2000 Great Songs #1338: Dancing With The Moonlit Knight

Not sure I can really justify a third trip to Genesis' 1973 classic Selling England By The Pound... which, given the length of each track, is basically half the LP at this point. But, hey, I've always loved this album, so here we are. Opening track "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight" tweaks the formula of prior like-minded prog suites (e.g. Nursery Cryme's "The Musical Box") but adds a little more polish in the performance. It's the sound of the Gabriel-era band playing with maximum confidence and perfecting their form, sprawling from pastoral folk rock to harder-rocking bombast, with a few more pivots before a long, slow, well-earned fade.

Live 1973:

Video mashing up the studio version with the above live footage:

Peter Gabriel revisits the brief opening segment for the only time in several decades, in 2016, along with Sting(!):

Phil Collins-era live performance, 1978 (audio only):

Steve Hackett live (with orchestra):

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