(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Fri 24 October 2025 3:00, UK
Too many cooks spoil the broth. It’s an adage that applies to both soup making and rock bands. Don’t believe me? Just ask Genesis.
Phil Collins was always destined to be a songwriter. His catalogue of work speaks for itself, but before anyone even knew his name, he was sitting in his room, penning ballads and trying to put future hits together. Granted, the majority of this early work has gone unheard by the people at large, but such rough drafts set the foundation that Collins would eventually build his entire career on.
Despite the fact that he was always keen on writing different songs, when he joined Genesis, he knew that there was no room for another vocal songwriter to fit into the band. It was clear to him that the members who joined before him were the chief songwriters and that if he tried to impose his creative vision too much, things simply wouldn’t work. Instead, Collins opted to put his talents elsewhere within the band.
“The spirit of Genesis was Tony, Mike and Peter,” said Collins when discussing the early days of working with Genesis. “I didn’t regard myself as a songwriter then. But there were things in Genesis I was highly influential in. My strength was arranging […] I was very into the first line-up of Yes – the one with [guitarist] Peter Banks. I remember listening to them and loving the way they took other people’s songs […] And did something different with them.”
Of course, while Collins might have originally taken a step back from songwriting duties within Genesis, he eventually found his voice as a writer within the band. A lot of musical outfits would look at such an array of talent with the most envious of eyes; however, for Genesis, so many voices ended up being a problem, as it was difficult for people to really get their point across and leave their mark on the band. Different creative opinions were constantly flying around, and with them came the inevitable conflict.
Steve Hackett had plenty of occasions where he threatened to leave the band if a song he was passionate about didn’t make it onto the record. This happened on the band’s 1973 album Selling England by the Pound, as Hackett had to essentially force the band to release what became one of the more successful songs on the record, ‘After The Ordeal’.
It certainly is an interesting song, one of the band’s more complex on the record. It’s entirely instrumental and doesn’t exactly come with any kind of repetition that listeners can latch onto. Instead, it’s a haphazard array of musical excellence, perfectly executed by every member of the band. It’s a real brandishing of the talent on show within Genesis, but given its sporadic nature, you can also understand why other members might have hesitated to include it on the record. Lucky for Genesis that Hackett forced them, as ‘After The Ordeal’ became one of the most loved tracks on the record.
“I had to threaten them to get ‘After The Ordeal’ on the album, as was so often the case in Genesis,” Hackett concluded. “If they weren’t going to include all of my ideas on it, if it was going to be expurgated, I was off. I don’t think anyone was expecting me to be quite so forthright at that point. I nailed my colours to the mast.”
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