The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

The band decided to produce a double album before they had agreed on its contents or direction, for the extended format presented the opportunity for them to put down more of their musical ideas.[6] A single album of songs telling segments of a story did not appeal to them,[7] and Banks thought they had gained a strong enough following by this point to put out two albums' worth of material that their fans would be willing to listen to.[8] They had wanted to produce a concept album that told a story for some time, and Rutherford pitched an idea based on the fantasy novel The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but Gabriel considered it "too twee" and believed "prancing around in fairyland was rapidly becoming obsolete".[9][10]

Gabriel presented a surreal story about a Puerto Rican youth named Rael who is suddenly taken on a spiritual journey of self-discovery and identity as he encounters a series of bizarre incidents and characters.[11][12] He first thought of the story while touring North America in the previous year, and pitched a synopsis to the group until they agreed to go ahead with it.[7][13] It was more detailed and obscure in its initial form until Gabriel refined it and made Rael the central character.[14] Gabriel chose the name Rael as it was one without a particular ethnic origin, but he later realised The Who used the same name on The Who Sell Out (1967) which annoyed him at first, but he stuck to the choice.[15] The band also found that "Ra" was common in male names in various nationalities.[16] Gabriel was inspired by a variety of sources for the story including West Side Story, "a kind of punk" twist to the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, the works of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, and the surreal Western film El Topo (1971) by Alejandro Jodorowsky.[17] In contrast to Selling England by the Pound, which contained strong English themes, Gabriel made a conscious effort to avoid repetition and instead portray American imagery in his lyrics.[10] He had the story begin on Broadway in New York City, and makes references to Caryl Chessman, Lenny Bruce, Groucho Marx, Marshall McLuhan, Howard Hughes, Evel Knievel and the Ku Klux Klan.[18] Gabriel expressed some concern over the album's title shortly after its release, but clarified that the lamb itself is purely symbolic and a catalyst for the peculiar events that occur.[13]

During the writing sessions at Headley Grange, Gabriel found himself separated from the rest of the band, which caused some friction. He insisted that having devised the concept he should write the lyrics, leaving the majority of the music in the charge of his bandmates.[19] This was a departure from the band's usual method of songwriting, as lyrical contributions on previous albums had always involved the other members.[20] This situation left Gabriel often secluded in one room writing the lyrics, and the remaining four rehearsing in another.[21] In one instance Gabriel was unable to meet a scheduled deadline to have the lyrics finished, leaving Rutherford and Banks to write words for "The Light Dies Down on Broadway". At other times, Banks and Hackett suggested lyrics they thought would fit "The Lamia" and "Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist" respectively, which Gabriel rebuffed.[22]

Further disagreements arose during the writing period when Gabriel left the group for a short period having accepted an invitation from film producer William Friedkin to collaborate on a screenplay, after he took a liking to Gabriel's surreal story printed on the sleeve of Genesis Live (1973).[12] In Gabriel's absence Collins suggested having the new studio album be purely instrumental, thinking it would favour the other members as Gabriel had made some of their earlier songs too lyrically dense, but the idea was rejected by the rest of the group.[23] Friedkin, however, was not prepared to split the band over a mere idea and Gabriel resumed work on the album.[24] Matters were complicated further when Gabriel spent additional time in London when his first wife Jill underwent a risky and difficult birth of their first child in July 1974, leaving Gabriel often travelling back and forth.[22] Rutherford later admitted that he and Banks were "horribly unsupportive" of Gabriel during this time, and Gabriel saw this as the beginning of his eventual departure from Genesis.[25][26]

After their allocated time at Headley Grange came to an end, Genesis relocated to Glaspant Manor in Carmarthenshire, Wales to record the album. The remote location required them to use a mobile studio, and used one owned by Island Studios that was parked outside.[27][28] The Island mobile featured two 3M 24-track recorders, a Helios Electronics 30-input mixing console, Altec monitors, and two A62 Studer tape machines for mastering.[29] The album is the band's last with John Burns as co-producer, who had assumed the role since Foxtrot (1972). Engineering duties were carried out by David Hutchins.[28] Burns and Gabriel experimented with different vocal effects by recording takes in a bathroom and in a cowshed two miles away.[29] Rutherford thought the album's sound was an improvement to past Genesis albums for it was not recorded in a professional studio, which benefited the sound of Collins' drums.[30] Collins compared the sound of the album to that of Neil Young's recordings made in his barn, "not studio, not soundproof, but a woody quality".[31] Gabriel said one track was recorded directly onto a cassette which was used on the album.[16]

