As one approaches the middle ages of their existence, there is inevitably a lot of reassessment that takes place – unless you have had a charmed life, some of this can be a potentially disheartening glass-half-empty moment; knowing what you don’t know is not the same as knowing what you haven’t achieved vs. the goals set by society, or your personal motivation track. That rumination exercise can either bog your proverbial gut down, or it can be exactly what is needed to move forward. The milestones, the dark moments and the peaks of achievement, were invariably accompanied by music. Sometimes these songs were smash hits, dominating the air waves writ large, or perhaps they simply dominated the charts of your own hit parade in your mind. While these songs have been with you for a long time, perhaps for your entire life, it’s possible that you never really bothered to pay attention to what the song is actually about.

I would consider myself a ‘lyrics’ guy – a song can made or broken by the words and what they mean to you, or to those who wrote them. But sometimes a song is so pervasive, ever-present, overplayed, or perhaps covered up by the gloss of the song’s beat or production value, that you didn’t get it until later stage in your life. Like me, perhaps you have gone through life thinking that a song was about this when it was really about that. Or, you had no thoughts on the lyrics at all.

But, like a steam train, it comes charging headfirst into your mind, and it throws you for a loop, it puts you right in your spot – at last, you get it. There is so much more dimension to the song than you had ever thought possible, and the song is that much better. Sometimes a message is not going to be received until one is ready to receive it, but it waits patiently through generations ready to be understood. And with that, I am writing a mini-series of articles about songs that I finally ‘got’ after years of not paying attention.

Song 1: “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel

I was probably 3 years old when I first saw the music video for “Sledgehammer” on MTV, barely able to articulate the horror and fright of that (admittedly ground-breaking video). It frightened my little self so much that I would run and hide behind the couch when Peter Gabriel turns into a black mass of stars and asteroids at the end of the video – not that the 3 minutes before the end were calming and pleasant. It kind of reads like Teletubbies on angel dust, or a kindergarten K hole.

The 30 plus years since I first saw the video to “Sledgehammer” haven’t exactly been filled with nightmares revisited, just like the monster under the bed ceases to be what keeps you up at night. And the song is undeniably catchy, in that mid 1980’s, brassy, electonic-horn-section type of way that Peter Gabriel pretty much owned – nobody does it better, except for maybe the band Yes with “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” or “Leave It”. So it stands to reason that I might have overlooked the lyrical content, with all of that Fairlight CMI synth-sass on full sonic display, but when I finally did pay attention to the lyrics, probably less than a year ago, it had the weight and force of, well, a sledgehammer.

You can have a steam train, if you just lay down your tracks…
You could have an aeroplane flying, if you bring your blue sky back…

At long last, I get what this song is about – it’s someone trying to motivate and instill confidence in someone who’s down on their luck, or otherwise feeling negative about their prospects in life.

I wanna be your sledgehammer, why don’t you call my name?

Peter Gabriel is the sledgehammer, the one who would clear the way for the tracks on the steam train.

I kicked the habit, the habit the habit
Shed my skin, shed my skin
This is the new stuff, this is the new stuff

What a message of hope and empowerment! It was right there all along. It could be simply read as a message of encouragement, or even a more literal read of recovery (kicked the habit). Either way, the song is that much more amazing once I finally paid attention to the lyrics.

When you consider that Peter Gabriel wrote another very inspirational, encouraging song, “Don’t Give Up” (with Kate Bush singing backup vocals), on the same album (“So”), it seems that he was an unusually caring and thoughtful guy in general, and he was never better in that mid 1980’s stretch where he was both massively popular and still musically, lyrically, and experimentally, at the top of his game. It took me me 30 plus years to finally receive the message laid out – but that’s the beauty of music, it’s there waiting for you to notice it, whenever you’re able to process it.

The next song in my series will be “Gloria” by Laura Branigan. If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody calling?