No Self Control (Peter Gabriel song)

Last updated
"No Self Control"
Peter Gabriel - No Self Control.jpg
Single by Peter Gabriel
from the album Peter Gabriel (Melt)
B-side "Lead a Normal Life"
Released25 April 1980 [1]
Recorded1979
Genre
Length3:55
Label Charisma
Songwriter(s) Peter Gabriel
Producer(s) Steve Lillywhite
Peter Gabriel singles chronology
"Games Without Frontiers"
(1980)		"No Self Control"
(1980)		"Biko"
(1980)

"No Self Control" is a song written and performed by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released in 1980 as the second single released from his third self-titled album and peaked at number 33 in the UK. The first 30,000 copies of the single were distributed in picture sleeves. [4]

Contents

Background

The song was inspired by Steve Reich's composition Music for 18 Musicians . "Steve Reich had done this wonderful record called Music for Eighteen Musicians, which involved marimbas and I think, of all the systems composers, his work had a lot of textures and colours and grooves to them that I really responded to. So I tried to involve elements of that in the work." [5] Gabriel programmed some patterns on a PAiA drum machine to develop some rhythmic ideas. [6]

Early versions of the song included full instrumentation, although Steve Lillywhite said that the song was scaled back during the mixing stage of the recording process. He built the song in a piecemeal process with Hugh Padgham, 20–30 seconds at a time. Padgham was situated at the back of the control room and assembled each segment of "No Self Control" without listening back to his edits; Lillywhite explained that he trusted Padgham's judgement and refrained from listening to the full song until their work was complete. [7]

I remember we spent the whole night doing the mix. For the big playback at the end, we brought people in from outside because we knew we had something great. That was the song everyone loved, loved, loved at the time.

— Steve Lillywhite [7]

The vocal effects in the intro were created with a transistor radio sold at RadioShack. The device, which consisted of a small speaker, a nine-volt battery, a volume control and an input jack, was dubbed "the $9.95" by Gabriel's band as Larry Fast had purchased the transistor radio at RadioShack for that price. Fast connected "the $9.95" to an output of another device and projected Gabriel's vocals through a Moog filter. After Gabriel expressed his approval of the sound, Fast suggested that they connect "the $9.95" to the mixing board, but this was deemed unsatisfactory. Lillywhite explained that the analog distortion from the device's speaker was superior to its sound when connected to the mixing board, which he said sounded "average and boring." As such, Gabriel instead held the speaker up to his mouth and made wah-wah noises, which were captured with a microphone and later processed. Lillywhite described the vocal effect as "a poor man's Peter Frampton." [7]

Percussionist Morris Pert supplied the song's marimba work, which underpins the composition. Wordless backing vocals from Gabriel and Kate Bush enter following the introduction of Pert's marimba ostinato. The marimba playing, which author Durrell Bowman described as "rhythmically insistent" and "minimalist", drops out at the song's more rock–oriented bridge, which includes instrumentation of electric guitar, bass, and drums, the latter of which was provided by Phil Collins. [8] David Rhodes played his guitar parts on a Fender Jazzmaster through a Eurotec Black Box Fuzz Module. [9]

Live performances

Prior to being recorded for Gabriel's 1980 studio album, the song was performed live under the working title "I Don't Know How to Stop". [10] Later live performances, such as on Plays Live (1983), were slower and more subdued than the studio recording. Gabriel and his China 1984 touring band performed "No Self Control" on BBC One's Top of the Pops in May 1980. [11] Gabriel later played the song on his 1986–1987 This Way Up tour. During these performances, Gabriel would roll away from two lighting arms that descended upon him. [12] [13]

On his 2012–2014 Back to Front Tour, Gabriel played the entirety of his 1986 So with members of his This Way Up touring band. He augmented the setlist with additional songs in his discography, including "No Self Control". [14] Similar to his This Way Up tour, a series of lighting arms hovered and swung over Gabriel during one part of the song, although he remained standing for this portion. [15] For the Rock Paper Scissors Tour, which was a series of joint performances with Gabriel and Sting in 2016, "No Self Control" was placed as the third song of the set. Whereas the first two songs of the set were played without each other's company, Sting joined Gabriel onstage for "No Self Control" and sang one of the verses. [16] [17]

