The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

The album's concept and story was conceived by the group's original lead singer, Peter Gabriel.

Before discussions were held regarding the album's contents, the band decided to record a double album, for the extended format would give them the opportunity to improvise and put down more of their musical ideas.[8] A single album with songs telling "bits" of a story was an option that did not appeal to them.[9] Banks thought Genesis 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.[10] They had wanted to produce a concept album that told a story for some time,[11] and Rutherford pitched an idea based on the fantasy novel The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but Gabriel disagreed as he thought it was "too twee" and believed "prancing around in fairyland was rapidly becoming obsolete".[12]

Gabriel presented the group with a more complicated and surreal story about Rael, a Puerto Rican youth in New York City, and his spiritual journey of self-discovery and identity as he encounters several bizarre incidents and characters along the way.[13] Gabriel had first thought of the story while touring North America in the previous year, and pitched a synopsis to the group "until they agreed to do the whole thing".[9][14] It was more detailed and obscure in its initial form, until Gabriel refined it and made Rael the central character.[15] Seeking a name that had "no traceable ethnic origins", he chose the name 'Rael', but later realised the Who had previously used that on The Who Sell Out (1967); this annoyed him at first, but he stuck to the choice.[16] As the band searched for a name they realised that "Ra" was common in male names in various nationalities.[17] Gabriel was inspired by a variety of sources for the story, including the novel and musical West Side Story, "a kind of punk" twist to the Christian allegory Pilgrim's Progress (1678), the works of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, and the surreal Western film El Topo (1971) by Alejandro Jodorowsky.[18] In contrast to Selling England by the Pound, which contained strong English themes, Gabriel made a conscious effort to avoid repetition by portraying American imagery,[11] with references to Caryl Chessman, Lenny Bruce, Groucho Marx, Marshall McLuhan, Howard Hughes, Evel Knievel and the Ku Klux Klan.[19] He also expressed some concern over the album's title, but noted that the lamb itself is purely symbolic and a catalyst for the peculiar events that occur.[14]

Much of the album was written at Headley Grange.

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.[20] This was a departure from the band's usual method of songwriting; lyrical contributions on previous albums had always involved the other members.[21] This situation left Gabriel often secluded in one room writing the lyrics, and the remaining four rehearsing in another.[22] 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 their songs better, "The Lamia" and "Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist" respectively, which Gabriel rebuffed.[23]

Further disagreements arose during the writing period when Gabriel accepted an invitation from film producer William Friedkin to write a screenplay; Friedkin had taken a liking to the surreal story by Gabriel that had been printed on the sleeve of Genesis Live (1973).[24] Collins then pitched the idea of 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.[25] However, Gabriel's offer from Friedkin soon came to nothing and he resumed working on the album.[26] Matters were complicated further when Gabriel spent additional time away in London when his first wife Jill underwent a risky and difficult birth of their first child in July 1974,[23] leaving Gabriel often travelling back and forth. Rutherford later admitted that he and Banks were "horribly unsupportive" of Gabriel during this time,[27] and Gabriel saw this as the beginning of his eventual departure from Genesis.[28]

After their allocated time at Headley Grange came to an end, Genesis relocated to Glaspant Manor in Capel Iwan, Carmarthenshire, Wales,[29] to record using mobile recording equipment from London's Island Studios.[30] The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is the band's last recording with John Burns as their co-producer, who had assumed the role since Foxtrot (1972). The band are credited as co-producers, and engineering duties were carried out by David Hutchins.[30] The recording equipment used included two 3M 24-track recorders, a Helios Electronics 30-input mixing console, Altec monitors, and two A62 Studers for mastering.[31] Burns and Gabriel experimented with different vocal effects, including recording inside a cowshed two miles away from their location, and within a bathroom.[31] Rutherford thought the album's sound was an improvement on those of past Genesis albums, for it was not recorded in a professional studio, which benefited the sound of Collins' drums.[32] 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".[33] Gabriel said one track was recorded onto a cassette, which was used on the album.[17]

The backing tracks for the entire album were put down in roughly two weeks.[23] Gabriel was still working on the lyrics a month later, and, in one instance, asked the band to produce additional music to fit his words that had no designated section for them. This was the case for "Carpet Crawlers" and "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging".[31] Thinking the extra material was to be instrumental, the band later found that Gabriel had sung over their new parts,[34] something that he also had done on tracks on Foxtrot (1972) and Selling England by the Pound (1973). Gabriel recorded his vocals at Island Studios, where the album was mixed over a series of shifts as the band struggled to complete the album in time for its November 1974 release date.[34] 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".[31]

