WHATEVER MAY COME, AND WHATEVER MAY GO -- THAT RIVER'S FLOWING: Twenty-five years ago this week Peter Gabriel's So was released. It is an album I can picture as easily as I can see, yet it's the songs beyond the big hits -- and let's not forget, "In Your Eyes" didn't become an anthem until its use three years later in Say Anything -- that I'm drawn towards now. "Don't Give Up," "Mercy Street," and "That Voice Again" all stick with me more than the singles with the claymation.
I was thirteen at the time, so I had no context whatsoever for Gabriel before the videos -- and So served as the gateway drug. Soon enough came "San Jacinto" and "Solsbury Hill,"to "No Self Control" and wondering why the people in "Games Without Frontiers" were singing she's so popular, to "D.I.Y." and "Here Comes the Flood." I only saw him live once, when the Amnesty tour came to J.F.K. Stadium in 1988, and I remember being blown away by the lighting, by the sincerity and emotion, by all those fists for Stephen Biko.
I don't listen to Peter Gabriel much anymore, but this week's anniversary reminds me that there once was a high school Adam who loved those cassettes, and played them 'til they wore thin.
