

cool. The best kind of guitar

33:18

part is what makes songs like

33:20

this great these clever very specific

33:22

parts that add so much to

33:24

the overall sound without being super

33:26

noticeable or distracting about it. That

33:28

just leaves Peter Gabriel's keyboard parts and

33:31

synth pads which play a similar role

33:33

here to the role they played in

33:35

the verse. They just feel slightly different

33:37

because the band has so dramatically transformed

33:40

around them. The keys are still that

33:42

odd combination of different electric piano sounds

33:44

playing big chord voicings through those two

33:47

chords and

33:52

that kermadee synth lily pad is still

33:54

in there moving between the same two

33:56

chords filling things out. Combined

34:04

with the bass, the keyboards fill in

34:06

the spaces between those more vertical, rhythmic

34:09

guitar and percussion chords. This

34:26

is so much going on in this song

34:29

and that's before we even get into the

34:31

vocals, the lyrics or the melody. So, let's

34:33

build what we've got so far and I

34:35

want you to try to hold your ears

34:37

open for all of that. Keep

34:40

hearing that drum part skipping along

34:42

with that anticipated first snare hit

34:44

which combines with the percussion and

34:46

triangle to make all but the

34:48

most arismic listener begin to sway

34:50

in time. Listen to the

34:52

bass, simple install wart on the bottom of

34:54

the mix moving between those two chords

34:56

along with the keyboards and the

34:58

synthesizers which provide a thicker, fuller

35:00

version of that same broad function.

35:03

You shouldn't have any trouble hearing

35:05

that 12 string guitar part but

35:07

notice how it remains static even

35:09

as the band heaves up and

35:11

back down, providing some interesting harmonic

35:13

contrast and notice that second guitar

35:15

part pan to the left and

35:18

the right which adds even more

35:20

percussive excitement to an already very

35:22

exciting arrangement. I'll play

35:24

my recreation and then we'll segue into

35:26

the original recording. Ears on,

35:28

deep breath, here we go. Ears

35:34

on, deep breath, here we go. All

35:55

right. And

36:05

now let's

36:15

talk about that melody and how

36:17

it intersects with the lyrics. I

36:19

hope I've got you thinking about

36:22

directionality with this song and noticing

36:24

the way that, for the most

36:26

part, the band has been levitating,

36:28

floating back and forth between chords,

36:31

moving linearly with ever-increasing layered intensity.

36:33

But lyrically and melodically, something else

36:35

is going on. The verse was

36:37

lost and aimless. I get so

36:40

lost sometimes, Gabrielle sings. But

36:48

then, at the end of that verse, a

36:50

return. I come back to the place you

36:52

are. So

36:58

here, after that return, he launches

37:01

into the pre-chorus, the band enters,

37:03

the energy shifts, and he begins

37:05

to burn away the false things

37:07

holding him down and climb towards

37:10

something truer and more elemental. All

37:12

my instincts, he sings, they

37:15

return, the grand facade so

37:17

soon will burn. And from

37:19

here, melodically, it begins to climb. Without

37:22

a noise, and then higher, without

37:24

my pride, and then to the

37:26

highest note of all, I reach

37:28

out from the inside. Listen

37:31

back to that and think about what

37:33

he's saying as that melody climbs. His

37:35

instincts return to him. All the ego,

37:37

the false selves, they all fall away,

37:40

and he begins to reach out. All

37:45

my instincts, he

37:48

sings, they return, the

37:50

grand facade so

37:53

soon will burn. Without

37:55

a noise, and then higher, without my pride, and to

37:58

the highest note of all, It's

38:04

some incredible

38:06

directional musical storytelling, a lost man

38:08

climbing from the darkness toward enlightenment,

38:11

and here at the end of

38:13

the pre-chorus at his highest point,

38:16

Gabriel does the most amazing thing. As

38:19

the narrator reaches out, the music reaches

38:21

with him. Do

38:34

you get chills when you hear that? Because

38:36

I do! It is a magical

38:38

moment, this suspended, held breath, dreamlike

38:40

vocals blurring onto one another, a

38:42

trio of extra bars unexpectedly tacked

38:44

on to the end of the

38:47

phrase before the bass drops

38:49

and the song arrives at its destination

38:52

in your eyes. You

38:58

can almost see it, a figure floating

39:00

suspended in the air, reaching up and

39:02

out so close to grasping what he's

39:04

reaching for. Gabriel achieves that

39:06

effect with a number of songwriting techniques.

39:09

First there's the harmony, so remember this

39:11

pre-chorus is going back and forth between

39:13

an A major and a G major

39:15

chord. Now this final section does something

39:18

interesting, it kind of smashes those two

39:20

chords together and winds up being essentially

39:22

an A major triad over a G

39:24

major triad, which is really just a

39:27

Lydian sound. Now Lydian has come

39:29

up before on the show, it'll come up

39:31

several times this season without getting bogged down

39:33

in the concept of modes or any of

39:36

that, I'll just say that Lydian is synonymous

39:38

with the sound of a major sharp four.

