Happy as fish, and gorgeous as geese
I have always felt that Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot were, in a way, two of a pair. The similar atmosphere that these two albums have, is mirrored in the similarity between their covers and even amplified by the fact that the cover of Nursery Cryme can be spotted on the back of Foxtrot's. Both are surrealistic paintings by Paul Whitehead, who was also responsible for the cover of Trespass, and both are painted in the same style. Still, the producers and engineers involved in the making of the two records are not the same, so it must have been the special chemistry between the band members that is responsible for that similar sound.
Genesis actually went through several producers before they ended up with David Hitchcock. They had wanted to continue working with John Anthony and David Hentschel, with whom they had recorded Nursery Cryme, but they were unavailable at the time. They then decided to produce themselves, while using only an engineer to take care of the technical side of recording the album, but that plan was vetoed by Charisma Records.
The first producer assigned to the band was Bob Potter, who had just worked with Bob Dylan and Bob Johnson, but he did not really like Genesis' music and left after a week. Tony Platt, an engineer with Island Records, was the second one to try, but the chemistry between band and producer did not really work out, causing him to leave rather soon as well. He was replaced by David Hitchcock and engineer John Burns (also from Island), the latter being a big fan of the group, while Genesis went on to co-produce the record. This combination did work out - both band and record company were pleased with the result - and according to Collins, Burns even managed to put some 'funk' into the album.
A flower?
All songs on Foxtrot are credited to all band members, although not everybody was equally involved in all of them. Watcher Of The Skies, for instance, was in essence written by Rutherford and Banks during a tour in Italy. The two had been staring out over the landscape at the back of a hotel in Naples. Banks talked about it in an interview: "It was totally deserted. It was incredible. We had the idea of an alien coming down to the planet and seeing this world where obviously there had once been life and yet there was not one human being to be seen."
The track was road-tested before being recorded, after which the vocal line was changed considerably.
The scene for this tale about the alien visiting earth and observing how man has messed things up is set with delicious waves of mysterious mellotron strings (Banks bought his mellotron from King Crimson before the recording of Nursery Cryme). As the strings fade out in the background, a throbbing bass rhythm comes in, doubled by Hackett's typical, mean guitar sound, before they put down the main theme together with the organ. The song goes through some heavier and softer sections, which build up and release the tension in a great way, before ending with some mournful guitar wails and a thunderous drum roll. A great song!
The live rendition of this song actually made the alien theme even more tangible. Hackett said in an interview: "I remember at a gig in Italy, Tony started playing the mellotron introduction for Watcher Of The Skies. I was somewhere downstairs in a dressing-room when I heard this sound coming out which shook the foundations of this huge echoey stadium. It really sounded as if something was coming in to land."
