Buttkickin’ Halloween Songs: “Home By The Sea” — Genesis (1983)

blghomebytheseaIt’s just one of those things, man. I seriously can’t stand Phil Collins. Nothing personal against the guy, but his No Jacket Required album made the calendar year 1985 a living hell for me. Sussu-freakin-sudio indeed. His voice makes my skin jump clear off my body and run straight up a tree. He did the impossible and made Yacht Rock suck just when the genre was reaching the apex of its awesomeness. FEH!

Not a fan of Phil Collins.

But man I’ve always loved me some Genesis. Peter Gabriel era, Phil Collins era, I dug it all. They remain one of the most fascinating bands to emerge out of UK prog: always evolving, ever fascinating, even when they took their music into an AOR/Top-40 arena. And keeping in line with our Halloween music extravaganza, I’ve always been especially into this killer number from their 1983 self-titled album. Home By The Sea is a creepy, unsettling song that, even with its poppy dance beat and polished production values, still manages to up the skeevy-jeevy levels with a Poe-esque tale of a burglar who breaks into a haunted house… and finds himself helplessly trapped as the resident spirits force him to listen to their tales until the end of his days…

This one brings the freaky-deaky with just with its unsettling imagery alone.

Images of sorrow, pictures of delight
Things that go to make up a life
Endless days of summer longer nights of gloom
Waiting for the morning light
Scenes of unimportance, photos in a frame
Things that go to make up a life

Help us someone, let us out of here
Cos living here so long undisturbed
Dreaming of the time we were free
So many years ago
Before the time when we first heard
Welcome to the home by the sea…

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