La storia dei Genesis - 2: 'Trespass'

Mi puoi dire dov'è il mio paese? - Genesis - La storia

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Leggi la presentazione e le recensioni degli album:

From Genesis To Revelation (1969)
Trespass (1970)
Nursery Cryme (1971)
Foxtrot (1972)
Selling England By The Pound (1973)
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974).

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2: Trespass

Il vento soffia attraverso le porte chiuse e pizzica le orecchie di uno gnomo che si aggira tra le stanche mura. Qualcosa - o forse qualcuno - sta per accadere. Per saperlo, bisogna capire quello che dice il vento. Ma solo quando tutti gli spiragli si allineeranno in un ben preciso disegno magico riusciremo a decifrare il suo linguaggio.

              Trespass su Amazon

Nella cosmologia genesiana, Trespass (1970) segna l'inizio della serie portentosa che si protrarrà per 6 anni e 5 album, opere che hanno contribuito a scrivere la storia del rock progressivo. Ma Trespass segna anche il ritiro volontario di Ant Phillips, la cui sensibilità non gli faceva sopportare lo stress delle gigs, e, oltre a ciò, il licenziamento del batterista John Mayhew, a registrazione già avvenuta.
Al contrario della maggioranza dei commentatori della band, per me quest'ultima decisione rimane oscura. Se è vero che Mayhew "seguiva" gli altri componenti invece di trascinarli, è anche vero che il suo drumming non manca affatto di potenza, là dove questa è richiesta. "The Knife" è un pezzo classico grazie anche al suo attento lavoro, e la puntualità dei suoi interventi (crescendo, rulli, occasionali esplosioni) in "Looking For Someone", "White Mountain", "Visions Of Angels" e "Stagnation" è fuori discussione. Io protendo a credere che John Mayhew abbia dovuto abbandonare il gruppo solo perché "meno colto" degli altri. Con il coetaneo Phil Collins i Genesis trovarono un compagno di strada più furbo, più estroverso e certamente più volenteroso a contribuire al processo compositorio, ma come batterista di sicuro non molto migliore del suo predecessore. (Entrambi, Collins e Mayhew, provengono dalla "working class". Mayhew era, ed è rimasto, un falegname. Dopo due matrimoni falliti, è emigrato in Australia. John Silver invece, che fu il batterista in From Genesis To Revelation, ha fatto carriera nell'ambiente della televisione, ambiente che Collins già conosceva per alcune sue esperienze di recitazione.) 

One-eye hid the crown and with laurels on his head
Returned amongst the tribe and dwelt in peace.

Guercio nascose la corona e, con l'alloro sul suo capo,
Tornò alla tribù, dove poté vivere in pace.  

                      (Ultime parole di "White Mountain")

Trespass, la "trasgressione", è il punto di passaggio dei Genesis da come li volevano Jonathan King e la Decca Records a quelli della piena autoconsapevolezza artistica. Prodotta da John Anthony per l'etichetta Charisma del lungimirante Tony Stratton-Smith, la band trova definitivamente la propria formula. La taratura però avviene già prima di varcare la soglia dello studio, grazie a una lunga successione di concerti in tutto il Sud Est inglese.

Se ci sono punti in comune con il precedente From Genesis To Revelation, sono i testi intellettuali e la voce teatrale di Peter Gabriel; sia gli uni che l'altra, ovvio, qui enormemente sviluppati. I 40 minuti dell'album sono un unico viaggio fantastico e surreale, compiuto in parte nel mondo odierno e in parte sui sentieri eterei delle sfere ultraterrene.

Sui primi quattro solchi l'Hammond di Tony Banks (quando non è il dulcimer o il piano) aggiunge una vena di malinconia e, dopo la romantica e un po' monocorde ballata "Dusk", ecco finalmente la scatenata "The Knife", che chiude il disco. 

