Background and recording In the Air Tonight

1 background , recording

1.1 inspiration
1.2 musical style
1.3 drum sound

background , recording
inspiration

collins wrote song amid grief felt after divorcing first wife andrea bertorelli in 1980. in 2016 interview, collins said of song s lyrics: wrote lyrics spontaneously. m not quite sure song about, there s lot of anger, lot of despair , lot of frustration. in 1997 bbc radio 2 documentary, singer revealed divorce contributed 1979 hiatus genesis until band regrouped in october of year record album duke.

the lyrics of song take form of dark monologue directed towards unnamed person:

musical style

the recording notable atmospheric production , macabre theme. has been described being @ vanguard of experimental pop in 1981 , rock oddity classic , having been influenced unconventional studio predilections of brian eno , peter gabriel . musically, song consists of series of ominous chords played sequential circuits prophet-5 on simple drum machine pattern (the roland cr-78 disco-2 pattern, plus programming); processed electric guitar sounds , vocoded vocals, effect increased on key words add additional atmosphere. mood 1 of restrained anger until final chorus when explosive burst of drums releases musical tension, , instrumentation builds thundering final chorus.

collins has described obtaining drum machine deal personal issues relating divorce through songwriting, telling mix magazine: had start writing of music inside me. improvised lyrics during songwriting session in studio: fooling around. got these chords liked, turned mic on , started singing. lyrics hear wrote spontaneously. frightens me bit, m quite proud of fact sang 99.9 percent of lyrics spontaneously.

drum sound

musically, s extraordinarily striking record, because nothing happens in ... s drum sound in particular s amazing. don t hear @ first 2 minutes of song ... there s great doo-dom doo-dom doo-dom comes in, , drums come in half way through song, setting template eighties drum songs after that. – stuart maconie

the means collins attained drum sound on recording long source of mystery. exact process result of serendipity: unintended use of studio technology giving unexpectedly useful results.

in case, solid state logic 4000 mixing board had reverse talk-back circuit (labeled on board listen mic ). normal talkback button mixing engineer has press in order talk recording musicians (the recording , mixing parts of studio are, otherwise, sonically isolated). reverse talkback circuit (also button-activated) engineer listen musicians in studio. in order compensate sound level differences—people can close reverse talkback microphone or far off—this circuit has compressor on it, minimizes differences between loud , soft sounds. while recording intruder ex-bandmate peter gabriel s third solo album, @ point collins started playing drums while reverse talkback activated. engineer hugh padgham amazed @ sound achieved. overnight, rewired board reverse talkback recorded in more formal manner. later models of ssl 4000 allowed listen mic recorded touch of button.

when recording engineer padgham brought in develop collins demos become face value recreated intruder sound using reverse talkback microphone heavily compressed , gated ambient mics. padgham continued working genesis abacab later in 1981 , same technique (generally referred gated reverb) used, , powerful drum sound has become synonymous later genesis projects , collins solo career ever since.

the original single version of in air tonight features drums play underneath song until signature drum crash (referred fans magic break ) appears. these added @ suggestion of atlantic records head ahmet ertegun. in 2007, collins wrote:

ahmet came down final mix in cutting room in new york (...) drums don t come in until end ahmet didn t know @ point, because on demo drums hadn t come in @ all; drum machine way. , saying, s down beat, s backbeat? said, drums come in in minute. yeah, know , know that, kids don t know that; ve got put drums on earlier. added drums mix , put out single.

black sabbath singer ozzy osbourne has called drum fill best ever – still sounds awesome .

in 2007, mike gruss, former columnist virginian-pilot, referred song soft rock classic.