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. He 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 finally releases the musical tension and the instrumentation explodes into a thunderous crescendo.Ĭollins has described obtaining the drum machine specifically to deal with personal issues relating to his divorce through songwriting, telling Mix magazine: "I had to start writing some of this music that was inside me".
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Musically, the song consists of a series of ominous chords played on a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 over a simple drum machine pattern (the Roland CR-78 Disco-2 pattern, plus some programming) processed electric guitar sounds and vocoded vocals, an effect which is increased on key words to add additional atmosphere. It has been described as being "at the vanguard of experimental pop" in 1981 and "a rock oddity classic", having been influenced by "the unconventional studio predilections of Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel". Originally, Collins was going to include the song on Duke, but it was rejected by the band Tony Banks later regretted the decision. I'm not quite sure what the song is about, but there's a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration." In a 1997 BBC Radio 2 documentary, the singer revealed that the divorce contributed to his 1979 hiatus from the band Genesis, until they regrouped in October of that year to record the album, Duke. In a 2016 interview, Collins said of the song's lyrics: "I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. In 2007, Mike Gruss, former columnist for The Virginian-Pilot, referred to the song as a "soft rock classic." īackground and recording Inspiration Ĭollins wrote the song amid the grief he felt after divorcing his first wife Andrea Bertorelli in 1980. The song was ranked at number 35 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s" in 2006. "In the Air Tonight" remains one of Collins' best-known hits, often cited as his signature song, and is especially famous for its drum break towards the end, which has been described as "the sleekest, most melodramatic drum break in history" and one of the "101 Greatest Drumming Moments". The song's music video, directed by Stuart Orme, received heavy play on MTV when the new cable music video channel launched in August 1981. 2 on the Rock Tracks Chart, later being certified Gold by the RIAA, representing 500,000 copies sold. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, but reached No. 1 in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, and the top 10 in Australia, New Zealand and several other European territories. The song climbed to No. 2 on the UK Singles chart, but was held off the top spot by the posthumous release of John Lennon's " Woman".
It was released as the lead single from Collins's debut solo album, Face Value, in January 1981.Ĭollins co-produced the single with Hugh Padgham, who became a frequent collaborator in the following years. " In the Air Tonight" is the debut solo single by the English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins.
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