39:41

So a major chord with a sharp four,

39:43

a major scale with a sharp four, and

39:45

that sharp four adds a bit of mysterious,

39:47

bright, and not always unpleasant dissonance to the

39:50

sound of a major chord. So here you

39:52

can kind of stack an A major triad

39:54

on top of a G major triad and

39:56

that gets you the sound. Do

40:01

you hear it? So

40:06

that's the harmony, then there's the matter

40:08

of the phrasing. This whole section takes

40:10

place during a trio of measures that,

40:12

according to this song's phrasing thus far,

40:14

quote-unquote shouldn't be there. Up to this

40:17

point, In Your Eyes has followed eight

40:19

bar sections made up of four-bar melodic

40:21

phrases. That's very, very common

40:23

in Western music, to the point that

40:25

most people just unconsciously expect to hear

40:27

phrases of that length. Bar

40:29

phrases, eight bar sections. You don't

40:32

really think about it, it's kind of

40:34

just ingrained into what listeners expect from

40:36

this type of music. So because the

40:38

song has been following that kind of

40:40

phrasing, some part of the listeners here

40:42

expects the pre-chorus to lead into the

40:44

chorus like this. That's

40:54

not what happens, of course. Any

40:57

expectation sets up an opportunity to

40:59

subvert it, and here Gabriel adds

41:01

three extra bars to the phrase,

41:03

which delays the resolution the listener

41:05

was expecting and beautifully underlines the

41:08

lyrics, reaching out from the inside.

41:22

That third bar is really the thing that

41:24

drives it home for me. Two bars would

41:26

be plenty, but three just feels luxuriant. He

41:28

is just so confident in this choice, and

41:31

I love it. The

41:36

last thing I want to highlight about

41:38

this section is textural. The actual soundscape

41:40

here is dominated by layered, staggered overdubs

41:42

of Gabriel's voice. At least I'm pretty

41:44

sure that that's him, and only him,

41:46

though I know there are a couple

41:48

of backup singers credited on this track,

41:50

so some of those tracks might be

41:52

them. I'm guessing they used the

41:54

Fairlight sampler for this, since it would be an

41:56

easy way to create this effect on a single

41:58

track, but however they did it, it

42:01

is a beautiful and somewhat avant-garde

42:03

effect. It's the kind of thing

42:05

that Brian Eno and Kate Bush,

42:07

both of whom collaborated with Gabrielle

42:09

and producer Daniel Lenoir, were also

42:11

experimenting with in the 80s. Those

42:14

vocal dubs add an unusual choral

42:16

celestial energy to this pre-chorus, lifting

42:18

it up to a new spiritual

42:20

level just as the moment of

42:22

revelation arrives. This

42:33

chorus hits so hard, it picks

42:36

you up and carries you away,

42:38

and I hope that now you

42:40

have a good sense of why

42:42

that is. It's because every moment,

42:44

every note, every praise and beat

42:46

of this song has been building

42:48

toward it. In

43:07

terms of the band and the arrangement, the chorus

43:09

doesn't actually change that much from the pre-chorus.

43:11

The harmony shifts, it's still bouncing

43:13

between two chords, but now we're

43:15

in a new key center, a

43:17

triumphant E major chord bounces down

43:19

to what sounds to me like

43:21

A major over C sharp. The

43:28

drums and percussion stay just

43:30

about the same, still bouncing

43:32

along with that anticipated first

43:34

snare hit. The bass

43:37

part changes, somewhat adding a nice melody

43:39

that'll be enjoyably echoed by another musician at

43:41

the very end of the song. The

43:45

12-string guitar shifts to a new pattern over

43:47

the new key, but keeps the same basic

43:49

shape and function in the arrangement. When

43:54

the keys continue their usual roll, layered on

43:56

top of one another, filling in the harmonies

43:58

as the band churns beneath Put

44:04

them all together and you have something a

44:06

little less propulsive than the pre-chorus, but as

44:08

a result, less of a search and more

44:10

of an arrival. The

44:29

vocal arrangement is really what it's all

44:31

about here. The backup vocals provided by

44:33

Michael Bean and Jim Kerr act as

44:35

a chorus, repeating the song title as

44:37

Gabriel testifies in the spaces in between.

44:55

And that's the song, really. An interstitial percussion

44:58

break allows space for the energy of the

45:00

chorus to burn off, deflating the narrative and

45:02

allowing the listener to come back down to

45:05

where they started so that the second

45:07

verse can do it all over again, starting

45:09

with the same word. The

45:21

second verse does introduce some new musical elements.

45:23

There's a nice high-pitched element. I think it's

45:25

percussion, though it almost sounds like a wood

45:27

flute. It joins the triangle, skipping along on

45:29

the pulse in the middle of the mix.