Critical reception

Writing for Sounds , Hugh Fielder noted Gabriel's "uninhibited" vocal delivery on "No Self Control" and expressed surprise that the song had reached the top 50 in the UK. [18] Nick Kent of NME praised the song as a "masterpiece of conceit and implementation" and wrote that it was "a startling piece of music, as close to an aural Taxi Driver as one can get." He placed further attention on the song's arrangement that "follows Gabriel's feverish maneuvers stroke for stroke" with its reliance on both synthesisers and "primitive" mallet percussion that build into a "hysterical mass chorus of the song's title." [19]

In his retrospective review of Peter Gabriel's third eponymous release, Chris Roberts of The Quietus described the song as a "beautifully structured and subtly aggressive" song with a "compelling construct of synths and riffs." [2] Graeme Thompson of Uncut magazine called "No Self Control" one of the album's "terrific songs" that was "greatly enhanced by a vaulting spirit of adventure." [3]

Track listing

7" UK single (1980)

  1. "No Self Control" – 3:47
  2. "Lead a Normal Life" – 4:10

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1980)Peak
position
UK Official Singles Chart [20] 33

In other works

It was used in the season three episode of Homicide: Life on the Street , "The City That Bleeds".

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References

  1. ↑ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 28.
  2. 1 2 Roberts, Chris (11 October 2010). "The Quietus | Features | Anniversary | Peter Gabriel 3". The Quietus. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
  3. 1 2 Thomson, Graeme (30 October 2015). "Peter Gabriel – the first four solo albums remastered". Uncut . Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  4. ↑ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 3.
  5. ↑ "Peter Gabriel". Petergabriel.com. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  6. ↑ Hammond, Ray (January 1987). "Peter Gabriel - Behind The Mask (SOS Jan 1987)". Sound on Sound (Jan 1987): 40–44.
  7. 1 2 3 Reed, Ryan (31 May 2020). "No Self Control: An Oral History Of 'Peter Gabriel III'". Grammy.com. Retrieved 4 December 2024.
  8. ↑ Bowman, Durrell (2 September 2016). Experiencing Peter Gabriel: A Listener's Companion. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 78–79. ISBN   9781442252004.
  9. ↑ Dery, Mark (September 1987). "David Rhodes - Atmospheric Guitar for Peter Gabriel". Guitar Player. Retrieved 25 June 2024– via David Rhodes Archive.
  10. ↑ Scarfe, Graeme (2021). Peter Gabriel: Every Album, Every Song. United Kingdom: SonicBond. p. 25. ISBN   978-1-78952-138-2.
  11. ↑ Smith, Mic (1990). "Peak Time Viewing: Peter Gabriel on British TV 1975–90". White Shadow (Gabriel fanzine). No. 3. p. 8.
  12. ↑ "Peter Gabriel On Tour (5): This Way Up Tour 1986-87". Genesis News Com. Retrieved 4 December 2024.
  13. ↑ Bishop, Pete (10 November 1986). "Peter Gabriel is Still a Showman With Lively, Full-Bodied Concert". The Pittsburgh Press . p. D3. Retrieved 4 December 2024– via Google Books.
  14. ↑ Gendron, Bob (29 September 2012). "Gabriel Recreates So With Subtle Elegance". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 5 December 2024– via The Genesis Archive.
  15. ↑ "Peter Gabriel - Back To Front 2012 - North America Tour Report". Genesis News Com. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  16. ↑ Zivitz, Jordan (6 July 2016). "Review: Collaboration, not competition for Peter Gabriel and Sting". The Gazette . Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  17. ↑ "Sting and Peter Gabriel's Rock Paper Scissors Tour Showcases Friendship and Music". PopMatters . 8 July 2016. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  18. ↑ Fielder, Hugh (7 June 1980). "Peter Gabriel (Charisma CDS 4019)". Sounds . p. 37. Retrieved 4 December 2024– via The Genesis Archive.
  19. ↑ Kent, Nick (7 June 1980). "Gabriel: Music Without Frontiers". NME . Retrieved 4 December 2024– via The Genesis Archive.
  20. ↑ "Peter Gabriel UK discography". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 17 November 2011.
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