I love this song. "So before a question, so before a doubt
My hand moves out and, I have the touch." I think gives away the meaning of the song. Although he doesn't talk about the other senses, he is putting "touch" ahead of everything else; it's what he understands first and grounds his relationships to other people and his space in the world. The song sets this in different contexts. The subway/rush hour - in a mass of movement he feels comfortable. The movement associated with the "mass of motion" sets him at ease (gives him the touch). Light up in the dark with fur and hair - he understands women by sexual communication (there are references to this in some of his other songs). In social situations... he goes for the handshake first - because human contact, touch is how he approaches the world and it bases the rest of his interaction with that person.
Like so many great songwriters, Peter Gabriel is probably is on the autistic scale. Touch and motion calm/ground him, and probably more so than most as supported by the almost beckoning: "give me the thing I understand". This is really a song about human communication and one man's relationship with it.
I love this song. "So before a question, so before a doubt My hand moves out and, I have the touch." I think gives away the meaning of the song. Although he doesn't talk about the other senses, he is putting "touch" ahead of everything else; it's what he understands first and grounds his relationships to other people and his space in the world. The song sets this in different contexts. The subway/rush hour - in a mass of movement he feels comfortable. The movement associated with the "mass of motion" sets him at ease (gives him the touch). Light up in the dark with fur and hair - he understands women by sexual communication (there are references to this in some of his other songs). In social situations... he goes for the handshake first - because human contact, touch is how he approaches the world and it bases the rest of his interaction with that person.
Like so many great songwriters, Peter Gabriel is probably is on the autistic scale. Touch and motion calm/ground him, and probably more so than most as supported by the almost beckoning: "give me the thing I understand". This is really a song about human communication and one man's relationship with it.