![\"Phil](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Chris Walter\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
What was once a failed single from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway has somehow become one of the most beloved Genesis songs, reappearing again and again throughout the years<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d is far from the most famous Genesis song. If you play \u201cLand of Confusion,\u201d \u201cInvisible Touch,\u201d \u201cI Can\u2019t Dance,\u201d or \u201cFollow You Follow Me\u201d to very casual fans or anyone who paid attention to pop music between 1978 and 1991, they\u2019ll probably recognize them in an instant. \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d is likely to be met with blank stares. That\u2019s because it comes from 1975\u2019s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, years before the band broke through to mainstream success. It was released as a single all across the globe, and it charted exactly nowhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tIt has, however, had a very long and surprising afterlife, even if the band can\u2019t seem to decide whether to call it \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers,\u201d \u201cCarpet Crawlers,\u201d or \u201cThe Carpet Crawl.\u201d Phil Collins sang it for years after taking over the frontman position from Peter Gabriel, it remained in the setlist during the brief period in 1997\/98 when Ray Wilson fronted the group, and it\u2019s been revisited over and over again by various alumni from the band, onstage and in the studio. <\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Genesis staged what they thought was their last concert in 2007, and when they played their real last concert in 2022, barring a miracle, it was their closing number both times. Let\u2019s take a journey through its evolution, including some rather odd and obscure detours.<\/p>\n
\tThe Original Studio Recording<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Chris Walter\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is the most beloved rock opera of the progressive era, even if the story is so trippy and convoluted that most members of Genesis still have little idea what it\u2019s actually about. Written almost entirely be Peter Gabriel, it tells the tale of a half Puerto Rican gang member named Rael in New York City circa 1974, who gets sucked into an alternate universe, and has to find a way out. Along the way, he encounters strange creatures, including the dastardly \u201cDoktor Dyper,\u201d who castrates him, and places the removed appendage in a container around his neck. Before that traumatizing event, Rael enters a long corridor and sees a sea of people crawling toward a wooden door. These are, of course, the \u201cCarpet Crawlers\u201d from the title of the song.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tGenesis With Peter Gabriel, 1975<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michael Putland\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tGenesis made the rather brave decision to play The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in its entirety on every stop of their 1974\/75 tour, leaving only room at the end for a couple of older songs. Despite a minimal budget, Peter Gabriel still put together a dazzling stage show with multiple costume changes. Tragically, he didn\u2019t film even one of the 104 live performances. But several pristine recordings from the tour have emerged over the years. Check out a rendition of the song from a Jan. 11, 1975, concert at the Lakeland Civil Center in Lakeland, Florida. It\u2019s packed with still photographs of the tour, giving you a decent idea of what the show looked like.<\/p>\n
\tGenesis Live With Phil Collins, 1976<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michael Putland\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tMany songs from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway simply wouldn\u2019t work in a concert setting if played separate from the rest of the album. That\u2019s why they haven\u2019t attempted \u201cThe Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging,\u201d \u201cRiding yhe Scree,\u201d or \u201cHere Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist\u201d a single time since Gabriel quit the band in 1975. But they\u2019ve done \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d 411 times since, going all the way back to the first show with Phil Collins at the helm in 1976. The lyrics remain very esoteric (\u201cA salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed\/Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid\u201d), but there\u2019s a majesty to the tune that inspires arenas full of people to sing along, even if they\u2019re hearing it for the very first time.<\/p>\n
\tGenesis Live With Ray Wilson, 1998<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Rob Verhorst\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Phil Collins left Genesis in 1996, remaining members Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks didn\u2019t feel like ending the band, so they recruited Scottish singer Ray Wilson, cut a new album, Calling All Stations, and attempted to tour. Ticket sales were so weak in America that they had to cancel a planned theater tour, just six years after they were able to fill football stadiums. But they were still popular enough in Europe to gig all across the continent in 1998. With the exception of a one-off in 1992, the band hadn\u2019t touched \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d since 1984. But it came back every night of the tour, and Wilson handled it with ease. \u201cPhil\u2019s voice is like a trumpet,\u201d Wilson told Rolling Stone in 2022.<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s very staccato. Peter\u2019s voice is like a saxophone. It\u2019s very round and smooth. And then, of course, my voice is a bit more like Peter.\u201d<\/p>\n \t1975 Peter Gabriel\u2019s Trippy Duet With 1995 Peter Gabriel<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tAt the end of the Calling All Stations tour, Mike Rutherford decided to dissolve Genesis and focus his creative energy on his other band, Mike and the Mechanics. It was the end of Genesis as an ongoing creative unit. But just one month after the final show with Wilson, they began exploring their past with the release of the box set Genesis Archive 1967\u201375. It includes a complete live performance of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, though Peter Gabriel re-recorded many of his vocals in 1995, partially because his crazy costumes of the time made it hard to place a microphone near his face. The end result is an unintentionally surreal duet between 1975 Peter Gabriel and 1995 Peter Gabriel. His voice deepened considerably during that 20 year gap, so it\u2019s not hard to hear the edits.<\/p>\n \tThe 1999 Phil Collins\/Peter Gabriel Duet<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tGenesis Archive 1967\u201375 was assembled solely for the hardcore fans. The following year, at the tail end of the CD era, the band made a play for the softcore fans with the release of Turn It On Again: The Hits. It\u2019s a single disc that runs through most of their big hits, but it ends with a track called \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers 1999\u201d that features new vocals parts by Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. Originally, Ray Wilson was told he\u2019d be involved too. \u201cThey told me I was singing and dropped it and didn\u2019t tell me why,\u201d Wilson told World of Genesis in 2001. \u201cThere\u2019s been a few shitty things, but I didn\u2019t blame Mike and Tony for that. It\u2019s just the industry.