Peter Gabriel "Melt"

Peter Gabriel 3 aka "Melt" (1980)

Peter Gabriel’s third solo album “Melt” was the first of his albums to really begin to feature his “trademark” world music/ambiance/mood sound. It is what I consider the final progression into the sound he would use for the rest of his solo career. His first solo album “Car” is essentially a slightly toned down continuation of what he had done with Genesis. His second album (Scratch) started to head down the road of an almost too simplistic three piece band, with elements of trance and psychedelic in the mix. Although “Melt” is one of his top three albums it’s definitely not an album for everyone…
Many People consider “Security” to be the real turning point of Peter’s sound but I disagree. Melt was the first album which really broke away from the warn out progressive rock sound. There’s nothing wrong with what he had done on the first two albums, but with Melt he finally began to experiment with sounds, not just creating rock songs. The songs themselves really aren’t that stylistically different than the stuff from the first two albums, but what sets Melt apart is the layering. What draws your attention is primarily his voice but also the little symphony of effects and ambiance that really take hold of your imagination. This is what he has continued to do with all of his subsequent albums.
Like I said before, many people consider “Security” to be the turning point of his sound and also consider it his only concept album, but Melt is truly the first. Many consider it his “darkest” album primarily because of the lyrical content, but musically it’s not nearly as gloomy as “Security” or even his newest album “Up”. The reason I consider this a concept album and the reason for it’s greatness is because of the overall unity of the subject matter; sin.
The album begins with “Intruder” a dark song about a thief sneaking through a families house in the night.
“The sense of isolation inspires
Inspires me
I like to feel the suspense when I'm certain you know I am there
I like you lying awake, your baited breath charging the air
I like the touch and the smell of all the pretty dresses you wear
Intruders happy in the dark”
What makes this song and the whole album so creepy is just how straight forward the lyrics are, he didn’t try to make it a metaphor for something else. It’s just a song about a man creeping around someone else’s house. Much like the rest of the album, he presents the songs as ‘here’s the subject matter’ take it face matter, there’s no happy endings to them, which causes an uneasiness to the listener.
There’s really a sense of despair to the lyrics of all the songs and the album continues that with “No Self Control”, another very lyrically obvious song that continues the albums sense of despair…
“I know I’m gone too far
Much too far I’ve gone this time
And I don’t want to think what I’ve done
I don’t know how to stop”

After the short instrumental “Start” comes “I Don’t Remember” probably my favorite song on this album. It continues with the trend of describing human angst, telling about someone who is lost, trying to find their identity.
The parade of emotional depravity continues with “Family Snapshot”. I’m pretty sure this song about Lee Harvey Oswald, or maybe just assassins in general. But the song describes something similar to the JFK assassination. It has an innocent and beautiful feel about it but just like the other songs, it’s made depressing by it’s lyrical content. After the first few verses sung from “first person” by the assassin, the last verse says
“Come back mum and dad
You’re growing apart
You know that I’m growing up sad
I need some attention
I shoot into the light”

“And Through the Wire” is the first of the two consecutive semi-lighthearted songs on the album, the lyrics are about someone missing their lover but being able to contact them on the phone. Yeah, but this song is really needed on the album, it provides a nice break from the gloom.
The lightheartedness continues with the bizarre parody-ish song “Games Without Frontiers”. Games is a satirical view of war, it’s lyrics and tune are done to sound almost like a childish nursery rhyme which creates a deep and almost scary view of the absurdity of war, that children might as well be in control.
Next comes “Not One of Us” a song about racism and social exclusion. If I were Peter Gabriel I would have put this song second to last, right before “Biko” a song which is also about racism, the death of South African civil rights leader Steven Biko. But next is the only musically dark song on Melt; “Lead a Normal Life”, easily the most introverted and depressed song on the album, it’s mostly an instrumental but has a short verse that says
“it’s nice here with a view of the trees
Eating with a spoon?
They don't give you knives?
'Spect you watch those trees
Blowing in the breeze
We want to see you lead a normal life”
From this song I get a picture of someone who’s almost in a vegetable state or has suffered a nervous breakdown, someone with no hope.

The album ends with “Biko”, like I said before, a song about South African anti-apartheid hero Steven Biko, who was killed by officers in a Pretoria prison in 1977. It’s a great way to end the album, this song, which is almost an anthem of sorts, is an inspirational ending for the album. It says, there’s hope from all the despair presented in the first nine songs.
“You can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire, once the flame begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher”.