What I heard about the song is it's Phil (or the storyteller) noting that a friend watched someone drown in a lake and did not offer to help. My first girlfriend was a big Genesis/Phil Collins fan, and according to something she had heard 'In the Air Tonite' was inspired by Phil finding his then-wife in bed with another man at a party they were attending. The show the guy in question killed himself. Probably looked like a spotlite was on him). (1994)ĭefinitely TRUE (except the part about the spotlite, although he was in the front row. The guy's wife divorces him, he loses his job, etc. One version of this story even has Phil doing detective work to find the identity of the bystander, inviting him to a concert for free (without revealing why), and then humiliating him in front of a huge crowd. The other man apparently could have done something to save the drowning person, but didn't. (1993)Įvery once in a while, I'll hear someone mention that there is a story behind the Phil Collins song "In the air tonight."Īt any rate Phil supposedly wrote this song after watching another man watch someone drown. same guy that he'd seen rape a girl in an alley. Encompassing adultery, rape, murder, drowning, and the dramatic exposure of a reprehensible wrongdoer (resulting in an arrest or suicide), the narratives all include despicable acts either witnessed by Phil Collins or visited upon him and his family (or friends), inspiring the musician to exact a form of revenge by encapsulating the experience in the lyrics of a song: The congregation could join in halfway through the first stanza, or at the beginning of the second, or the choir could continue with a choral arrangement such as “There's a Song in the Air.” Another choral setting that uses two choirs (SATB and children's) would work well is “Silent Stars,” which combines Holland's text and Harrington's tune with an original text and tune by Joel Raney in a simple yet moving arrangement.Of all pop songs for which elaborate, apocryphal backstories have been created to explicate the lyrics, Phil Collins' 1981 hit, "In the Air Tonight" (from his Face Value album), has perhaps the most varied and fantastic set of legends associated with it. One effective way to use the hymn is to depict the “song in the air” by having the choir, or part of it, begin singing from an unusual, unseen location in or near the sanctuary. Harrington gave expressive tempo markings for this tune, indicating that the first half of the tune was to be sung Andante con moto, followed by a short ritardando, and the second half at piu mosso, with a longer ritardando to close the song. Three musical settings were given for that text, of which CHRISTMAS SONG was the second. Harrington, who was a music editor for the 1905 Methodist Hymnal, where the text was first published. The most common tune for this text, CHRISTMAS SONG, was written in 1904 by Karl P. The response of humankind is the theme of the final stanza, as “we greet in his cradle our Savior and King.” Tune: These three also mention the star (Matthew 2:1-12). The third stanza speaks to the far-reaching implications of this birth of the King. The second halves of both are nearly identical. The first two stanzas are about the song of the angels that announced to the world the birth of the new King of kings. Most hymnals include all four stanzas with little to no alteration. It did not appear in a hymnal until 1905, when it was published in the Methodist Hymnal. Giffe's The Brilliant, a Sunday school songbook published in 1874. Holland is the author of this text, which first appeared in W.
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