The Peter Gabriel Songs Other People Should Sing

So the new Peter Gabriel album, Scratch My Back, is sounding more and more intriguing. It’s all cover songs, all orchestral arrangements, and two leaks, versions of Arcade Fire’s “My Body is a Cage” and Bon Iver’s “Flume,” are both excellent.

Gabriel has said that he intends the album to start a “dialogue” with the artists he covers, in hopes that they might cover songs of his in return. Pretty cool. (Also: a clever way for lazy musicians to not have to write new songs.)

Here’s the tracklist:
“Heroes” (David Bowie)
“The Boy in the Bubble” (Paul Simon)
“Mirrorball” (Elbow)
“Flume” (Bon Iver)
“Listening Wind” (Talking Heads)
“The Power of the Heart” (Lou Reed)
“My Body Is a Cage” (Arcade Fire)
“The Book of Love” (The Magnetic Fields)
“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” (Randy Newman)
“Après moi” (Regina Spektor)
“Philadelphia” (Neil Young)
“Street Spirit (Fade Out)” (Radiohead)

And here are the Peter Gabriel songs I’d like to hear each covered artist cover in return:

David Bowie: “I Have the Touch”
Paul Simon: “Solsbury Hill”
Elbow: “D.I.Y.”
Bon Iver: “Sledgehammer”
Talking Heads: “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway”
Lou Reed: “Family Snapshot”
Arcade Fire: “Games Without Frontiers”
The Magnetic Fields: “Don’t Give Up”
Randy Newman: “Big Time”
Regina Spektor: “Shock the Monkey”
Neil Young: “Back in NYC”
Radiohead: “In Your Eyes”

Okay, guys. Now, get to work!

While we’re on Peter Gabriel, it’s a good time to remember how, first of all, he was the good part of Genesis, back in the early ’70s, when Genesis was actually good. (Hard to believe, I know. But check out “Back In NYC” from the The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway album.) And he got even better as a solo artist, really sort of defining the charms of straight-faced 1980s avant garde weirdness. He always seemed like the short-haired guy in a suit who’d politely excuse himself to get a glass of white wine during a performance-art piece in Soho. The the next thing you know, he’s, like, crouching in the middle of a circle of fire wearing face-paint and an Apache-chief headdress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo9riZYUpTw

And for all the i’m-a-serious-artist-who-takes-the-problems-of-the-world-seriously stuff, he always had the goods to back to it up. If “Biko” doesn’t make the hair on your arms stand up, you must not have any hair on your arms. (And you’re a racist.)

Lastly, here’s a very sweaty live version of “Family Snapshot” from 1986. Man, what a great song. Phil Collins can suck it forever.