It was 1974, and Genesis was arguably the biggest cult band on the planet. They had just come off the success of Selling England by the Pound, and the logical move would have been to make another record full of pastoral English whimsy and odd time signatures. Instead, Peter Gabriel decided to drag the band into a filthy, surrealist version of New York City. The result was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
If you’ve ever tried to explain the plot of this double album to someone at a party, you’ve probably failed. That's okay. Honestly, even the guys in the band—Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Steve Hackett—didn't fully grasp what Gabriel was doing at the time. It’s a messy, sprawling, dense piece of art that somehow managed to become a cornerstone of progressive rock while simultaneously tearing the band apart.
The Story of Rael (and Why It’s Not Just About a Lamb)
Most people assume the title is some biblical allegory. It’s not. Well, not entirely. It’s about a Puerto Rican street punk named Rael. He’s in New York. He sees a wall of "solidified air" descend on the city. Then things get weird.
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The narrative follows Rael through a series of underground dreamscapes. He encounters "Slippermen" (deformed creatures that look like something out of a Cronenberg film), a colony of "Lamia" (snake-women who eat him), and eventually his own brother, John. Critics like Stephen Thomas Erlewine have noted that the album feels more like a psychological exorcism than a standard rock opera. It’s Gabriel’s personal "The Wall," written years before Roger Waters went to that dark place.
The disconnect between the music and the lyrics is what makes it fascinating. While Gabriel was locked in a room writing about castration and consumerism, the rest of the band was in another room writing some of the most intricate instrumental passages of their career. This friction created a weirdly perfect tension. You have the aggressive, driving title track leading into the ethereal, ambient "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats." It’s a lot to take in.
The Production Was a Total Nightmare
You can’t talk about The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway without mentioning how close it came to never happening. The band decamped to Headley Grange—the same drafty, haunted-feeling mansion where Led Zeppelin recorded—to work on the music. It was damp. It was cold. There were literal rats.
Gabriel was increasingly distracted. He had been approached by filmmaker William Friedkin (fresh off The Exorcist) to work on a film script. This didn't sit well with the rest of Genesis. They were a collective; Gabriel was becoming a solo star in the making. Then there was the birth of Gabriel’s daughter, Anna, which was a difficult and stressful time for him. He was frequently absent from the sessions.
Consequently, much of the music was written by Banks, Rutherford, and Collins without knowing what the lyrics would be. This is why songs like "The Waiting Room" exist. It’s basically a chaotic jam session where they tried to make the most unpleasant noises possible. Brian Eno—yes, that Brian Eno—was brought in to add "Enossifications" (early electronic processing) to the vocals. He didn't charge a fee; he just wanted to be credited for "Enossification." It’s those little textures that give the album its gritty, industrial edge, a far cry from the mellotrons of their earlier work.
Breaking Down the Best Tracks
If you’re new to the record, don't try to digest all 94 minutes at once. It’s a recipe for a headache. Start with the "hits."
"In the Cage" is arguably the greatest thing the band ever recorded. It features a relentless, driving bassline and a synth solo from Tony Banks that still sounds futuristic fifty years later. It captures the feeling of claustrophobia perfectly. Then you have "The Carpet Crawlers." It’s the emotional heart of the album. It’s gentle, melodic, and strangely beautiful, despite the lyrics being about "liquid-filled skins" and "forests of faces."
The album peaks with "The Colony of Slippermen." It’s ridiculous. It’s prog-rock theater at its most absurd. On tour, Gabriel would wear a massive, lumpy costume covered in inflatable pustules. He couldn't get the microphone close enough to his mouth to sing properly, so the live versions were often a vocal mess. But that’s the charm. It was ambitious. It was stupid. It was brilliant.
Why the Tour Changed Everything
The live show for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was legendary for being a disaster that looked amazing. They used three projection screens—at a time when slide projectors were notoriously unreliable. They frequently jammed, melted, or went out of sync.
Gabriel’s costume changes were so frequent that the band had to write "filler" music to give him time to get into the next outfit. This is why the live version of "The Waiting Room" often stretched into ten-minute improvisations. By the end of the tour, the internal cracks were craters. Gabriel knew he was leaving. The band knew he was leaving. On the final night in France, they all knew it was the end of an era.
The irony is that after Gabriel left, Genesis became much more successful commercially with Phil Collins as the frontman. But they never again made something as challenging or as polarizing as The Lamb.
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How to Actually Listen to This Album Today
Don’t put this on in the background while you’re doing dishes. You’ll miss the point. To truly experience The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, you need to treat it like a film.
- Get the lyrics out. Seriously. You need the gatefold sleeve or a lyrics site. The story is told through the songs and the extensive liner notes written by Gabriel. If you don't read the notes, the transition from "Anyway" to "The Supernatural Anaesthetist" makes zero sense.
- Focus on the drums. Phil Collins' performance on this record is a masterclass. Before he was a pop icon, he was one of the best technical drummers in the world. His work on "Back in N.Y.C." is aggressive and complex.
- Listen for the "Enossifications." Try to spot where Brian Eno’s weird echoes and distortions are layered over the traditional rock instruments. It’s what keeps the album from sounding dated.
- Compare the versions. Check out the original 1974 mix versus the 2007 Nick Davis remix. The newer mix brings out a lot of the low-end and makes Rael’s world feel much more visceral and modern.
Actionable Next Steps
If you want to go deeper into the lore of this prog masterpiece, skip the generic Wikipedia entries and head to the Genesis News Com (it-magazine) archives. They have long-form interviews with the road crew and the designers of the original slide show, which provides the best context for how the album was actually staged.
Additionally, hunt down a copy of the book Genesis: Chapter and Verse. It’s an oral history where the band members themselves discuss the recording sessions at Headley Grange. Hearing Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel disagree on the same event from 1974 is the best way to understand the creative tension that birthed this record. Once you've done that, give the album a spin from start to finish on a rainy Tuesday night. It’s the only way it truly clicks.