What Peter Gabriel had to say when interviewed about the song.
“The first sequence was about a scene that happened between me and Jill…. It was one night at Jill’s parents’ house in Kensington, when everyone had gone to bed… we just stared at each other, and strange things began to happen. We saw other faces in each other, and… I was very frightened, in fact. It was almost as if something else had come in to us, and was using us as a meeting point.
“It was late at night, and we were tired and all the rest, so it was quite easy for us to hallucinate or whatever… we hadn’t been drinking or drugging, but… hmmmm… And there was a thing later on when Jill suddenly became a medium. Fortunately, it hasn’t happened since, because it terrified her, and me in a sense, because she started spouting in a different voice. We were with John Anthony… and this girl who was an old girlfriend of John was trying to get back at him or something, and she was into magic and that sort of thing. And Jill started speaking in this voice, and it is very strange when someone you live with starts talking with another voice.
“We’d just been talking with John… There’s this strange room in the house in Kensington… I can never sleep there. It was decorated in turquoise and purple, which are colours that are both in the high frequency range, and I think that it was like an echo chamber for what was going on. The curtain flew wide open, though there was no wind. And I did feel that I saw figures outside. It was just like a Hammer horror film, except that it was for real… I was shaking like a leaf, and in a cold sweat. And eventually I made a cross with a candlestick and something and held it up to jill when she was talking in this voice”
“Anyway, that’s how I got into thinking about good and evil, and forces working against each other. That’s the sort of thing that ‘Supper’s Ready’ was… fed on. This was the thing you see. This is why I put into this state of mind really, only because the cross had worked. Ther cross, as a thing, meant nothing to me. I did it because I had seen horror films, and… just anything really that might have worked.
“Often I felt that I could talk to the audience through the band’s material, and the audience would understand what I was trying to say, and I would have a release, and a conversation with the audience through that. I was singing my heart out there when I used to sing the ‘New Jerusalem’… I was singing for my life. I was saying this is good over evil, and… you know it was an old fashioned gesture, but I meant it, and I was fighting”.
The Introductory Story
Some people may remember that Peter Gabriel used to tell a story before singing some songs – Supper’s Ready certainly didn’t miss out on this treatment. Here’s a transcript of the story as told in 1973 at the Rainbow.
“Old Henry went past the pet shop which was never open, into the park which was never closed, and the park was full of a very smooth, clean, green grass. So Henry took off all his clothes and began rubbing his flesh into the wet, clean, green grass. He accompanied himself with a little tune – it went like this….
“Beneath the ground the dirty brown writhing things called worms interpreted the pitter patter from above as rainfall. Rainfall in worm world means two things, mating and bath time. Both of these experiences were thouroughly enjoyable to the worm colony. Within seconds the entire surface of the park was a mass of dirty, brown, soggy, writhing forms. He was still pleased, old Michael and he began whistling a tune this time to accompany himself……
“Jerusalem Boogie to us perhaps, but to the birds it meant that supper was ready….”
Press play to hear a snippet from this story!
Yes, I know it changes from Henry to Michael but hey, I didn’t write it!!
Interestingly enough the recording I have of this gig (made on October 20 1973) includes the fact that Phil Collins (on drums of course!) forgets to start playing when the first tune is reached!!
i) Lovers Leap
In which two lovers are lost in each other’s eyes, and found again transformed in the bodies of another male and female.
ii) The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man
The lovers come across a town dominated by two characters: one a benevolent farmer, and the other the head of a highly disciplined scientific religion. The latter likes to be known as “The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man” and claims to contain a secret new ingredient capable of fighting fire. This is a falsehood, an untruth, a whopper and a taradiddle, or to put it in clearer terms; a lie.
iii) Ikhnaton and its-a-con and their band of merry men
Who the lovers see clad in greys and purples, awaiting to be summoned out of the ground. At the G.E.S.M.’s command they pour forth, from the bowels of the eearth, to attack all those without an up-to-date “Eternal Life Licence” which were obtainable at the head office of the G.E.S.M.’s religion.
iv) How Dare I Be So Beautiful?
In which our intrepid heroes investigate the aftermath of the battle and discover a solitary figure, obsessed by his own image. They witness an unusual transmutation, and are pulled into their own reflections in the water.
v) Willow Farm
Climbing out of the pool, they are once again in a different existence. They’re right in the middle of a myriad of bright colours, filled with all manner of objects, plants, animals and humans. Life flows freely and everything is mindlessly busy. At random, a whistle blows and every single thing is instantly changed into another.
vi) Apocalypse in 9/8 (Co-Starring the Delicious Talents of Wild Geese)
At one whistle the lovers become seeds in the soil, where they recognise other seeds to be people from the world in which they had originated. While they wait for Spring, they are returned to their old world to see the Apolcalypse of St. John in full progress. The seven trumpeteers cause a sensation, the fox keeps throwing sixes, and Pythagoras (a Greek extra) is deliriously happy as he manages to put exactly the right amount of milk and honey on his corn flakes.
vii) As Sure as Eggs is Eggs (Aching Mens’ Feet)
Above all else an egg is an egg.
‘And did those feet …………..’ making ends meet.