I Can't Dance

He was going to call this song "Blue Jeans" and couldn't find words to the chorus, just the background beat. Then they gradually came up with this and it stuck. Good choice though. Blue Jeans belongs to a commercial or something.

I recall reading many years ago that the song was written in response to the big changes in the music industry caused by the rise of MTV. Rather than needing to just have appealing songs, suddenly bands/performers had to be able to look really good in music videos: young, attractive, good at acting/dancing, generally the sort that advertisers would pay a lot to air commercials near and sponsors would want to associate with their products. It didn't matter how brilliant they were at singing or songwriting anymore, and the only kinds of dancing that counted were the really 'cool' type kids would want to emulate.

The music video illustrates the situation. It begins at a location very similar to one used by ZZ Top, whom handled the image issue by focusing on hot women. Collins is then shown being rejected in favor of an iguana (cold-blooded creature), then a dog (simple trained animal) which also steals & wrecks his jeans, and the whole band is cheated right out of their pants. This is interspersed with footage that documents how fake such videos are. After the song is over, Collins remains on-screen to spoof Michael Jackson and show that he's only considered unable to dance because the kind he can do isn't the cool kind MTV wanted.

the image i keep getting, especially in the chorus, is that he's singing about pop artists with no talent - they can't dance and they can't talk (their opinions and thoughts are useless to society) and all they can do is sell everything (their attractive body and their popular music is what they sell to the public)

'checking everything is in place You never know who's looking on A perfect body with a perfect face - uh-huh.'

gives me an image of talentless celebrities making sure they look all nice and pretty and perfect for the media so as to avoid arousing bad publicity, because the media is ALWAYS looking on.

this song was made decades ago, and the talentless perfect pretty pop idols are still around today.

lastly, i like the part: 'She's got a body under that shirt, but all she wants to do is rub my face in the dirt.'

but in The Way We Walk live album, he replaces the last line with: 'the only thing she'll rub is my face in the dirt' such a cheeky comment on celebrity worship. guys wanting to get with a pretty popstar.

this theme sort of ties in with the rest of the songs too. prog rock is usually about a unified theme throughout the whole album, so it makes sense to me. though it's amazing that they were just having fun with this song yet there's still a alot of artistic quality in the music and the lyrics

This is another exampple of Genesis mick take side. It's about the levi's 501 adverts they had on at a time where they'd have some poncy male model just showing off or doing something stupid. These models were put in these adverts coz of they're looks desppite the fact that they couldn't dance act or anything and the only thing they had going for them was the way that they walk.

This song is about how an unlucky schmuck he is. Yes, the beat matters more than the lyrics, which do seem mostly like filler. You know you got filler when they rhyme "talk" with "walk" - geez, stop doing that folks!

ease up there ckm4ever, you must realise that Genesis took a major turn in their post Gabriel era, not only changing sound and theme, but musical style. Pop Genesis isn't my flavor either. Timbo has it spot on. Thoes ads all the actors do is walk :)

First comment of this song in years hehe. Yeah, it's not as proggy as REAL Genesis but it's good fun. Good tune I guess.

Wanna think about the lyrics? Listen and make an interpretation of the songs "Fading Lights" and "Driving The Last Spike" those are in the same album were this song is: "We Can't Dance". Genesis is a great band, both eras (PG and PC) are very representative of their own times, the 70's every group was doing progressive rock and in the 80's even metal was poppy. Genesis recorded this song just for fun... and it's very funny, even the video make me have a nice time. Craigus don't be too purist, sometimes we say that bandas are boring for putting the same thing in all their records and when they change a little bit we desmay... je je je. Happy New Year to all of you!

I was surprised to see that no one has yet mentioned the surface setting of the song, which is a man cruising a beach for scantily clad women, but having no luck since he has no substance past an initial swagger.

I came looking for this song because I couldn't figure out where he was going with "selling" at all, since in the surface version, unless he's a street vendor or a prostitute (neither of which really fits), I'd call what he's doing "posing." Thanks, XyzzyMagicat, for giving some background on the satire of the music industry.

crazy song, truer today more than ever