I Can See It Coming in the Air Tonight

The Story of... 'In the Air Tonight' by Phil Collins

seven August 2020, 15:26 | Updated: 12 Baronial 2020, 12:04

Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight. Picture: Virgin

Information technology's become arguably Phil'south best known and most loved vocal ever, thanks to its haunting lyrics and incredible pulsate solo, merely did you know its history?

Read more: Phil Collins is back in the charts after twins' astonishing reaction video on YouTube - who are Fred and Tim Williams?

What does the song mean? How was its distinctive sound created? Find out all you need to know correct hither:

Information technology was Phil'south first ever single

Genesis. Picture: Getty

What a way to start! By 1978, he had been office of Genesis for most 8 years, and had reluctantly accustomed the office of frontman following Peter Gabriel's departure.

For the band's album 'And Then At that place Were Free', they had taken on a more mainstream audio, with songs such as 'Follow You lot Follow Me', with Phil'south vocals at the forefront. He had been planning to practise a solo anthology for some fourth dimension by 1981.

Read more: This performance of 'In the Air This evening' past Phil Collins is incredible

Phil said at the fourth dimension: "One ambition is to practice my ain anthology which will have a lot of diverseness. The anthology, when it does come out, will have a lot of dissimilar styles on it."
What was the song almost?

Phil wrote the song during the grief he felt afterward divorcing his first wife Andrea Bertorelli in 1980. The divorce contributed to his 1979 hiatus from Genesis, until the band regrouped in October of that year to record the album Duke.

All of the original songs on the Confront Value anthology, including follow-upward hit 'I Missed Once again', were intended to be "messages" to his first wife, in an attempt to lure her back to him.

Phil said in 2016: "I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. I'm not quite certain what the song is about, merely there'southward a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration."
It spawned a spooky urban legend

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The story goes that Phil watched as a homo who once attacked his wife drowned. Another version was that Phil wrote the song about a homo who watched some other homo drown, and sang it to him at a concert.

Yet some other version claims that when Phil was a immature boy, he witnessed a man drowning someone but was too far away to help. Later, he hired a private detective to find the man, sent him a gratuitous ticket to his concert, and premiered the song that night with the spotlight on the human being the whole fourth dimension.

Of course, none of these stories are true.
How was the song made?

The song is known for its atmospheric product and rather macabre theme, and was thought to have been influenced by the likes of Brian Eno and his ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel.

It consists of a series of ominous chords, played by a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 over a drum machine pattern (the Roland CR-78 Disco-ii pattern), candy electrical guitar and vocoded vocals. The song builds upward until an explosive burst of drums releases the tension.

Phil improvised the lyrics during a songwriting session in the studio. He said: "I was just fooling around. I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing. The lyrics you hear are what I wrote spontaneously. That frightens me a flake, but I'one thousand quite proud of the fact that I sang 99.9% of those lyrics spontaneously."
How did he get that iconic drum sound?

Phil Collins. Picture: Getty

Phil's apply of the song'southward pulsate shell came via an unintended use of studio technology. His Solid State Logic 4000 mixing board had a "contrary talk-dorsum" circuit. Normal "talkback" is a button that the mixing engineer presses in club to talk to the musicians. Whereas, opposite talkback is a push-operated circuit for the engineer to heed to musicians in the studio.

In order to compensate for sound level differences, this circuit has a compressor on it, which tin minimize the differences betwixt loud and soft sounds.

While recording 'Intruder' for Peter Gabriel's tertiary album, Phil started playing the drums while the reverse talkback was activated. Engineer Hugh Padgham was impressed at the audio, so they rewired the lath so that the reverse talkback could be recorded more hands.
It originally didn't accept a drum vanquish before the 'magic pause'

The original single version of the song features actress drums that play underneath the song until the signature drum crash. These were added after it was suggested to do so past Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun.

Phil said: "Ahmet came downwardly to the terminal mix in the cutting room in New York. The drums don't come in until the end only Ahmet didn't know that at this point, because on the demo the drums hadn't come in at all; information technology was only drum machine all the way

"And he was maxim, 'Where's the downwards crush, where's the backbeat?'. I said, 'The drums come in in a minute.' 'Yeah, you know that and I know that, merely the kids don't know that; you've got to put the drums on earlier.' So nosotros added some drums to the mix and put it out as a unmarried."
The music video was very simple but effective

So iconic, and and so uncomplicated.
It was a huge hit

The song reached number ii in the Britain (held off the top by John Lennon'due south posthumous 'Woman'), and has sold over three meg copies in united states of america. It as well reached the meridian 10 in at least 13 other countries, and has arguably go his signature vocal.
Phil performed a derisive version on Summit of the Pops

When Phil plant out that his former wife had run off with a painter and decorator, he performed this song with a pot of paint and a castor on a workbench side by side to his keyboard.

Collins claimed that the demote is what he used for a keyboard stand, and when he saw the pigment and brush backstage, he idea it would brand a dainty wait. Coincidence?

His ex-wife didn't buy it. "I felt sick and betrayed," she told the Daily Mail. "I knew straight away it was a bulletin to me."
It has been used in loads of films, Television receiver shows and more

Over the years, the song has popped up in all kinds of places, including The Hangover, Miami Vice, Family Guy, Risky Business, Ashes to Ashes, and well-nigh famously, the 2007 Dairy Milk advert featuring a certain gorilla playing drums. It helped the song re-enter the Uk top twoscore on downloads.

In 2020, it had a new resurgence when a video went viral of two YouTubers Fred and Tim Williams listening to the song for the first time, with bright results: