Since Peter changes tone from album to album, hell, even in the middle of an album, the complexity is increased almost exponentially. The process for writing and recording an album is an involved one. Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour adds vocals in his native Woolof at the end of the song, showing the most obvious African influences on Peter and his songwriting. Tony Levin, who normally gets to do some really cutting edge bass work in a Peter Gabriel song, puts ego aside and spends almost the entire song as the very bottom of his fretless bass, only occasionally showing those flashes of the standard Tony Levin brilliance. David Rhodes plays the crisp guitar lines in the preludes to the chorus. Katché weaves in African drums (with a matching African rhythm), hand cymbals and even traditional rock drums to lay a multifaceted yet solid rhythmic base the rest of the instruments can build upon. It starts with Peter's simple keyboards which are paired with Manu Katché's intricate percussive rhythms.
Melding flawlessly with the touching lyrics is an equally complex musical arrangement.
This song says the sings we wished we would’ve said at just the right moment to the one we hold dear, or give us the hope that we will have someone, someday, to whom we can play this song. As a last resort, he comes to her house, stands outside while holding a boom box over his head, playing "In Your Eyes." The music wafts down the hillside, saying the things he's tried to say, but has failed to come up with on his own. In the movie, about a complex teenage relationship, John Cusack's Lloyd Dobler has run out of words to try and convince Diane that breaking up with him was a mistake. That desire comes across perfectly in Cameron Crowe's directorial debut, Say Anything. That's the great power of music - it can inspire us to do more, be more. At sixteen, I knew I couldn't do this yet, but the song made me want to. In just those four lines, he sums up the modern man's struggle to put aside the conventions that men need to be strong and reserved, which conflicts with their desire to show true emotions to the women they love. The way Peter sums up the complex emotions involved in a serious adult relationship are nothing short of poetic. It was a relationship that was difficult, complicated, heartfelt and passionate. Peter wrote it during his long romance with actress Rosanna Arquette*. "In Your Eyes" is a song about a real relationship. He formed the words that I knew would some day be in my heart, and God knows I would never be able to wrench them out like this: And even though I was only sixteen when it came out, it was something that I could aspire to. For me, Gabriel's song, "In Your Eyes" was the first love song I heard that wasn't just a sappy "how many different ways can I say I love you" love song. Throughout the ages, how many of us hapless males have used the words of the more talented to woo the fairer sex? From our forefathers quoting Shakespeare, Frost and Dickinson to the more modern poets of Dylan, Lennon/McCartney and Peter Gabriel.
Um." You smile, tell us we're cute, and give us a sympathy hug.Īnd this isn't a new phenomenon. You're the chocolate to my peanut butter, um, or the peanut butter to my chocolate, you know, whichever works better for you. Something along the lines of, "You're so special to me. We want to - desperately, but it ends up coming out pretty lame most of the time. Especially if you're talking about us guys, we generally don't have the emotional depth and complexity to fully express what our heart is telling us to tell you. Most of us need Hallmark cards to find the right words to sum up our relationship. Most of us aren't fancy poets who can shower our lovers with earnest words that make their heart swoon.