All'interagire delle 12 corde acustiche, Anthony Phillips e Mike Rutherford avvicendano rispettivamente il lead elettrico e il basso, con naturalezza a dir poco sconcertante per essere appena ventenni.

"The Knife", dedicata a "chi trasgredisce contro di noi", è il nodo cardine da cui si dipana il domani dei Genesis. Phillips come detto getterà la spugna, ma l'arrivo al suo posto di Steve Hackett si rivelerà assai felice. Le basi per l'epopea di uno dei gruppi principi del prog sono definitivamente poste. 

Tracks:
     
1. Looking For Someone 
2. White Mountain    
3. Visions Of Angels  
4. Stagnation    
5. Dusk 
6. The Knife  

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Tutti i testi di Trespass

Looking For Someone
(Banks/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford/Mayhew)

Looking for someone, I guess I'm doing that,
Trying to find a mem'ry in a dark room.
Dirty man, you're looking like a Buddha,
I know you well - yeah.

Keep on a straight line, I don't believe I can,
Trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Chilly wind you're piercing like a dagger,
It hurts me so - yeah.

Nobody needs to discover me,
I'm back again.
You see the sunlight through the
Trees to keep you warm,
In peaceful shades of green.
Yet in the darkness of my mind
Damascus wasn't far behind.

Lost in a subway, I guess I'm losing time,
There's a man looking at a magazine.
You're such a fool, your mumbo-jumbo
Never tells me anything - yeah.

Nobody needs to discover me,
I'm back again.
You feel the ashes from the
Fire that kept you warm.
Its comfort disappears,
But still the only friend I know
Would never tell me where I go.

Looking for someone,
And now I've found myself a name.
Come away, leave me,
All that I have I will give.
Leave me, leave me,
All that I am I will give.

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White Mountain
(Banks/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford/Mayhew)

Thin hung the web like a trap in a cage,
The fox lay asleep in his lair.
Fang's frantic paws told the tale of his sin,
Far off the chase shrieked revenge.
   Outcast he trespassed where no wolf may tread,
   The last sacred haunt of the dead.
   He learnt of a truth which only one wolf may know,
   The sceptre and crown of a king.
   Howling for blood, One-eye leads on the pack,
   Plunging through forest and snowstorm.

Steep rose the ridge, ghostly peaks climbed the sky,
Fang sped through jungles of ice.
Hard on his tail, One-eye drew from the pack -
An old hero conquered by none.
   Steep, far too steep, grew the pathway ahead,
   Descent was the only escape.
   A wolf never flees in the face of his foe,
   Fang knew the price he would pay -
   One-eye stood before him
   With the crown upon his head,
   Sceptre raised to deal the deadly blow.

Fang, son of Great Fang, the traitor we seek,
The laws of the brethren say this:
That only the king sees the crown of the gods,
And he, the usurper, must die.
   Snarling he tore at the throat of his foe,
   But Fang fought the hero in vain.
   Dawn saw the white mountain tinted with red -
   Never would the crown leave again.
   One-eye his the crown and with laurels on his head
   Returned amongst the tribe and dwelt in peace.

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Visions Of Angels 
(Banks/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford/Mayhew)

Standing in a forest gazing at the sun
   looking at the trees but there's not even one
See a rippling stream that smiles and then goes by
   run to feel its comfort but the water's dry.

I see her face and run to take her hand
Whey she's never there I don't understand
The trumpets sound my whole world crumbles down

Visions of angels all around
   dance in the sky
Leaving me here
   forever goodbye.

As the leaves will crumble so will fall my love
   for the fragile beauty of our lives must fade
Though I once remember echoes of my youth
   now I sense no past, no love that ends in love

Take this dream the stars have filled with light
As the blossom glides like snowflakes from the trees
In vengeance to a god no-one can reach.

Visions of angels all around
   dance in the sky
Leaving me here
   forever goodbye.

