Games Without Frontiers (song)

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"Games Without Frontiers"
Games Without Frontiers.jpg
Single by Peter Gabriel
from the album Peter Gabriel (Melt)
B-side "Start/I Don't Remember" (UK), "Lead a Normal Life" (US)
Released25 January 1980 (UK) [1]
Recorded1979
Genre
Length4:05 (album version)
3:47 (single edit version)
Label Charisma
Songwriter(s) Peter Gabriel
Producer(s) Steve Lillywhite
Peter Gabriel singles chronology
"D.I.Y."
(1978)		"Games Without Frontiers"
(1980)		"No Self Control"
(1980)
Music video
"Games Without Frontiers" on YouTube

"Games Without Frontiers" is a song written and recorded by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released on his 1980 self-titled third studio album, where it included backing vocals by Kate Bush. [5] The song's lyrics are interpreted as a commentary on war and international diplomacy being like children's games. [6] The music video includes film clips of Olympic Games events and scenes from the educational film Duck and Cover (1951), which used a cartoon turtle to instruct US schoolchildren on what to do in case of nuclear attack. This forlorn imagery tends to reinforce the song's anti-war theme. Two versions of the music video were initially created for the song, followed by a third one made in 2004.

Contents

The single became Gabriel's first top-10 hit in the United Kingdom, peaking at No. 4, and — tied with 1986's "Sledgehammer"⁠ — his highest-charting song in the United Kingdom. It peaked at No. 7 in Canada, but only at No. 48 in the United States. The B-side of the single consisted of two tracks combined into one: "Start" and "I Don't Remember". [7]

Background

Gabriel's first two solo studio albums were distributed in the US by Atlantic Records, but they rejected his third studio album (which contained this track), telling Gabriel he was committing "commercial suicide". Atlantic dropped him but tried to buy the album back when "Games Without Frontiers" took off in the UK and started getting airplay in the US. At that point Gabriel wanted nothing to do with Atlantic, and let Mercury Records distribute the album in America. [8]

The song's title refers to Jeux sans frontières , a long-running TV show broadcast in several European countries. Teams representing a town or city in one of the participating countries would compete in games of skill, often while dressed in bizarre costumes. While some games were simple races, others allowed one team to obstruct another. The British version was titled It's a Knockout —words that Gabriel mentions in the lyrics. [9]

Composition

Gabriel observed that the song "seemed to have several layers to it. I just began playing in a somewhat light-hearted fashion...the names themselves are meaningless, but they do have certain associations with them. So it's almost like a little kids' activity room. Underneath that, you have the TV programme [and the] sort of nationalism, territorialism, competitiveness that underlies all that assembly of jolly people." [10] The lyrics "Adolf builds a bonfire/Enrico plays with it" echo lines from Evelyn Waugh's V-J Day diary ("Randolph built a bonfire and Auberon fell into it"). [11]

Musically, "Games Without Frontiers" opens with a mixture of acoustic and electronic percussion accompanied by a countoff. [6] The electronic percussion was triggered by PAiA Programmable Drum Set; this was Gabriel's first use of a drum machine on one of his solo albums. [12] [13] A synth bass and an angular slide guitar figure enter with Kate Bush's vocals, creating a "dark sonic environment" as described by AllMusic reviewer Steve Huey. [6] The pre-choruses feature whistling and a Moog synthesizer; Larry Fast commented that this section was inspired by hocketing techniques found on a Wendy Carlos album titled Switched-On Bach , which consisted of classical music played on a Moog synthesizer. [12] Following the final chorus, the song segues into a percussion breakdown punctuated by synth and guitar effects. [6] [14]

During his 1986-1987 tour, Gabriel directed the song's critique of militarism at the Contra War in Nicaragua. [12] Gabriel's 1991 performance of the song from the Netherlands was beamed via satellite to Wembley Arena in England as part of "The Simple Truth" concert for Kurdish refugees. [15]

Radio version, music videos

The album version includes the line "Whistling tunes we piss on the goons in the jungle" after the second verse and before the second chorus. This was replaced for the single with a more radio-friendly repeat of the line "Whistling tunes we're kissing baboons in the jungle" from the first chorus. [12] This version was also included in the initial copies of the Shaking the Tree (1990) compilation. [16]

The original music video was directed by David Mallet and features shots of children sitting around a dining table. [17] Footage from Olympic sporting events are also featured along with a series of facial expressions from Gabriel, which are projected on television screens that change in time with the music. [12] Gabriel commented that the original music video attracted some controversy:

"The idea of the song was countries behaving like playground kids. It's against nationalism, but they had seen me moving around the tables and thought that I was leering at them like a dirty old man. At the end, there was a whole series of children's toys, and they thought that the jack-in-the-box was an obvious reference to masturbation. So it says a lot more about the minds of the people who ran Top of the Pops than it did about my video." [12]

In 2004, the music video was updated to include excerpts from the films Active Site, Spiral and Grid by Israeli artist Michal Rovner. Additional footage was supplied by York Tillyer, Dan Blore and Marc Bessant. [17] Visuals from Duck and Cover , a 1951 educational film teaching children how to survive a nuclear attack, are also featured at the end of the music video. [12] This version was featured on the release of Play , a DVD compilation of 23 music videos. [17]

Critical reception

Record World said that "A creative percussion / keyboard / vocal mix and unique tempo shifts make this as attractive as it is interesting." [18] AllMusic identified the song as "one of the finest moments preceding Gabriel's commercial breakthrough in the mid-'80s". [6]

Musicians

Chart performance

"Games Without Frontiers" reached the top 10 in Canada and the United Kingdom. In spite of the song's very modest chart showing in the US, it did quite well in Chicago, where it spent two weeks at No. 5 on the survey of superstation WLS-FM-AM [19] and ranked at No. 87 for the year. [20]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "BPI".
  2. ↑ "How Peter Gabriel Found His Art-Rock Voice on His Third Album". 23 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Popoff, Martin (5 January 2024). "The Top 20 unlikely Progressive Rock hits, ranked". Goldmine . Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  4. ↑ "Top 100 Albums of the Eighties". PocketMags.com. December 2015.
  5. ↑ "Peter Gabriel: Released 22nd May, 1980". PeterGabriel.com. 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Huey, Steve. "Games Without Frontiers". AllMusic . Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  7. ↑ "Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers". UltraTop.be. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
  8. ↑ Pond, Steve (29 January 1987). "Peter Gabriel Hits the Big Time". Rolling Stone . Retrieved 22 June 2019.
  9. ↑ "Games Without Frontiers is back on Channel 5". Bitfeed.co. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  10. ↑ Capital Radio interview with Nicky Horne, broadcast 16 March 1980; transcribed in Gabriel fanzine White Shadow (no. 1, pp. 9-10), by editor Fred Tomsett
  11. ↑ "Waugh's V-J Day | The Evelyn Waugh Society". evelynwaughsociety.org.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bowman, Durrell (2 September 2016). Experiencing Peter Gabriel: A Listener's Companion. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 84–88. ISBN   9781442252004.
  13. ↑ Niebank, C.G. (21 December 2005). "Sing the Body Electronic". Oklahoma Gazette . p. 73. Retrieved 2 April 2024.
  14. ↑ Marsh, Dave (26 July 2001). "Peter Gabriel [3]". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  15. ↑ "Interview: Musician Magazine (1991)". Sting.com. 1 August 1991. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  16. ↑ Snow, Mat (5 March 1991). "Q&A". Q Magazine. 55: 34.
  17. 1 2 3 "Games Without Frontiers". PeterGabriel.com. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  18. ↑ "Single Picks" (PDF). Record World . 14 June 1980. p. 16. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
  19. ↑ "wls091380". www.oldiesloon.com.
  20. ↑ "wls89of80". www.oldiesloon.com.
  21. ↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, NSW: Australian Chart Book. p. 120. ISBN   0-646-11917-6.
  22. ↑ "Item Display – RPM". CollectionsCanada.gc.ca. Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on 25 October 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  23. ↑ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Games Without Frontiers". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
  24. ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 219. ISBN   1-904994-10-5.
  25. ↑ "Peter Gabriel Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard.
  26. ↑ "Item Display – RPM". CollectionsCanada.gc.ca. Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  27. ↑ "Top 100 Singles 1980" (PDF). Record Mirror . London: Spotlight Publications. 21 March 1981. p. 36. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
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