When recording engineer Hugh Padgham was brought in to help develop Collins' demos that would become Face Value they recreated the "Intruder" sound using the reverse talkback microphone as well as heavily compressed and gated ambient mics. Later models of the SSL 4000 allowed the listen mic to be recorded with the touch of a button. Overnight, they rewired the board so that the reverse talkback could be recorded in a more formal manner. Engineer Hugh Padgham and his friend Jeffrey were amazed at the sound achieved. While recording "Intruder" for his ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel's solo album, at some point Collins started playing the drums while the reverse talkback was activated. In order to compensate for sound level differences - people can be close to the reverse talkback microphone or far off - this circuit has a compressor on it, which minimizes the differences between loud and soft sounds. Reverse talkback is a circuit (also button-activated) for the engineer to listen to musicians in the studio. Normal "talkback" is a button that the mixing engineer has to press in order to talk to the recording musicians (the recording and the mixing parts of a studio are completely sonically isolated otherwise). In this case, the Solid State Logic 4000 mixing board had a "reverse talk-back" circuit (labeled on the board as "Listen Mic"). The exact process was, as happens so often, a result of serendipity: an unintended use of studio technology giving unexpectedly useful results. The means by which Collins attained the drum sound on this recording was long a source of mystery. On the heels of this successful merging of media, Collins became associated with the show other Collins tracks including " Take Me Home" were later featured and Collins himself also acted in an episode, "Phil the Shill". The resurgence in the popularity of the track resulted in it almost reaching the Billboard Hot 100 again, reaching number 102 on the "Bubbling Under" chart in 1984. The song's popularity in the 1980s increased after a nearly complete recording of it was featured in the pilot episode of the American television show Miami Vice ("Brother's Keeper"), thus becoming one of the first pop/rock songs to be featured as part of a TV program in this manner. That frightens me a bit, but I'm quite proud of the fact that I sang 99.9 percent of those lyrics spontaneously." The lyrics you hear are what I wrote spontaneously. I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing. Collins has described obtaining the drum machine specifically to deal with these personal issues through songwriting, telling Mix magazine: "I had to start writing some of this music that was inside me." Collins improvised the lyrics during a songwriting session in the studio: "I was just fooling around. The mood is one of restrained anger until the final chorus when an explosive burst of drums releases the musical tension, and the instrumentation builds to a thundering final chorus.Ĭollins wrote the song in the wake of a failing relationship with his then-wife. Musically the song consists of a series of ominous chords played over a simple drum machine pattern (the Roland CR-78 Disco-2 pattern, plus some programming) processed electric guitar sounds and vocoded vocals on key words add additional atmosphere. I was there and I saw what you did Saw it with my own two eyes So you can wipe off that grin I know where you've been It's all been a pack of lies The lyrics of the song take the form of a dark monologue directed towards an unnamed person: He also performed the song at The Secret Policeman's Ball, Collins' first live performance as a solo artist. It is the song most often associated with Collins' solo career, and he has performed versions of it at many events, notably at Live Aid, where he played the song on the same calendar day in both Philadelphia and London. "In the Air Tonight" remains, alone among Collins' solo oeuvre, a popular selection on many classic rock radio stations. He explained on a BBC Radio 2 documentary in 1997 that he took a couple of years out of Genesis due to his devastation.Ĭollins explains the lyrics, "If you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand," by saying the drowning is symbolic. It was also an international hit, reaching the top 20 on the Billboard Chart in the summer of 1981.Ĭollins wrote this about the anger he felt after divorcing his first wife Andrea in 1979. Released in January 1981 in the UK, the single was an instant hit, quickly climbing to Number 2 in the Singles Chart. The recording is notable for its atmospheric production and macabre theme.
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