If you've read this at all, you probably know I'm a huge fanboy of Steven Wilson, but Peter Gabriel is a musician I am easily just as fascinated with. The guys insane, and I can rant about him for hours. But anyway, about this song in particular. It first appeared on his CD Peter Gabriel IV, or Security in 1982. I decided to post the live version of this song just because it was posted on Peter Gabriel's official page, so there's no chance of it getting taken down for copyright issues. Also, you get to see PG's excellent stage performance.
Now, onto the song. As songfacts reports: "Gabriel was influenced by an Apache Indian he met who told him of the ritual where the Medicine Man takes a young Indian boy to the mountains, allows a rattlesnake to bite him, and leaves the boy to find his way down the mountain, where he will either die or learn courage." I've heard similar stories from Gabriel's interviews and such, but the gist is the same. This sort of story can be seen in the construction of the song. If you notice, dynamically the song is a consistent crescendo, followed by a quick decent. If you were to map this out, visually the song would resemble a mountain, that the listener is climbing up as the song progresses.
As this is going on, there is another moment of literal composition. This occurs in the second verse. Whereas lyrically the first verse describes the Native American grounds the second verse describes the nearby resort area. Just before the second verse begins, pushed into the background is something I can't quite make out, but it sounds like some sort of tribal chant. As the characters leave the native american grounds, the melody comes into the foreground, creating a visual of the distance between the two settings.
And then finally that climax bit there, with Gabriel passionately singing "I hold the line." The song ping pongs between the harsh strong distorted guitars and the softer chords, highlighting the character "getting weaker" and trying to gain back strength, fighting for his life. Genius writing. Also, just as a side interpretation, I like to think of the "I hold the line" lyric as an expression of the burden a Native American has to keep up his way of life against the American culture that's taken over. Just an idea, though.
Anyway, this song is brilliant, as per usual Gabriel. Still, this is a song I didn't get at first, but I'm glad I do now. It's one of those songs that I only got when trying to capture the music visually. I hope this was at the very least interesting. Got any other songs that are cool to dissect like this? Send them my way, I'm interested! Plus this is a good way to look at things when writing.