The peppy little intro to "Something Happened On the Way to Heaven" has always conjured up an image in my mind of Phil Collins as a congenial game show host jogging out from behind the curtain to greet the contestants at the start of the broadcast. "Welcome back to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire! And now, here's your host, Phil Collins!" It's like the late '80s equivalent of the instrumental rendition of Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose" that plays as the Blues Brothers take the stage. Scratch that: it's like the theme music for Fox Sports Sunday, complete with synthesized bass blasts, buzzing guitars, and ear-piercing trumpets. I can practically hear Joe Buck chiming in now: "It's a beautiful afternoon here at Mile High Stadium, where the Denver Broncos host the Kansas City Chiefs with the AFC West championship on the line."
The above observation aside, I don't have a whole lot to say about "Something Happened On the Way to Heaven," other than that I love it from start to finish and top to bottom, just like every other Phil Collins hit I love to death, even though I probably shouldn't. To quote Phil's clear artistic equal, Radiohead, "Everything is in its right place." Quite what heaven has to do with any of this I have no idea. It's certainly a little avant-garde that the title only appears once, in the middle of a verse. Didn't this song come out around the same time as All Dogs Go to Heaven? For that presumably coincidental reason, I've always associated it with an animated canine voiced by Burt Reynolds, but that's probably way off base. However, I just glanced at the song's Wikipedia page and smiled knowingly to myself, as I recognized that the photo used on the single sleeve is a still from Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death, a highly surreal, sweet, romantic, off-beat film that never seems to make "Greatest Films" lists but which I highly recommend to anyone who has a taste for post-war British cinema (perhaps even more highly than The Red Shoes).
All right, fine, I guess I better listen to the lyrics?
Aaaaaand ... I'm back. Sounds like another bitter break-up song. Which ex-wife was this written about again?
I'd like to single out the magnificent bridge, which is the the kind of bridge that pop songs don't seem to feature anymore, where a sudden key change descends from on high, utterly transforming the feel of the track for about twenty seconds before swiftly returning to the celestial kingdom from whence it came. Phil had more beautiful bridges in his arsenal than the metro areas of New York and San Francisco combined. Hi-Yo!
And then, Phil finally provided the world with the doggie daydream video it was longing for. Given that this was 1989, I think the likeliest explanation is that Phil and the boys were killing time in the hotel room, happened to catch an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos on TV, and concluded, "You know what people love more than anything? Dogs doing stupid stuff. Let's film a video ... from the point of view ... of a dog!" I mean sure, Madonna and Paula Abdul could get all "fancy" with David Fincher if they felt like it, but as far as Phil Collins was concerned, nothing beats the cinematic power of a back-up singer stepping in dog shit and a bass player's shoe receiving an unexpected sprinkling of dog pee. George Michael, you can keep your sexy supermodels: Phil Collins's videos have dog pee. Not to mention evocative "doggie daydream" sequences a la Fellini, where our canine friend fantasizes that he's A) the hero of a silent film and B) the main guest at a royal feast (frankly, he'd probably be just as satisfied with Purina). Roll over Anita Ekberg. No, I mean, literally roll over, you've become a dog and you're starring in a Phil Collins video.
Surprisingly, according to Phil, the "heaven" reference is a tad more significant than it initially appears to be. From In The Air Tonight:
It had been a long, sweet ride, but by '88, the market for horse tranquilizer was finally bottoming out. Crack was the thing now, but that shit was for ghetto kids - I rolled with class, you feel me? It was time to either kick the juice for good, or get creative.
I just couldn't take the first step. I couldn't admit I had a problem - not to my ex-wives, not to Rot Rot, not even to my drum kit. I decided to get creative.
Me and a roadie raided a Sussex race track just before dawn. I tell you, there's nothing a crowbar, a blowtorch, and a can of WD-40 can't do. I got back to the country house and, having absentmindedly locked myself out, crawled through the doggie door in the kitchen. As the humiliation swept over me, the words of Julio, my number one dealer who, having read the writing on the wall, had finally retired to St. Kitts & Nevis two months prior, rang in my ears: "You can't mix it too pure, Felipe. You need to lace it with a diluting agent. You can't shoot what the horse shoots. You dance with death, hombre." Fuck that asshole, I thought to myself as I pressed play on my VHS copy of Slutty Step-Wives of Slovenia, which, I had to admit, wasn't quite as good on the 32nd viewing as it had been on the 31st viewing, then dashed to the kitchen, where I promptly poured the bag of tranquilizer into a blender, along with a bottle of cough syrup and a squirt of chocolate milk, slammed the lid onto that sucker, and hit "puree."
The first couple of minutes were sheer equestrian bliss, but then ... well, I knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. My patented gated reverb drum sound began to ring in my head, drowning out my thoughts, smothering me with its nightmarish din. Suddenly I was floating up, up, up toward the light. This is it, I thought. Julio was right all along. I'd had one shot of horse tranquilizer too many. I was finally about to meet my end.
Figures from the past twirled by me, in a manner reminiscent of the figures from Dorothy's life in Kansas twirling by her window as she clings to her bed inside the tornado. I saw the Turkish soothsayer, the Mauritanian circus performer, that FBI agent we bumped off in San Diego - they were all spinning around me, laughing, cackling. There was Phillip Bailey, and Frida from ABBA, and Bob Geldof. Away in the distance, I caught a glimpse of an imposing figure. It seemed like ... St. Peter at the pearly gates? Or was it Gabriel the angel, blowing his horn? As I came closer, a chill ran through my bones.
It was Peter Gabriel.
"Phil, now that you're dead, I'm going to re-join Genesis and re-record all of your Genesis songs ... with my vocals!" He chortled with gusto, his head tilted back, his eyes gleaming. "And then I'm going to re-record all your solo songs ... with my vocals!!"
"No! No ... where am I? There's been a mistake, I tell you, I've got to go back!"
Suddenly one of my ex-wives appeared, and then another one, and then another one. Ex-wives kept multiplying and multiplying, and before I knew it, I was surrounded by 16 ex-wives. "You have a choice to make, Phil." They were speaking to me in unison. "You can die like this. Or you can return to earth, on one condition."
"Yes, what's that? I'll do it! You name it, I'll do it."
"You finally quit that stuff ... for good."
Something happened on the way to heaven. What happened was that, after years of struggle, I finally came to terms with my horse tranquilizer addiction.
The choice, while difficult, was clear. I tumbled back to earth. When I came to, I felt a warm liquid seeping through my pants. The dog was peeing on my leg. This was the final indignity. I crawled up off the floor, took a deep breath, and poured the rest of that chemical crap down the garbage disposal. From that moment on, I pledged to soothe my troubles with a perfectly acceptable substitute:
Alcohol.
1 comment:
This song was co written by long serving guitarist, Daryl Stuermer, which is something he points out in one of his intimate "rent me for your home entertainment" shows such as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ2GF6xfFNs This song was obviously a big hit and was perhaps the point where Phil finally stopped worrying about his hairline because, you know, rich guys can pull the birds no matter the look. Being of modest financial means, though exceptionally good looking, is something I understand quite well. I sometimes regret not being less handsome just so I could experience a little of what the more common man must encounter on a daily basis.
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