The backing tracks were put down in roughly two weeks.[22] Gabriel was still working on the lyrics a month later, and asked the band to produce additional music for "The Carpet Crawlers" and "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging" so he could fit in words that had no designated section for them.[29] Thinking the extra material was to be instrumental, the band later found that Gabriel had sung over their new parts,[32] something that he also had done on Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound and caused songs to be musically dense. Gabriel recorded his remaining vocals at Island's main studio in Notting Hill, London, where the album was mixed over a series of shifts as they were pressured to finish the album in time for its release date.[32] Collins recalled: "I'd be mixing and dubbing all night and then Tony and Mike would come in and remix what I'd done because I'd lost all sense of normality by that point".[29]

Gabriel used New York City as a tool to make Rael "more real, more extrovert and violent", choosing to develop a character that is the least likely person to "fall into all this pansy claptrap", and aiming for a story that contrasted between fantasy and character.[10][13] He explained that as the story progresses Rael finds he is not as "butch" as he hoped, and his experiences eventually bring out a more romantic side to his personality. Gabriel deliberately kept the ending ambiguous but clarified that Rael does not die, although he compared the ending to the buildup of suspense and drama in a film in which "you never see what's so terrifying because they leave it up in the air without ... labelling it".[13] Several of the story's occurrences and settings derived from Gabriel's own dreams.[33] Collins remarked that the entire concept was about split personality.[34] The individual songs also make satirical allusions to mythology, the sexual revolution, advertising, and consumerism.[33] Gabriel felt the songs alone were not enough to detail all of the action in his story, so he wrote the full plot on the album's sleeve.[10]

One morning in New York City, Rael is holding a can of spray paint, hating everyone around him. He witnesses a lamb lying down on Broadway which has a profound effect on him ("The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"). As he walks along the street, he sees a dark cloud take the shape of a movie screen and slowly move towards him, finally absorbing him ("Fly on a Windshield"), seeing an explosion of images of the current day ("Broadway Melody of 1974") before he wakes up in a cave and falls asleep once again ("Cuckoo Cocoon"). Rael wakes up and finds himself trapped in a cage of stalactites and stalagmites which slowly close in towards him. As he tries to escape, he sees many other people in many other cages, before spotting his brother John outside. Rael calls to him, but John walks away and the cage suddenly disappears ("In the Cage").

Rael now finds himself on the floor of a factory and is given a tour of the area by a woman, where he watches people being processed like packages. He spots old members of his New York City gang, and also John with the number 9 stamped on his forehead. Fearing for his life, Rael escapes into a corridor ("The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging")[35] and has an extended flashback of returning from a gang raid in New York City, ("Back in N.Y.C.")[36] a dream where his hairy heart is removed and shaved with a razor, ("Hairless Heart") and his first sexual encounter ("Counting Out Time").[37] Rael's flashback ends, and he finds himself in a long, red-carpeted corridor of people crawling towards a wooden door. Rael runs past them and exits via a spiral staircase ("The Carpet Crawlers"). At the top, he enters a chamber with 32 doors, surrounded by people and unable to concentrate ("The Chamber of 32 Doors").

Rael finds a blind woman who leads him out of the chamber ("Lilywhite Lilith") and into another cave ("The Waiting Room"), where he becomes trapped by falling rocks ("Anyway"). Rael encounters Death ("Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist") and escapes the cave. Rael ends up in a pool with three Lamia, beautiful snake-like creatures, and has sex with them, but they die after drinking some of his blood ("The Lamia"). He leaves the pool in a boat ("Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats"), and finds himself in a group of Slippermen, distorted, grotesque men who have all had the same experience with the Lamia, and finds that he has become one of them ("The Arrival"). Rael finds John among the Slippermen, who reveals that the only way to become human again is to visit Doktor Dyper and be castrated ("A Visit to the Doktor"). Both are castrated and keep their removed penises in containers around their necks. Rael's container is taken by a raven and he chases after it, leaving John behind ("The Raven"). The raven drops the container in a ravine and into a rushing underground river ("Ravine").

