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Thread: GENESIS - SNOWBOUND

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    Member beano's Avatar
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    GENESIS - SNOWBOUND



    Very relevant this time of year, especially for myself, built a snowman with my upstairs neighbor during our last snowfall....But this song has been ingrained on my mind since when I heard it during a snowstorm driving home from work in my 1969 Plymouth satellite in 1980...

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    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by beano View Post
    1969 Plymouth satellite
    Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes

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    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
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    Sure to have its detractors, but I have a fondness for it. I love the mood and feel of this album. In fact, chop off "Follow You Follow Me" so the album ends with that awesome "Lady Lies" outtro, and replace "Ballad Of Big" with "The Day The Light Went Out", and we're really talkin'!
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  4. #4
    I remember reading that the lyrics for Snowbound are about hiding a dead body in a snowman.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Progatron View Post
    Sure to have its detractors, but I have a fondness for it. I love the mood and feel of this album. In fact, chop off "Follow You Follow Me" so the album ends with that awesome "Lady Lies" outtro, and replace "Ballad Of Big" with "The Day The Light Went Out", and we're really talkin'!
    I agree that Lady Lies should have been the closer (love the piano during the outtro) but Follow You is still a good song ( the flanger guitar intro and Tony's solo are great). I also like Ballad of Big over Day the Lights Went Out. I'd ditch Scenes From A Night's Dream due to its "tweeness" though. Would have been a great double single with Circus of Heaven. I mean, were Genesis and Yes deliberately trying to be not cool in 1978?? Just compare those 1978 albums to Van Halen 1.

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    Such a weird, transitional album. IMO "Scenes From A Night's Dream" is so obviously "All In A Mouse's Night" Pt. 2, and "Deep in the Motherlode" is "Eleventh Earl of Mar" Pt. 2. Both songs I like, but they do stick out.

    "Snowbound" is closer to the spirit of the entire album for me -- somewhat moribund, wistful and stuffy. A pretty song, but suffocated by the production and Tony Banks overcompensating for the lack of Steve Hackett.

    "Follow You Follow Me" clearly pointed the way to the future, and in some ways Duke repeats some of the characteristics of ...And Then There Were Three, but with more balls, conviction, and a much better sound.
    I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.

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    One of my favorites from the album. I never paid that much attention to the lyrics but that's quite interesting. You don't even want to know what "Mama" is about. LOL.

    Ok, now how about Black Sabbath's "snow blind." Yeah I know that's about a different kind of snow.
    Last edited by Digital_Man; 02-13-2014 at 02:05 AM.
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    Last of the three 'Tony Banks' albums, my fav part of Genesis. Plz no flames! After ATTW3, TB never had the same amount of freedom as the songwriting credits were evenly spread out after this. I think that's why some of the songs that a large portion of the people here believe were left off some of the albums and lesser songs were included. Snowbound is real a real good song and as Paulrus says, a wistful one. I also agree that the production should have been better. Lots of time for this song and album.

    BTW, 6 to 10 inches predicted in this storm and I'm tired of this crap. Kill the damn groundhog that predicted 6 more weeks of winter!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Paulrus View Post
    IMO "Scenes From A Night's Dream" is so obviously "All In A Mouse's Night" Pt. 2
    And All In A Mouse's Night is Robbery, Assault, And Battery which is The Battle Of Epping Forrest which is Harold The Barrel.

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    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tangram View Post
    Last of the three 'Tony Banks' albums, my fav part of Genesis. Plz no flames! After ATTW3, TB never had the same amount of freedom as the songwriting credits were evenly spread out after this. I think that's why some of the songs that a large portion of the people here believe were left off some of the albums and lesser songs were included. Snowbound is real a real good song and as Paulrus says, a wistful one. I also agree that the production should have been better. Lots of time for this song and album.

    BTW, 6 to 10 inches predicted in this storm and I'm tired of this crap. Kill the damn groundhog that predicted 6 more weeks of winter!
    I really didn't like ATTWT for decades, but after listening to it again for my ProgArchives review, I must admit that it is an allright album after all, except for FYFM.... Definitely not nearly as good as the previous two.... But on par with Duke, I'd say (though I disliked Duke for much fewer years)


    I'd say that it's not that Tony wasn't allowed more space in future albums, but he had to recognize that both Phil and Mike wrote miore 'sellable" music than he did... Remember that of the five classic Gen members, Banks is the only one that never had a major hit (even Hackett did with that soundtrack and GTR)

    PS: send the grounhog over in Wetern Europe, we haven't had the slightest bit of snow (except up high in the mountains) all along the coast line (thanks to your winter, say the meteorologists)
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

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    Love it, great song.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trane View Post
    I really didn't like ATTWT for decades, but after listening to it again for my ProgArchives review, I must admit that it is an allright album after all, except for FYFM.... Definitely not nearly as good as the previous two.... But on par with Duke, I'd say (though I disliked Duke for much fewer years)


    I'd say that it's not that Tony wasn't allowed more space in future albums, but he had to recognize that both Phil and Mike wrote miore 'sellable" music than he did... Remember that of the five classic Gen members, Banks is the only one that never had a major hit (even Hackett did with that soundtrack and GTR)

    PS: send the grounhog over in Wetern Europe, we haven't had the slightest bit of snow (except up high in the mountains) all along the coast line (thanks to your winter, say the meteorologists)

    Different strokes... I always was a big fan of ATTW3. It took years to warm up to Duke. I always thought it had a couple of good songs and a killer ending, but as I got older I really began to appreciate songs like Duchess, Please Don't Ask and especially Heathaze.. Each song better than the one before.