\u201d Amazingly, despite everything that followed in the 2000s, \u201cCarpet Crawlers 99\u201d is the last time Genesis created anything new in the studio.\u00a0<\/p>\n \tThe Genesis Reunion Tour, 2007<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIn 2004, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford sat down in a room to see if a reunion tour was possible. When Gabriel realized it would require a substantive time commitment, he balked. But Collins wasn\u2019t unwilling to give up so easily, so he proposed the three-man lineup do their own tour. (Hackett would have been game, but he left before they scored any of their pop hits. It just wouldn\u2019t have made sense.) It took three years to pull off, but Genesis brought their Turn It On Again tour to arenas and stadiums all across North America and Europe in 2007. Every night ended with \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers.\u201d At the time, Collins truly had no reason to think they\u2019d ever play again, and he turned down very lucrative offers to bring the tour to more international markets in 2008. It made the Oct. 13, 2007, show very emotional. And even though they did play again many years later, this was drummer Chester Thompson\u2019s last gig with Genesis.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \tNick D\u2019Virgilio, 1998<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIt\u2019s a slight stretch to call Nick D\u2019Virgilio a former member of Genesis. The one-time Spock\u2019s Beard member never toured with the band, and his studio work is limited to just three-and-a-half songs on Calling All Stations, the most maligned album in their catalog. But those are three-and-a-half genuine Genesis songs on a genuine Genesis album. That\u2019s enough to get his name onto the Genesis Wikipedia page. It was also enough for the producers of the 1998 tribute album Rewiring Genesis: A Tribute to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Project. They let D\u2019Virgilio and singer Mark Hornsby contribute their own spin on \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d to the album.<\/p>\n \tSteve Hackett With Ray Wilson, 2013<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tGenesis may have disinvited Ray Wilson from participating in their new version of \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d in 1999. But Steve Hackett righted that wrong in 2013 when he created Genesis Revisited II \u2014 the sequel to his 1996 LP Genesis Revisited \u2014 and asked Wilson to sing \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers.\u201d He was part of a large group of guest singers on the album that also included Nik Kershaw, Steven Wilson, and Simon Collins, Phil\u2019s eldest son.<\/p>\n \tThe Musical Box, 2013<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe versions of \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d on this list were all recorded by various members of Genesis, even if Nick D\u2019Virgilio is as tertiary as it gets. But we\u2019d be greatly remiss if we didn\u2019t spotlight the tremendous work of The Musical Box, who have spent the past 35 years painstakingly recreating vintage Genesis concerts down to the tiniest possible details. To call them the world\u2019s best Genesis tribute band is an insane understatement. That\u2019s like calling Mount Rushmore the best monument to great American presidents on a mountain in South Dakota. There is nothing that comes even remotely close. They are on a very rare tribute tour to the 1976-80 Phil Collins era <\/a>right now, but will surely be back to the land of Gabriel very soon.<\/p>\n \tSteve Hackett With Nad Sylvan, 2014<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tSteve Hackett not only recorded two albums of re-recorded Genesis songs, but he\u2019s spent the past 13 years playing them at theaters all across the globe. It\u2019s been a tremendous gift to the Genesis fan community since the four other classic-era members have zero interest in playing any of the old songs. (Gabriel hasn\u2019t played more than a snippet of a Genesis song<\/a> in public since 1983 when he guested at a Hackett show and was coaxed into a completely impromptu \u201cI Know What I Like.\u201d<\/a> He last sang \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d in 1982 at the \u201cSix of the Best\u201d Genesis reunion concert,<\/a> a show he played very reluctantly since he was deep in debt following the financially disastrous WOMAD concert.) Hackett has used Swedish vocalist Nad Sylvan at his solo shows, and he does a stellar job with the Gabriel vocal parts. In 2025, they did a Lamb Lies Down on Broadway 50th anniversary tour. They didn\u2019t do the entire double album, but of course \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers\u201d was in the set.<\/p>\n \tThe Genesis Farewell Tour, 2022<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tFor many years following the 2007 Turn It On Again tour, it seemed like Genesis were destined to stay forever in the off position. Phil Collins was retired and living largely off the pop-culture grid, battling alcoholism, severe nerve damage that made it impossible for him to play the drums, and some rather messy family drama. But he started playing solo shows again in 2017, even though he had to sit on a chair all night, and it seemed like only a matter of time before Genesis came back for a victory lap. The pandemic delayed things a bit, but Genesis finally returned in late 2021. Collins still wasn\u2019t able to play drums, but his very talented son Nic took his spot behind the kit. Like in 2007, they closed out every show with \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers,\u201d though this time they sprinkled a bit of \u201cDancing With Tte Moonlit Knight\u201d at the beginning. The tour ended March 26, 2022, at the 02 Arena in London, and Gabriel himself showed up to say goodbye to the band he started with his high school buddies 55 years earlier. If real life were a movie, he would have gotten onstage and duetted with Collins on \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers.\u201d But he remained in the audience. Fans continue to fantasize about a Genesis tour with Gabriel, Hackett, Banks, Rutherford, and Nic Collins, with Phil Collins perhaps on background vocals. But it\u2019s unlikely to ever happen. The group almost certainly ended at the 02 Arena as Collins sang \u201cThe Carpet Crawlers,\u201d and Gabriel watched with the fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What was once a failed single from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway has somehow become one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,33439,157,111,139,69,236653,47845],"class_list":["post-551386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-genesis","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peter-gabriel","tag-phil-collins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic, Inc\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Andrew Lepley\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: David Wolff – Patrick\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Stefan M. Prager\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Stefan M. Prager\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: David Wolff-Patrick\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n