My Top 1000 Songs #473: The Carpet Crawlers

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

While I tend to prefer the earlier records, 1974's The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, the final Genesis album with Peter Gabriel, has undeniable flashes of brilliance throughout (even if it lags a bit in spots). The opening title track is obviously fantastic; but I give a slight edge to "The Carpet Crawlers." It's certainly one of the prettiest tracks of their prog era, Tony Banks' piano work at its very best; a lush ballad that builds from a gentle lullaby to a booming epic without ever losing that gorgeous, sing-along chorus melody.

Lyrically it's fairly indecipherable, colorful poetic allegories--presumably tied to the album's fancifully cryptic themes, but who's to say? Still, there are plenty of memorable images which sound delicious as sung by Gabriel whatever they may mean--"The liquid has congealed, which has seeped out through the crack, and the tickler takes his stickleback"?--and the recurring "you've gotta get in to get out" is just one of those things you're gonna be stuck singing in your head for days every time you hear the song.

Live 1975:

Live 1976, Phil Collins vocals:

1999 re-recording featuring both Peter/Phil on vocals: