They would schedule gigs non-stop with hardly any breaks. He refers to Genesis as "the machinery." It was a constant cycle of write, record, tour, write, record, tour. "To keep in silence, I resigned."īesides all these internal things, Genesis was getting on his nerves as well. He felt as though he was just going through the motions. The music didn't touch him the way it used to. He no longer got the butterflies before shows. This was far from the truth and Gabriel hated the attention.īut as much as he hated the attention at first, he was beginning to enjoy it, which was taking him away from his audience. Because he and his costumes were the focal point of live shows, everyone assumed Peter wrote all the music, all the lyrics, set up the stage, and that the rest of the band were just his backing band. He was being thrust out as the star of a group whose works had actually been evenly divided between the 5 members. He was fed up with the industry and life as a rock star in general. You could go line by line and it all makes perfect sense considering the situation he was in at the time. But to Peter Gabriel it is about his decision to leave Genesis. So Solsbury Hill could essentially be about anything you want it to be about. He is never quite literal with anything which means many of his songs have a personal meaning to him just like they may have a completely different personal meaning to you. But he is so good at hiding the exact meaning. General CommentAnybody who knows Peter Gabriel knows that he likes to take personal experiences of his own (even those in dreams) and write songs about them. "Hey", I said, "you can keep my things, they've come to take me home" I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant "Hey", he said, "grab your things, I've come to take you home" "Son", he said, "grab your things, I've come to take you home"