Ice is moving and world's begun to freeze
   see the sunlight stopped and deadened by the breeze
Minds are empty bodies move insensitive
   some believe that when they die they really live

I believe there never is an end
God gave up this world its people long ago
Why she's never there I still don't understand

Visions of angels all around
   dance in the sky
Leaving me here
   forever goodbye.

Visions of angels all around
   dance in the sky
Leaving me here
   forever goodbye.

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Stagnation
(Banks/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford/Mayhew)

To Thomas S. Eiselberg, a very rich man, who was wise enough to spend all his fortunes in burying himself many miles beneath the ground. As the only surviving member of the human race, he inherited the whole world.

Here today the red sky tells his tale,
   but the only listening eyes are mine
There is peace amongst the hills,
   and the night will cover all my pride.
Blest are they who smile from bodies free,
   seems to me like any other crowd
   who are waiting to be saved.

Wait, there still is time for washing in the pool,
   wash away the past.
Moon, my long-lost friend is smiling from above,
   smiling at my tears.
Come we'll walk the path to take us to my home,
   keep outside the night.
The ice-cold knife has come to decorate the dead,
   somehow.

And each will find a home,
And there will still be time,
   for loving my friend
   - You are there -

And I will wait for ever, beside the silent mirror
And fish for bitter minnows amongst the weeds and slimy water.

I, I...said I want to sit down
I, I...said I want to sit down.
I want a drink - I want a drink,
To take all the dust and the dirt from my throat,
I want a drink - I want a drink,
To wash out the filth that is deep in my guts,
I want a drink.

THEN LET US DRINK - THEN LET US SMILE
- THEN LET US GO.

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Dusk 
(Banks/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford/Mayhew)

 
See my hand is moving
   touching all that's real
And once it stroked love's body
   now it claws the past.

   The scent of a flower,
   The colours of the morning,
   Friends to believe in,
   Tears soon forgotten,
   See how the rain drives away, another day.

If a leaf as fallen
   does the tree lie broken?
And if we draw some water
   does the well run dry?

   The sigh of a mother,
   The screaming of lovers,
   Like two angry tigers,
   They tear at each other,
   See how for him lifetime's fears disappear.

Once Jesus suffered,
   Heaven could not see him.
And now my ship is sinking,
   The captain stands alone.

   A pawn on a chessboard,
   A false move by God will now destroy me,
   But wait, on the horizon,
   A new dawn seems to be rising,
   Never to recall this passerby, born to die.

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The Knife
(Banks/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford/Mayhew)

For Those that Trespass against us

Tell me my life is about to begin
   Tell me that I am a hero,
Promise me all of your violent dreams
   Light up your body with anger.
Now, in this ugly world
   it is time to destroy all this evil.
Now, when I give the word
   get ready to fight for your freedom
Now -

Stand up and fight, for you know we are right
   We must strike at the lies
   That have spread like disease through our minds.
Soon we'll have power, every soldier will rest
   And we'll spread out our kindness
   To all who our love now deserve.
Some of you are going to die -
   Martyrs of course to the freedom that I shall provide.

I'll give you the names of those you must kill,
   All must die with their children.
Carry their heads to the palace of old,
   Hang them high, let the blood flow.
Now, in this ugly world
   break all the chains around us,
Now, the crusade has begun
   give us a land fit for heroes,
Now -

Stand up and fight, for you know we are right
   We must strike at the lies
   That have spread like disease through our minds.
Soon we'll have power, every soldier will rest
   And we'll spread out our kindness
   To all who our love now deserve.
Some of you are going to die -
   Martyrs of course to the freedom that I shall provide.

We are only wanting freedom
We are only wanting freedom
We are only wanting freedom
We are only wanting freedom ("Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom...")
We are only wanting freedom ("Things are getting out of control here today")
We are only wanting freedom ("OK men - fire over their heads!")
We are only wanting freedom

--- WE HAVE WON ---

Some of you are going to die,
    Martyrs of course to the freedom that I shall provide.

   Album intero

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