The album tells the story of Rael, a half-Puerto Rican adolescent living in New York City, who experiences several bizarre situations and characters.[24] Gabriel was influenced by the band's last American tour to set the story in New York City. He used the location as a tool to make Rael "more real, more extrovert and violent",[11] 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.[14] Gabriel 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. The end of the story is not directly clear; Gabriel deliberately left the conclusion ambiguous. When asked about it, Gabriel does not declare that Rael dies, though 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".[14] Several of the story's occurrences and settings derived from Gabriel's dreams.[35] Collins remarked that the entire concept was about split personality.[36] The individual songs also make satirical allusions to mythology, the sexual revolution, advertising, and consumerism.[35] 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.[11]

The story opens with Rael on Broadway in New York City.

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")[37] and has an extended flashback of returning from a gang raid in New York City, ("Back in N.Y.C.")[38] a dream where his hairy heart is removed and shaved with a razor, ("Hairless Heart") and his first sexual encounter ("Counting Out Time").[39] 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 ("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.").[40]

Brian Eno contributed effects on the album; these were dubbed "Enossifications".

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".[20][7] Though the album is written to a story concept, Gabriel described its format as being split into "self-contained song units".[16] 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.[41]

Banks recalled writing "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" with Gabriel which turned out to be the last track they developed which was "a pretty good song to end on".[42] At its conclusion, the song borrows music and lyrics from the 1963 single "On Broadway" by The Drifters.[43] "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. Banks said: "Instantly the rest of us would conjure up that particular mood."[44] Banks was particularly fond of the part when the drums and guitar come in, calling it one of the band's best ever moments.[18] Hackett chose to play "Egyptian phrases", and noted that the group used a similar modulation to that of the end section of Boléro by Maurice Ravel.[20] "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".[38] A personal highlight for Collins is "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats"[45] and "The Waiting Room" which developed as a "basic good to bad soundscaping" jam while it was raining, before they stopped and a rainbow formed outside. Collins said that "Steve [Hackett] played these dark chords, then Peter [Gabriel] 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".[18]

"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[46] "in D, E minor and F-sharp minor with a roll from the drums flowing through it".[18] 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 it.[47] Jill later spoke of Gabriel's particular fondness of the track.[48] "Anyway" and "Lilywhite Lilith" developed from two early unreleased songs, "Frustration" and "The Light" respectively.[26] Hackett's guitar solo on "Counting Out Time" features him playing an EMS Synthi Hi-Fli guitar synthesizer [49] and Gabriel encourages him – "Take it away mr. Guitar".

During the mixing sessions at Island Studios, Brian Eno was working on his album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974) in the adjacent studio. Gabriel asked him to add synthesized effects on his vocals on several tracks, including "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging",[50] which on the album's credits are dubbed "Enossification".[30] As a repayment, Eno asked Collins to play drums on his track "Mother Whale Eyeless".[51]

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.[31]

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.[75] 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.[84] In his open letter, he explained his disillusion with the music industry and his wish to spend extended time with his family.[85] 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."[75]

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.[86] 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. The album's 2007 reissue features the album with a visual reconstruction of the tour's stage show using the original backdrop slides, audience bootleg footage, and photographs.

• Banks, Tony; Collins, Phil; Gabriel, Peter; Hackett, Steve; Rutherford, Mike (2007). Dodd, Philipp (ed.). Genesis. Chapter and Verse. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-84434-1.
• Bowler, Dave; Dray, Bryan (1992). Genesis – A Biography. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-283-06132-5.
• Fielder, Hugh; Sutcliffe, Phil (1984). The Book of Genesis. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-08880-4.
• Giammetti, Mario (2020). Genesis 1967 to 1975 - The Peter Gabriel Years. Kingmaker. ISBN 978-1-913218-62-1.
• Hewitt, Alan (2001). Opening the Musical Box – A Genesis Chronicle. Firefly Publishing. ISBN 978-0-946-71930-3.
• Holm-Hudson, Kevin (2008). Genesis and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-754-66139-9.
• Platts, Robin (2001). Genesis: Inside & Out (1967–2000). Collector's Guide Publishing. ISBN 978-1-896-52271-5.
• Rutherford, Mike (2015). The Living Years: The First Genesis Memoir. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-1-250-06068-6.
• Thompson, Dave (2004). Turn It On Again: Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, and Genesis. Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-810-9.

DVD media

• Banks, Tony; Collins, Phil; Gabriel, Peter; Hackett, Steve; Rutherford, Mike (10 November 2008). Genesis 1970–1975: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (DVD). Virgin Records. UPC 5099951968328.