For decades there has been an old lyricist’s tale of what In The Air Tonight is about, and the other night Phil Collins told Jimmy Fallon what it is truly about.
If you are like me, you have heard a something along the version that either the Genesis singer saw someone drown by the hands of a murderer and didn’t do anything or that his brother was died by drowning and no one saved him. Is it one of those scenarios?`
It is not, he revealed on The Tonight Show, “I was just pissed off, you know, I was angry.” The NBC host wanted to know what made him angry. The drummer told him, “You go through a divorce and sometimes it is like ‘Please, I love you, I love you, I love you…Don’t hang up. Don’t hang up’ And then it is like well, ‘F you!’ And then of course that is when a song like In The Air Tonight comes out. There is obviously a lot of anger in there.”
The anger I got, the going through a fight with an ex-wife I didn’t. I think I will stick with the original theories, especially after listening him perform the song with The Roots on the show.
Which story behind the song have you heard? Which one are going with? Do you wish you didn’t know truth? Just like when someone told you that The Vapors’ Turning Japanese is not about masturbation. That one still pissed me off.
To hear Phil Collins sing the haunting classic, then
