Genesis - No Reply at All

Too stubborn to say the buck stops here

"Genesis - Live in London - 25th March 2022 - The Final Domino tour" by kitmasterbloke is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I get a lot of Genesis and Phil Collins earworms.

You might guess — correctly — that “Sussudio” is the song that appears unbidden the most. This would be followed in no particular order by:

• “Illegal Alien” (it ain’t no fun being an uninvited song)

• “In Too Deep” (a bit too on the nose for an earworm title)

• “Against All Odds” (this was especially bad when I was watching American Idol)

• “Another Day in Paradise” (don’t think twice, or thrice, or…)

• and a half dozen others I’ll save for future posts (including this one)

I get so many earworms, in fact, that the 2nd piece I ever wrote for this newsletter, back in May of 2022, featured Mr. Collins (dueting with another famous Phil — Bailey, of Earth, Wind and Fire). You can visit or revisit that piece below:

No Reply At All (Old-School Ghosting)

Back when I was single, 19-plus years ago, I used to have a recurring dream.

In every variation of this dream, my dream self suddenly realizes, in a panic, that he’s forgotten he’d been dating someone and it’d been weeks since he’d called her, let alone thought about her.

The dream me couldn’t — not for the life of me — remember who this unmemorable woman was. Or even what she looked or acted like. Was she short, tall, skinny, voluptuous, funny, serious, mysterious, brutally honest? All I could be sure of was that I was the one who messed it all up. That whatever had happened was all my fault.

It’s been two decades since I’ve experienced these dreams, so the details are fuzzy. But writing it all down now, I can feel my body tightening, my muscles clenching, my skin beginning to perspire. The guilt, the shame, the sadness — it all comes rushing back. My dream self ghosting my dream lover — a woman I somehow completely forgot I had feelings for.

It all sounds like the backdrop to a Phil Collins-era Genesis song.

Photo by Dalton Smith on Unsplash

from Oxford Language Dictionary

“Ghosting” was years away from becoming part of the cultural lexicon in the ‘90s and early 2000s. But the act of disappearing on another person without so much as a spoken or written word is as old as speech and paper.

In fact, ghosting, as defined above, was much easier to accomplish before the advent of smartphones and social media. All we had to do was not call a person back. Ever. Just ignore their voicemails or answering machine messages. We didn’t need to create a word for it. We had several excellent ones already. Asshole. Fuckwad. Selfish bastard. Okay, that’s two words.

And if we were on the receiving end of said fuckwad/asshole/bastard, we would commiserate with our friends, who would respond by setting us up on a date with someone new. In other words, we would move on. Unless this someone new also was an asswad/fuckhole. And if that was the case, we’d ghost our friends to find ones who didn’t set us up with losers.

Now that we have texting and social media, ghosting another person takes a lot more effort and conscious planning. You can’t just accidentally forget about someone like dream-me. You have to unfriend, unfollow, and untag them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (I mean X). I’m old, so I figure there are a dozen other social media steps a person has to follow to fully and properly ghost someone. Part of me has an unhealthy admiration for those who are able to effectively ghost. It requires premeditation. It’s literally the opposite of stalking yet has a lot of the same obsessive qualities.

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A common response to the proliferation of ghosting (at least in the articles and essays I’ve read — usually from older people) is that Millennials and Gen Z’ers, because of their addiction to their phones and devices, are no longer able to talk openly and honestly to one another. That difficult, confusing, and conflicted feelings are too much to handle and simply extricating oneself from a situation is preferable to facing it. That verbal, face-to-face communication skills are going the way of the dodo bird.

Perhaps this is true for some people. But has this not always been the case? There has always been a percentage of the populace that lacks social skills.

I’m not saying that those who’ve spent their whole lives with a device in their faces aren’t at a disadvantage when navigating the world of in-person communication. They probably are.

If the adage “practice makes perfect” is still true, then it would make sense that people who mainly communicate with their fingers will be less skilled at verbal communication than people who communicate regularly with their voices.

Interpersonal communication skills (aka verbal), it seems to me, need to be given as much attention in school as computer-programming classes.

There I go again. GenX dude offering his unsolicited advice.

Well, it’s my Substack and I’ll diatribe if I want to.

What Excuse Are You Trying to Sell Me?

Another controversial opinion I offer is this:

The rock band Genesis got better after Peter Gabriel left.

As a progressive rock megafan (see previous post on this topic) it pains me to admit that Peter Gabriel-era Genesis never did much for me.

This makes no logical sense, as I love Peter Gabriel’s first seven solo albums and have a soft spot for bombastic, conceptual albums (especially double-albums). If you were to examine my record collection, you would find the first eleven Yes albums (includingTales of Topographic Oceans), Soft Machine’s Third, and every Pink Floyd and King Crimson album (through the mid ‘80s).

Yet the only Genesis albums you’ll find are from the 1980s. Yes, I know that Peter Gabriel left after The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and that Phil Collins took over vocal duties on three studio albums (and one live one) during the 1970s, but for me, it was Duke, in 1980, that marked the point where Phil’s true influence took hold, and where I found my way to appreciating Genesis.

“Misunderstanding,” “Turn it On Again” and “Man of Our Times” are brilliant songs, full stop. Are they prog? Who cares. There are plenty of prog elements throughout Duke, which on some days is my favorite Genesis album.

But most days, including today, my favorite album is their next release, Abacab.

This is partly due to timing, as Abacab came out at the same time as a new music video cable channel called MTV. You may have heard of it.

I remember the video for “No Reply at All” playing seemingly every hour on the channel. I still get a kick out of Phil, Mike (Rutherford), and Tony (Banks) goofing around, playing/miming all the instruments on the song, including the fantastic horn section — performed IRL by the Earth Wind & Fire horns.

Also — and this is important — this was the first time I realized that Phil Collins played his drum kit left-handed. As a fellow southpaw, seeing this gave me the belief that I could one day play a drum kit. I couldn’t recall having seen another lefty drummer before Phil. I’m sure there are/were others — but all the lefty percussionists I knew learned how to play righty. They had to, as often, at live gigs, the drummers for all the bands on a lineup would use the same kit. Flipping the drums lefty was simply not done. Raising and lowering cymbals to a more appropriate height was tolerated, but even that might evoke the stink eye from the owner of the kit (often the drummer from the opening act — who always had to stay until the end of the show and pack up their drums by themselves).

I recently read the excellent Phil Collins autobiography, “I’m Not Dead Yet” (read it now, while it’s still true) and I don’t believe he mentioned having to rearrange his kit to accommodate other drummers. I could be wrong.

I could sing the praises of Abacab all day. I could blab on and on about the perfection of the groovy, keyboard-heavy title track. I could talk your ear off about how Abacab solidified Genesis’ new musical identity. I could riff on the greatness of side two, how the 1-2-3 punch of “Dodo/Lurker,” “Who Dunnit?” and “Man on the Corner” show a band at their peak creative powers.

But I have a feeling Genesis/Phil Collins are going to return to Earworms and Song Loops again before long and I want to save some of my wisdom for that fine day.

• “Ghosting” — thoughts? Is it really anything new? Have you done it? Had it happen to you?

• Do you have a favorite Genesis song?

• Abacab is seriously underrated, am I right?

• Which excellent lefty drummers — in any genre of music — can you name? Do any of them set up their kit lefty?

Thanks for reading!

Steve