45:36

There's some nice new synth pads here. It's

45:42

subtle, but it flushes out the second verse. But

45:47

soon enough, we're into the pre-chorus. And

45:55

then building, reaching, stretching into

45:57

the chorus once more. The

46:13

second chorus lets the backup singers roll

46:15

unaccompanied for a bit. The

46:21

second chorus is also where the arrangement gets

46:24

kinda jumbly. The drums all start crashing into

46:26

one another. It's also where it becomes clearest

46:28

that there are two bass parts, as one

46:30

of the bass players goes up and starts

46:32

slipping and sliding around on the neck playing

46:34

harmonics. It's

46:37

chaotic and cool. The

46:43

band builds and builds as they continue

46:45

to vamp on this chorus chord progression.

46:47

The arrangement grows even denser as they

46:50

go, and then seemingly out of nowhere,

46:52

a new and entirely distinct voice rings

46:54

out. That

47:01

is, of course, beloved Senegalese singer-songwriter

47:04

Youssu Ndou, who added his own

47:06

chorus in Woollof, the language of

47:08

Senegal, the Gambia, and other parts

47:10

of West Africa, which my computer

47:12

tells me roughly translates to, My

47:14

light, my soul, I see you

47:16

in the bird. It's

47:20

an incredible ending for the song, punctuated

47:22

at the last moment by vocalist Ronnie

47:24

Bright dropping down and echoing that bass

47:27

line from the chorus. Right

47:32

there at the end is so remarkable

47:34

what happens to this song in its

47:36

closing seconds. It's like it

47:39

suddenly flexes in shifts and reveals

47:41

all these new dimensions just before

47:43

it ends. Of

47:51

course, the recording might fade out, but it

47:53

didn't really end there. In Your Eyes would

47:55

go on to become a staple of Peter

47:57

Gabriel's live shows, and over time, It

48:00

would grow and expand into something far

48:02

grander and more involved than it was

48:04

when he first wrote and recorded it.

48:09

Almost ten years later, on his

48:12

Secret World tour in 1994, Gabriel

48:14

would record a version of this

48:16

song that is utterly transformed. The

48:43

new lyrics, a new arrangement, an

48:45

entirely new energy, it almost becomes

48:47

a new song. I mean listen

48:49

to this stuff. Everything

48:58

in the arrangement is expanded and

49:01

drawn out with the purpose of

49:03

elaborating the build, more dramatically urging

49:05

listeners on to the chorus. Epic

49:26

climbs and down it falls,

49:28

building again to a riotous

49:31

vocal climax. And

49:40

dropping again to a near whisper,

49:43

as Gabriel testifies yet again. For

49:48

eleven and a

49:52

half minutes, the song expands

49:55

and contrasts. somehow

50:01

increasing its already bottomless capacity for

50:03

interpretation into the ears and minds

50:05

of each person in attendance and

50:08

everyone who would listen afterward. This

50:14

is what a great song can

50:16

do. It can bloom and grow,

50:18

then be replanted and grow again,

50:20

blossoming from that so relatable yet

50:22

abstract feeling that it's been expressing

50:24

from the very start. Come

50:27

on! It's

50:35

that feeling that we get from music, that sense

50:38

of deep universality, the certainty that there

50:40

must be more than just what we

50:42

see in front of us, that there

50:44

must be light and strength and meaning

50:46

somewhere out there. This song

50:51

shows us what deep down we all

50:53

already know, that it's out there every

50:55

moment of every hour of every day,

50:58

somewhere in your eyes.

51:17

It's in your eyes.

51:39

And that'll do it for my analysis of

51:41

Peter Gabriel's sensational song, In Your Eyes. I

51:43

really hope you liked this episode because it

51:45

was such a joy to put it all

51:47

together. I am so excited for Strong Songs

51:49

Season 6, I've been hard at

51:51

work on it for a while now, and I think

51:54

you're all really gonna like it. I'm excited anyways. The

51:56

whole season, including this episode, was made with

51:58

production support from M&M. Emily Williams, who

52:00

has helped me add so much structure

52:03

to my process. Her work is apparent

52:05

in every moment of the entire season,

52:07

even though you may never hear her

52:09

speak. Thanks Emily. Thanks to Tom

52:11

DJ for the new show art, which

52:13

is the first time the show has

52:15

ever gotten new art, I'm very excited

52:17

about it. Tom rules, you can find

52:19

more of his amazing art at bossmangraphics.com.

52:22

Sometimes I think about the fact that I get to make

52:24

this show and I just feel so grateful. Which feels like

52:27

one of the things that I was put here to do,

52:29

and while I generally try to avoid that kind

52:31

of grandiose statement, well, I've been

52:33

really feeling it lately, so I just wanted to say it,

52:35

so there it is. Thank you all

52:37

so much for listening, and to everyone who supports

52:39

Strong Songs on Patreon, thank you so much. This

52:41

show takes a lot of work, and I'm grateful

52:44

that enough of you are able to directly support

52:46

me working on it that I'm able to keep

52:48

doing it. If you like Strong Songs, if you're

52:50

excited for season 6, and if

52:52

you want to hear the next episode right now, well,

52:54

you can go become a patron and you can get

52:56

all of that done. Patrons at the

52:58

quarter notes here and higher get to listen to episodes

53:01

two weeks early. Alright, that'll do

53:03

it for now, I'll see you all in

53:05

two weeks for more Strong Songs.