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Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Genesis, released on 12 October 1973 through Charisma Records (Europe) and Atlantic Records (United States), though still on the Charisma label initially. It followed Foxtrot and was the band's commercial peak at that time, reaching #3 in the UK where it remained on the charts for 21 weeks. The album went gold in the US in 1990, sixteen years after peaking at #70 on the Billboard 200. It was also a major breakthrough in terms of critical reception.
The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick called The Dream. The original painting did not fe
Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Genesis, released on 12 October 1973 through Charisma Records (Europe) and Atlantic Records (United States), though still on the Charisma label initially. It followed Foxtrot and was the band's commercial peak at that time, reaching #3 in the UK where it remained on the charts for 21 weeks. The album went gold in the US in 1990, sixteen years after peaking at #70 on the Billboard 200. It was also a major breakthrough in terms of critical reception.
The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick called The Dream. The original painting did not feature a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the song "I Know What I Like."
A digitally remastered version was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and on Atlantic Records in the US and Canada. The remastered booklet features the lyrics and credits which were missing on the original CD, while they had been on the inner sleeve of the LP album.
A SACD/DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and stereo mixes) was released in the UK on 11 November 2008, including extensive interviews with the band and footage from concerts performed during 1973–74.
"Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" is the first track on the album Selling England by the Pound by British progressive rock band Genesis.
An a cappella vocal opens the track. Then, the song progressively gets louder and more upbeat, becoming a rock number. This song is one of several tracks where Tony Banks used his newly acquired Mellotron M400; toward the middle of the song the 8 Voice choir is featured prominently, and in the closing section the strings are used. Guitarist Steve Hackett used very early examples of tapping and sweep-picking techniques on this song.
The lyrics are an ironic commentary on contemporary England that employs references to British staples like Green Shield Stamps. The reference "chewing through your Wimpy dreams" is an allusion to the Wimpy Burger Chain that was prevalent in many UK town high streets, in the early 1970s, and possibly also Wimpey homes. The latter reference has some echoes with the theme of "Get 'Em Out by Friday". The album was named after a lyric in this song.
The song's melody is repeated in a different form at the closing of "The Cinema Show" and into "Aisle of Plenty". The motif gradually appears from the chord sequence, which consists of the same chords as "Cinema Show" but in an alternative order.
The line "'Paper late!' Cried a voice in the crowd" inspired the band's 1982 song "Paperlate".
"I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" was the first charting single by the rock band Genesis. The song's lyrics concern a young man who is employed as a groundsman and who says that he does not want to grow up and do great things, being perfectly happy where he is, pushing a lawn mower. Betty Swanwick's painting The Dream, which was used for the Selling England album cover, provided inspiration for the lyrics.
The song, inspired by The Beatles,[1] has a psychedelic rock sound, using hand percussion rhythms and an electric sitar riff from Mike Rutherford (played in concert by Steve Hackett until his departure from the band). Keyboardist Tony Banks used a note played on the low end of the Mellotron during the intro and ending to imitate the sound of a lawn mower. This effect was discovered during a recording session by Peter Gabriel while Banks was in the toilet.
Later live versions of this song (such as the one on Seconds Out) feature an extended instrumental section which includes snippets of various other Genesis songs – such as "Visions of Angels," "Blood on the Rooftops," "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" and "Stagnation" – and songs by other artists, such as "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." Phil Collins performed a dance during these instrumentals, in which he would beat himself silly with a tambourine; this can seen in the Genesis: In Concert film from 1977, as well as the live DVDs The Way We Walk – Live in Concert (1992) and When in Rome 2007.
"I Know What I Like" was the band's only pop hit of their early years, at a time when progressive rock bands largely avoided the singles market. The song was played on Top of the Pops and danced to by Pan's People. Its success would not be topped until And Then There Were Three's "Follow You Follow Me," some four years later.
For the The Way We Walk and Turn It On Again tours, this song was played as part of a medley of old Genesis songs, and was often performed with excerpts of "Stagnation", from the album Trespass. During the Turn It On Again tour shows, images from the band's history cycled by in the background.
In 1993, Marillion's ex-frontman Fish did a cover version on his Songs from the Mirror album.
