Some guy calling himself Rael, presumably in tribute to Peter Gabriel's persona on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway uploads these brilliant 'imagined albums' on YouTube. Not quite sure how he does it, but it seems he that gets hold of all sorts of material from bands, like Genesis, aligned to certain periods of time, stuff like demos and radio sessions, and then tweaks them to create 'what might have been'. So Cynthia's Dream is what might have been released, instead of Nursery Cryme, if Anthony Phillips had stayed in the band. It features three of the songs off the real album, these being Musical Box, Harold the Barrel and Harlequin, and a load of other interesting material and is a treat to listen to. Especially if, like yours truly, you saw Genesis live in this period and fell in love with them.
So listening to the imagined album was generally a nostalgic experience but, quite to my surprise, it was the version of Harlequin that packed a wallop for me. It's not exactly regarded as a classic track in the actual album version, and I don't think it was performed live by the band, but listening to the 'new' version, which features the voices of Gabe & Phil Collins more upfront than in the original, I was struck by just how lovely a song it is and how evocative of something I can't quite explain. Except a very young Brian felt it deeply and the older version sort of plugged back into that for a glorious four minutes or so this morning.
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