{"id":150039,"date":"2025-09-20T22:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/150039\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T22:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:23:11","slug":"the-notes-peter-gabriel-said-he-couldnt-sing-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/150039\/","title":{"rendered":"The notes Peter Gabriel said he couldn’t sing anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Peter<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Nadav Kander)<\/p>\n

Sat 20 September 2025 13:30, UK <\/p>\n

It\u2019s natural for an artist like Peter Gabriel<\/a> to take some liberties every time they perform. <\/p>\n

As much as people like the idea of hearing tunes that sound exactly like the record, it can get a bit monotonous when artists are being forced to play everything in lockstep with the way they recorded it decades before. But even with Gabriel trying out new avenues whenever he performs, he admitted that there are bound to be a few songs fans will never be able to hear the same way again.<\/p>\n

Then again, the idea of Gabriel wearing the same kind of strange get-ups that he wore in Genesis might be best left in the past. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a fantastic concept record, but when the costume starts getting in the way of what the person is actually singing, it\u2019s probably time for everyone to take a step back and either retire the song or use less theatrics.<\/p>\n

But Gabriel never liked the idea of putting on a \u201cnormal\u201d show. Even in his solo career, he wanted the chance to reach out for any strange musical idea he had, and while no one could judge him, a funny thing happened once he reached the 1980s. He was still as eccentric as ever, but people actually started to get his tunes onto the pop charts. <\/p>\n

\u2018Shock the Monkey\u2019 and \u2018Solsbury Hill\u2019 were already massive hits for him, but So is the perfect blend of prog and pop that the world needed. Invisible Touch helped bring Genesis to the top of the charts around the same time, but Gabriel was by far the more adventurous one. A track like \u2018Invisible Touch\u2019 is tailor-made for the charts, but it\u2019s strange to think that a track like \u2018Big Time\u2019 found its way to the top while having the strangest elements running throughout it.<\/p>\n

No matter what Gabriel did, though, songs like \u2018Don\u2019t Give Up\u2019 defied categorisation. There had been loads of tunes that helped empower people, but when singing about a couple dealing with the idea of one of them losing a job, Kate Bush\u2019s voice<\/a> on the record is the perfect antidote to everyone\u2019s problems, practically serving as a warm hug, the same way that she does in the music video.<\/p>\n

While Gabriel remained incredibly proud of the record, he also admitted that there was no chance of him performing those high notes again, saying, \u201cI used falsetto rather than full voice in some bits. There\u2019s a particular high note on \u2018Don\u2019t Give Up\u2019. But I think my voice has probably dropped a tone, and most of the songs that have high notes, I\u2019ve had to lower a tone for the set. On the other hand, you get given some notes down the bottom end. You only have to look at people like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen, who have done more with their old voice than they were able to do with their youthful voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even if he had to drop some notes, that lower register does leave the door open for his other strange parts to make their way into his set. \u2018Mercy Street\u2019 was made with that lower octave running throughout the tune, and if that gave the frontman a lot of trouble in the early years, perhaps he would be able to hit those kinds of notes now that he had a bit more years of experience in his voice.<\/p>\n

Whether he drops the notes forever or only pulls them out for special occasions, though, we should all be so lucky that he was able to lay them down in the first place. Gabriel is always free to toy around with what made his songs work in the first place, but losing different parts of his masterpieces is only a small price for people to pay whenever they see him perform live.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Nadav Kander) Sat 20 September 2025 13:30, UK It\u2019s natural for an artist like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,25298,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-150039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-peter-gabriel","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}