100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #39: Genesis, Ripples

A Banks/Hackett/Rutherford masterpiece.  After Gabriel left Genesis following The Lamb tour in 1975, the desire to prove to audiences that the remaining members were a lot more than simply Gabriel’s backing band led them to produce what is, in my opinion, the second best album of their career, A Trick of the Tail.  I could easily include all of the tracks on it in this list.  This song, however, is special for the power in its instrumental break, and the lyrics which deal with ageing and the passing of time.  It’s worth pointing out that these young men were only in their early twenties, and they produced such an evocative, provocative song whose accompanying image on the album was a picture of an elderly lady looking in a mirror to see a young, beautiful woman reflected back.

Onslaught is out now at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.