The original B-side of the single was the non-album track "Twilight Alehouse," a song about a lonely man who finds solace in the local tavern. This song had been in Genesis' live set since 1970 but was not recorded in the studio until 1972 during the Foxtrot sessions, and its initial release was held until this point. "Twilight Alehouse" was later released as part of Genesis Archive 1967-75.
"More Fool Me" is one of two songs from the Gabriel era to feature Phil Collins on lead vocals (the other being "For Absent Friends" from their 1971 LP Nursery Cryme.) The song is about a man whose lover walks out on him, yet he is "sure it will work out alright." Musically, the song is much simpler and more sparse than the rest of the album as it features only acoustic guitar and vocals. It was written by Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford while sitting on the steps of Island Studios. It became Collins's featured solo vocal spot on the Selling England by the Pound tour.
"The Battle of Epping Forest" was inspired, according to the liner notes, by a news story about two rival gangs' territorial battles. The lyrics play out as such, featuring characters such as "Mick the Prick" and "Bob the Nob" as they battle for turf in east London on a grand scale.
The song is characteristic for singer Peter Gabriel's changing of voices for different characters as well as the frequent changes in tempo and time signature. The song was performed live during the tour to support Selling England by the Pound, featuring Gabriel moving around the stage telling the story.
The band's feelings about the song are mixed. In Hugh Fielder's The Book of Genesis, the band members seem to agree that, although the song has a lot of good ideas, it suffers from having too many lyrics (some of which don't fit the background music) and an altogether too-busy arrangement, making it difficult to play live without mistakes being made. The song was dropped from the band's setlist after the "Selling England" tour.
"After the Ordeal" was written mainly by Hackett, with help from Rutherford. The first half is an up-tempo classical guitar piece with a majestic piano backing; the second half is a slower piece performed on electric guitar. Although Genesis never performed the song live, Hackett plays it on his acoustic trio tours as part of a medley in between Apocalypse in 9/8 (from "Supper's Ready") and "Hairless Heart." According to Banks, both he and Gabriel were against the inclusion of this song, and they had many arguments with Hackett about this issue. Although Hackett won out in this case, such disputes over his compositions would eventually lead him to quit the band four years later.
"The Cinema Show" is divided into two main sections. The first section is a gentle 12-string guitar-based piece, featuring vocal harmonies between Gabriel and Collins, as well as a short flute/oboe solo. Afterward, the song segues into a four-and-a-half minute keyboard solo by Banks on the ARP Pro Soloist,[3] with Rutherford and Collins laying down the rhythm in a 7/8 time signature. This solo was frequently integrated into the "In the Cage" medley that Genesis performed in later years. The song ends by switching back to 4/4 time and segueing into the following track, "Aisle of Plenty." In live performances of "The Cinema Show", however, "Aisle of Plenty" was not performed; instead, a new ending was added at the conclusion of the 7/8 section, as heard on the live album Seconds Out.
The lyrics, written by Banks and Rutherford, draw much of their inspiration from the T. S. Eliot poem The Waste Land. They refer to Romeo and Juliet (named after the famous Shakespearian characters Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet), who are separately readying themselves for their date at a cinema show. Romeo is entertaining high hopes for a sexual encounter with Juliet afterward. The chorus makes reference to Tiresias, a character from Greek mythology who had lived as both a man and a woman, and who concluded that women derive more pleasure from sex than men do.
"Aisle of Plenty" is not so much its own song as a reprise of "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight", with lyrics following the same thematic connections. This gives the album a book-end effect, a technique that had been popularized on then-recent albums by groups such as The Carpenters (on Offering and A Song for You), King Crimson (on In the Wake of Poseidon), and Simon & Garfunkel (on Bookends, an album which took its name from this technique). Genesis used it on later albums like A Trick of the Tail and Duke. The acoustic line that opens the song is repeated several times at the end of "The Cinema Show", thereby "connecting" the two tracks. This track is peppered with word play which may possibly escape those not familiar with the store names it references:
"Easy, love, there's the safeway home,
"Thankful for her fine fair discount, Tess co-operates...."
At the time, Fine Fare and Safeway were major grocery store chains in the UK, and both Tesco and the Co-op (The Co-operative Group), were, and still are, names of grocery stores. These lyrics are a pun because the word aisle is associated with grocery stores.
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Manufacturer: Charisma
Release date: 12 October 1973
EAN: 0075678267529 UPC: 075678267529
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