My wife got us tickets to see a Genesis tribute band (The Genesis Show) tomorrow night, and apparently their current set list focuses mostly on the Wind and Wuthering and Seconds Out albums. So I was listening to those two albums this morning as a warmup, and it occurred to me that I've never understood what Phil's saying in half the lyrics to "Blood on the Rooftops".
A little Googling turned up the lyrics, and they mostly make sense to me - sort of a commentary on people who don't want to be bothered with the world's bad/depressing/confusing news but would rather just sit back with a glass of wine or beer and watch Batman or Tarzan.
There are a few British references that went over my head (the Wednesday Play, grime on the Tyne, etc). More Googling explained those, but the one line that no one seems to get is "When old Mother Goose stops, and they're out for 23". What the heck does that mean?
I'm not sure I entirely get the bit about "The trouble was started by a young Errol Flynn" and "Seems Helen of Troy has found a new face again", but it's that "out for 23" that I'm really puzzling over.
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