    On the whole, PC and MR wrote more radio friendly songs, but even when Banks did, he blew it. I thought I'll Be Waiting and That Night were made for a good video, and he would have had his hits in the days when MTV ruled. The only video of his I can remember is the one with Fish and they were riding bikes. Cringeworthy, although I liked the song.

    Where do you want the groundhog mailed? The snow is really coming down and the back is not happy about another round of shoveling.

  13. #13
    Count me in as one who thought this was a wonderful addition to ATTWT album.. sure they "borrowed" from previous songs to pull this one together.. nothing wrong with that..

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    Always loved this one, has some of the same vibe as 'Ripples' for me.

    The album is largely strong, but has a couple of lesser songs on it, I think. 'Ballad Of Big' and 'Scenes From A Night's Dream' have never been favourites of mine...I don't skip past them or anything but I don't think the album would have lost anything had they not been there. 'The Lady Lies' over time I began to cool on slightly- great musically, especially that keyboard break in the middle and the piano-heavy ending, but the lyric is somewhat twee and I see why they moved away from that style.

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    Perfect song for today. Count me as a major fan of this album. I think it's the best of both worlds, still a very proggy affair, but with some more mainstream rock and even pop touches here and there. Still quite adventurous, and the keyboards are superb. And I LOVE FYFM, though I might not have ended the album with it. No matter, I can spin this in any order I like. I think some Genesis fans are bugged by FYFM because it was the first US top 40 hit for Genesis, and the song that got them on US radio in a big way. I just look at it as a great song. Catchy as all hell, and with a pretty synth solo near the end. I think my favorites on this album are Deep In the Motherload and Burning Rope. I will have to spin this album later today. Can't now, have some ripping Kenso blasting away.

  16. #16
    I'm with those who didn't like the album when it first came out but have come to appreciate it. It didn't feel like a Genesis album to me. But it beats the $#!T out of what was to come.
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  17. #17
    LOOK.

    THERE'S A SNOWMAN.
    flute juice

  18. #18
    RE: post #4. Correct!
    Sleeping at home is killing the hotel business!

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by arise_shine View Post
    LOOK.

    THERE'S A SNOWMAN.

  20. #20
    Member bill g's Avatar
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    I think it is good but not great. The song would benefit hugely by an instrumental passage-something heartwrenching like that in 'Ripples'. The saving grace for me is the 3 Banks tunes, Burning Rope, Lady Lies and Undertow (which also mentions snow, of course). Still there is a strong mood to much of this album, even in tracks like Ballad of Big. But pastoral instrumental breaks throughout this album would have made it great!!

    Very interesting about the lyrics to Snowbound. I knew there was something deep in there, and admittedly didn't imagine it was about hiding a dead body.

  21. #21
    Beautiful song and a great performance by all involved.

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    I did listen to this whole album today -I rarely listen to anything from start to finish. Still like it a lot, and on this spin found myself being floored by the Lady Lies, the piano work gets me every time, great stuff. And I did have to replay the FYFM key solo, never get tired of that in all it's simplistic glory.

  23. #23
    I found the below quote on one the many song meaning web sites. I definitely recall Rutherford saying the song was about hiding a body in a snowman, not about someone who died and covered in snow - either way it's a very macabre story (and I like the song better than just saying "ooo there's a snowman"

    "This is (to me) great example of the visual storytelling ability of many of the earlier Genesis songs. It has a rather Grimm's feel to me, in that the storyteller is describing a traveler who chooses a poor night to sleep outside and is encased by an unexpected winter snowstorm and subsequently dies during the night from exposure. The local children arrive in the morning to play, ("here they come to play their magc games") only to discover a "snowman" on their playground. What follows is something best left to the imagination ('Here in a ball that they made/ From the snow on the ground,/ See it rolling away/ Wild eyes to the sky") or within the confines of a horror movie scriptwriter's mind. The score is gentle and soothing, but the story is anything but..."

  24. #24
    Member beano's Avatar
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    P2060121.jpg

    The Snowman I built last snowstorm with my upstairs neighbor..It was her 1st time building a snowman!! Since starting this thread have probably listened to the song 5 times...Good times..

  25. #25
    Since Hackett is running out of material for another Genesis Revisited, wouldn't it make sense for him to tackle some songs after he'd left Genesis and show how things might have sounded had he stayed. This would be a perfect song for such an experiment. --Peter (who had to ditch his car 1/2 mile from home yesterday, but at least it's in the neighborhood and not on a public road)

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