The Stereo Lounge

(Click here for Parts 10, 9, 8, 7,  6, 4, 3, 2 and 1)

NUMBER  5

FAMILY SNAPSHOT – (Peter Gabriel) – 1980

Peter  Gabriel  is an artist who grew up in public. His early work with Genesis could have been racked in the Children’s Music section of your local Tower Records.  His lyrics mostly resided in the fantasy world of knights, giant hogweeds, and wolf kings; culminating with his  urban fairy tale, “Lamb Lies Down On Broadway”.  He then left Genesis to find himself as a person and artist. However, his predilection for storytelling remained.  ”Family Snapshot” is his most chilling piece of work. Also, one of his finest. He probes the mind of a political assassin and the mechanics of  the killing in dispassionate methodical detail. Parallels to the Kennedy assassination are easy to draw and impossible to ignore. This epic “story song” is a glimpse into what might have been going on behind the “grassy knoll” oh so many years ago in 1963. A YouTube video of this tune matched to the “Magruder” film exists, but it’s a tough view.  More palatable is his “Amnesty International” performance.