With the exception of a few songs here and there, I am not too familiar with Peter Gabriel’s work both in Genesis and his solo career. The following is a song-by-song review of his new album Scratch My Back which is a collection of covers beautifully set to strings, horns and the occasional piano.

1. “Heroes” originally performed by David Bowie
I’m not going to lie, I first heard this song on the Godzilla soundtrack as performed by the Wallflowers. I’ve since heard the David Bowie version, which is a thousand times better (though the Wallflowers one isn’t bad by any stretch) but I really LOVE Gabriel’s version of this song. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s how intimate his vocal performance sounds to me. The closeness of the mic placement, how quietly he begins the song to how epic it becomes later. I love the loop-like nature of the string arrangement. I also like the idea that loving your partner is heroic. I also love how the higher register singing Gabriel does reminds me of my favorite college professor (which is a huge reason I like this record as much as I do, and why I like “Everything That Happened Will Happen Today” by Brian Eno and David Byrne.) This song is just epic and Gabriel treats it as such.

2. “The Boy in the Bubble” originally performed by Paul Simon
“The Boy in the Bubble” begins pretty plain but is surprising towards the middle and end. The lyrics are visuals. Each line puts a picture in your head and associates with a memory. I really like the line “these are the days of miracle and wonder” and how it is in reference to the advances in technology in the modern age and they can be used to keep people connected.

3. “Mirrorball” originally performed by Elbow
At first I thought this was a cover of that Sarah McLachlan song “Mirrorball” but as it turns out, Mirrorball was just the name of her live record and wasn’t actually a song she penned. Anyway. I like this song’s placement before “Flume.” The line “we made the moon our mirrorball” and “everything has changed” and how confrontational the song seems to be to the singer’s former lover. A “screw you” kind of break up song. Fantastic, soaring arrangement in the strings this song, particular during the “life off love” section. Gabriel’s vocals are in top form.

4. “Flume” originally performed by Bon Iver
I was very affected by Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago when it came out in 2007. I caught a Bon Iver live set on an NPR All Songs Considered podcast and was blown away by the fragility and power present at the same time in Justin Vernon’s voice.
Gabriel’s take on it somehow makes it even more frail and heart breaking. From the slow start with piano and vocal, to the crescendos in the choruses both in the string section and Gabriel’s voice. The moon comes back, but I get the impression it is a different moon than in the Elbow cover, and this is one colored with regret. There are various interpretations of the lyrics out there but the one I identify with the most is feeling isolated and different from your surroundings. An extra layer of sadness is applied to this interpretation when you put the words in Gabriel’s mouth who is twice Vernon’s age which make them particularly potent. The extra refrain of “she’s the moon” at the end also lead to an interpretation that this is being sung as a tribute to the singer’s mother, who may have died.

5. “Listening Wind” originally performed by Talking Heads
Despite the fact that this song is just Gabriel’s voice and strings (and maybe a flute too,) it makes me move. I feel my body sway back and forth, my head keeps the beat and the emotion of the song finds its way inside. The lyrics “he feels the presence of the wind beside him” are perfectly transformed into the string arrangement. The rising, scalar nature of the lead melody in the violin balance the jumping violas and bass and run contrary to Gabriel’s melodies which generally start at the top and find their way down the scale. Similar to the movements of a tree wrestling in the wind, the movement of each individual branch is seemingly cacophony, but the wind is blown with a steady beat which keeps me listening, and swaying.

6. “The Power Of the Heart” originally performed by Lou Reed
Building slowly like most of the tracks on this covers album, one can imagine being in rehearsal space or a large living room with Gabriel at the piano and a string quartet in front of him. Pretty simple verse, chorus, bridge arrangement and dynamics. The arrangement’s understated nature may by the opposite of what the lyrics intend, but that also could be the point. The lyrics say it without any help from the instruments. “All around the world just to bring you back, it was the power of your heart.” Even the rise at the end of the song underpin the fact that with or without the bombast the power in the song is not the music.

7. “My Body Is a Cage” originally performed by Arcade Fire
The main refrain of the song, “my body is a cage,” makes me wonder if the lyric is sung with the thought of inevitable death from age in Gabriel’s mind. Being 60, I can’t imagine he can move around in the same way anymore. The string and horn arrangement build to claustrophobic levels and overwhelm the singer even at the top of his range. Despite the physical decline the line “the mind is the key” is repeated over and over towards the end of the song with an angelic choir in the background.

8. “The Book of Love” originally performed by the Magnetic Fields; a duet sung with Melanie Gabriel
This song is Nicole Krauss’ “The History of Love” in nearly four minutes. Love is a bitch. Love is painful. Love is dull. Love is beautiful. Love is worthy. Love is enthralling. Love is idealized by the young but understood by the old. Love is selfish and sacrificial.

9. “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” by Randy Newman
Randy Newman will best be remember by me for his songs in Toy Story. That was the first time I noticed him and have a hard time taking his non-Disney-approved songs very seriously. Gabriel conjures his best Cash on this version of “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today.”

10. “Après moi” originally performed by Regina Spektor
Gabriel slowed down Spektor’s “Après moi” to a tempo fit for a funeral march. While Spektor’s version of the song is manic, scattered and almost comical, Gabriel’s is comical in it’s utter seriousness. The lyrics seems to be about fear of totalitarian theft or a crazy delusion that there are lame people out there trying to steal your legs. Be afraid for what you have because someone may steal it. I may be missing something that would tie it all together, but this cover is my least preferred thus far.

11. “Philadelphia” by Neil Young
I can identify with this song and feeling afraid of being rejected by your community. Having been pushed out to sail without a map it’s been an interesting couple of years since graduating from college. Trying to figure out what it is I’m “supposed” to be doing with my life, learning how to be married and how to love unconditionally, taking care of stupid details and bills. I really like the line “I will not be ashamed of love.” It resonates on a couple levels: not being too concerned about the way people think of me, in other words, by myself; not being afraid of really getting in depth in to what I love, mostly metal and hardcore; and to love my friends without self-consciousness as they deserve to be loved.

12. “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” originally performed by Radiohead
The change of the constant guitar arpeggios to slowly outlined piano 9th chords transform the song that originally (and brilliantly) ended Radiohead’s “The Bends,” to a formless entity somehow bleaker than the original. Out bleak-ing Radiohead is a tremendous feat in and of itself. The arrangement of the song slowly pulls the listener down the drain unaware but the real magic is in Gabriel’s choice to mimic Yorke’s vocals. Cracking, tearing his vocals all through the “ohs” and “fade out again” perhaps better than the original recording, or perhaps how Yorke would record the song now. On top of this, the ending is fantastic. In the last few seconds, Gabriel slides into chords foreign and beautiful despite their darkness. Much like the ending of Radiohead’s Kid A with the orchestra tuning that crescendos to heaven’s pearly gates Gabriel’s slide transports the listener from a place of despair to euphoria but one must wonder if the euphoria is heavenly or perhaps we’re feeling warm because we’re about to freeze to death.

Listen to the full album at the Guardian and at Lala
Scratch My Back at Wikipedia