Indigo

Fantastic song and about dying of old age as I read it. Not by accident, murder or being stolen away at an earlier-than-expected age. Just good, old-fashioned snuffing it. Talks about giving up the fight against the illness, or just the body packing up, and hoping to go into a Hereafter to meet his friends.

Terrific song and one I'd love to have at my own casket-to-cooker bash :-)

One of my favourites

It sounds to me like someone comtemplating suicide, or simply dying of natural causes. Definitely a song about death. And not a very contented death. The ending lyrics are so sad, despairing...

"But oh how I hate those long nights You understand Darling please, just hold my hand You feel so warm In the eye of the storm I'm going away, I'm going away, I'm going away See you again someday Darling, I'm going away Feel like I'm going away, this time I'm going away."

One other thing- these lines are a kind of genius.

"This model's out of date Got every spare part But there ain't much heart inside here."

It's comparing the human body to a car. When cars fail they get their parts replaced. When a human's body fails them, they sometimes get organ transplants. I see the line "There ain't much heart inside here" as having a double meaning. "Heart" can mean spirit or the will to live, but it could also mean the literal body part- the patient's heart is failing.

Love this track. One of my favourite's from PG2. I've alway thought the lines"

"I was good at the art of survival I've always tried To keep my troubles deep inside Where I can hide them now I'm open wide"

are about PG's transition from band member to solo artist...Especially the "now I'm open wide"...Just my thoughts anyway!

It definitely sounds like a song about some sort of death to me, but I don't think it's from old age as someone earlier suggested. Specifically, the line "the kids downstairs making a hell of a din" doesn't support that. Someone dying of old age wouldn't have "kids" anymore.

To me it sounds more like someone dying from a disease (the line about "yellow liver" sounds a lot like cirrhosis).

Alternatively, it could be a metaphor for the death of a dream (of a fulfilled life perhaps), as it seems to suggest kind of a mid-life crisis in ways: "Not like the start, I was good at the art of survival."

I don't know, but those are my thoughts. Beautiful, haunting tune for sure.

What amazes me is how Mr. Gabriel writes lyrics to match a melody. He did the same thing with Genesis. As a song writer of far less talent, I have always written the tune to match the lyrics. Doing it the other way just seems incredibly difficult. I have a recording of him humming this song before he came up with the lyrics.

I love this song and play on the piano often, though it always saddens me.