Paperlate

"Paperlate" - a British newsboy's cry for the evening edition of the local paper. Connotes late-breaking news, perhaps an emergency transmission or warning?

"It's too easy to live like clockwork.." / "It's too easy to live in a cold sweat.." / " it's too easy to compute your future" / "It's too easy to talk about rocking the boat" - speaks for itself, this is a wake-up call for people living in complacency, coming up with multiple excuses for not taking risks, making changes in their lives.

"So sorry, but there's no one on the line." - there's no deity or supernatural being listening in on the other end of your prayers. It's up to you, and you alone, to make this change you seek.

"rest easy, no news is good news" - there's no one on the line, but the good news is, this frees you to make this change.

"don't worry now, you're not alone, look around you" - despite all this, you're not alone. look around you.

great song; the verses chords by tony banks really strong and weird, the furious rythm behind it too, horns give it a light feel but by then collins voice which by that era transmitted a lot of conviction and beauty really made this one a good slap in the face along as being radio friendly :) i love his lyrics 'You can wipe your face Kill the pain But the fever won't go, no noo ' that's really shaking the tree. ^^

On a Genesis tour in (I think 1980), the band performed the intro to DWTMK and Phil said he found himself singing the word "Paperlate" over and over again during soundchecks. As I understand it, that got mentally filed away as a fun word in song composition. Phil would often latch onto a word or phrase to sing during improvisation that seemed to fit. Another being "She seems to have an invisible touch".

paperlate is a term phil took from dancing with the moonlit knight... he randomly started singing that while improvising and it stuck. -its actually what the evening newspaper sellers used to shout in london which is why it was used in the original song anyway. the song is just about taking or not taking risks in life. nothing very deep rooted so its most likely a rhyme based thing.

Sounds so "Un-Genesis". Sounds more like a track that should be on a Phil Collins solo album

More suited to a solo Collins album than a Genesis track

Yes, I believe Collins wrote this song with Genesis while simultaneously working on the "No Jacket Required" album, hence the horns. Simply a fun song.