As Rael walks alongside it, he sees a window in the bank above his head which reveals his home amidst the streets ("The Light Dies Down on Broadway"). Faced with the option of returning home, he sees John in a river below him, struggling to stay afloat. Despite being deserted twice by John, Rael dives in to save him and the gateway to New York vanishes ("Riding the Scree"). Rael rescues John and drags his body to the bank of the river and turns him over to look at his face, only to see his own face instead ("In the Rapids"). His consciousness then drifts between both bodies, and he sees the surrounding scenery melting away into a haze. Both bodies dissolve, and Rael's spirit becomes one with everything around him ("it.").[38]

Much of the music developed through band improvisations and jams, often after setting a single idea, which Banks found particularly enjoyable. Examples of this are what he described as a "Chinese jam" which ended up as part of "The Colony of Slippermen", one named "Victory at Sea" which was worked into "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats", and another known as "Evil Jam" which became "The Waiting Room".[19][5] Though the album is written to a story concept, Gabriel described its format as being split into "self-contained song units".[15] He thought the album contained some of the group's best material and songs that he was most proud of during his time in Genesis.[39]

"The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" was the last song that Banks and Gabriel wrote together before the latter's departure from the group, which Banks said was "a pretty good song to end on".[40] At its conclusion, the song borrows music and lyrics from the 1963 single "On Broadway" by The Drifters.[41] "Fly on a Windshield" originally came about through a band improvisation sparked by an idea from Rutherford, who suggested the idea of pharaohs going down the Nile and proceeded to play two chords. The rest of the group caught onto the idea, and Banks was particularly fond of the part when the drums and guitar come in, calling it one of the band's best ever moments.[42][17] Hackett described his guitar parts as "Egyptian phrases", and noted that the group used a similar modulation to that of the end of Boléro by Maurice Ravel.[19] "Back in N.Y.C." sees Genesis adopting a more aggressive sound than in past compositions, and includes Gabriel singing an expletive in the line: "I'm not full of shit".[36] A personal highlight for Collins is "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats" and "The Waiting Room", the latter of which developed as a "basic good to bad soundscaping" jam while it was raining outside. When the band stopped, a rainbow had formed.[43] Collins remembered Hackett playing "these dark chords, then Peter blows into his oboe reeds, then there was a loud clap of thunder and we really thought we were entering another world or something. It was moments like that when we were still very much a unified five-piece".[17]

"The Carpet Crawlers" developed at a time when Gabriel had written some lyrics, but no music had been written for them. The band put together a chord sequence "in D, E minor and F-sharp minor with a roll from the drums flowing through it".[44][17] Gabriel spent "hours and hours" on an out-of-tune piano in the house of his then-wife Jill's parents in Kensington to develop the song, and Jill spoke of Gabriel's particular fondness of the track.[45][46] "Anyway" and "Lilywhite Lilith" developed from two previously unreleased songs named "Frustration" and "The Light", respectively.[24] Hackett's guitar solo on "Counting Out Time" was played using a EMS Synthi Hi-Fli guitar synthesizer.[47]

While mixing at Island Gabriel asked Brian Eno, who was working on his album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974), to add synthesized effects on his vocals on several tracks, including "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging".[48] Eno's work is credited on the liner notes for "Enossification".[28] As a repayment, Eno asked Collins to play drums on his track "Mother Whale Eyeless".[49]

Hipgnosis designed the album's artwork. In a departure from that company's previous album sleeves, which featured more colourful designs, the front cover of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway makes use of black and white and no colour. The band's logo, originally designed by Paul Whitehead and used on Nursery Cryme (1971) and Foxtrot (1972), was replaced by a new one in an Art Deco style by George Hardie. The left picture on the front depicts Rael in the area where "In the Rapids" and "Riding the Scree" are set.[29]

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was first remastered for CD in 1994, and released on Virgin Records in Europe and Atlantic Records in North America. The included booklet features the lyrics and story printed on the original LP, though some of the inner sleeve artwork was not reproduced. A remastered edition for Super Audio CD and DVD with new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes by Nick Davis was released in 2008 as part of the Genesis 1970–1975 box set.

During their stop in Cleveland in November 1974, Gabriel told the band he would leave at the conclusion of the tour.[74] The decision was kept a secret from outsiders and media all through the tour, and Gabriel promised the band to stay silent about it for a while after its end in June 1975, to give them some time to prepare for a future without him. By August, the news had leaked to the media anyway, and Gabriel wrote a personal statement to the English music press to explain his reasons and his view of his career up to this point; the piece, titled "Out, Angels Out", was printed in several of the major rock music magazines.[83] In his open letter, he explained his disillusion with the music industry and his wish to spend extended time with his family.[84] Banks later stated, "Pete was also getting too big for the group. He was being portrayed as if he was 'the man' and it really wasn't like that. It was a very difficult thing to accommodate. So it was actually a bit of a relief."[74]

No complete performance of the album has been officially released, except for the majority of the band's performance from 24 January 1975 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which was released as part of the Genesis Archive 1967–75 box set.[85] Some tracks feature re-recorded vocals from Gabriel and guitar parts from Hackett; the box set contains a remixed studio version of "it.", also with re-recorded vocals.

Canadian tribute band The Musical Box has performed the album in its entirety on several tours using the slides from the original performances.