Land of Confusion
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"Land of Confusion" is a rock song written by the band Genesis for their 1986 album Invisible Touch. The song was the third track on the album and was the fourth track from the album to become a single. The music was written by the band, while the lyrics were written by guitarist Mike Rutherford. The lyrics, further emphasized by the music video (see below), discuss the greed and uncertainty of the Cold War-era 1980s, but evoke a sense of hope for the future. The song is remembered by many Genesis fans because of its video, which featured puppets from the 1980s UK sketch show, Spitting Image. The song was played on their Invisible Touch, We Can't Dance, and Turn It On Again: The Tour tours, though always transposed down a key to account for the deepening of Phil Collins's voice over the years.
The music video
The song is widely remembered for its music video, which had heavy airplay on MTV. The video drew controversy for its portrayal of Ronald Reagan as being physically and cognitively inept. The video features puppets by the British television show Spitting Image. After Phil Collins saw a disfigured version of himself on the show, he commissioned the shows creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, to create puppets of the entire band, as well as all the characters in the video.
The video opens with a caricatured Ronald Reagan (voiced by Chris Barrie), Nancy Reagan, and a chimpanzee (possibly to parody Reagan's film Bedtime for Bonzo), going to bed at 16:30 (4:30PM). Reagan, holding a teddy bear, goes to sleep and begins to have a nightmare, which sets the premise for the entire video. The video intermittently features a line of stomping feet, illustrating an army marching through a swamp, and they pick up heads of Cold War-era political figures in the swamp along the way (an allusion to Motel Hell).
Caricatured versions of the band members are shown playing instruments on stage during a concert; Tony Banks on synthesizer, Mike Rutherford on a four-necked guitar, and two Phil Collins puppets: one on the drums, and one singing.
During the second verse, the video features various world leaders giving speeches on large video screens in front of mass crowds; the video shows Mussolini, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mikhail Gorbachev and his aides (appearing like Frank Sinatra's 'rat pack'), and Muammar al-Gaddafi. Meanwhile, Reagan is shown putting on a Superman suit, fumbling along the way, while Collins sings,
- Oh Superman where are you now
- When everything's gone wrong somehow
- The men of steel, the men of power
- Are losing control by the hour.
Meanwhile, the "real world" Reagan is showing drowning in his own sweat (at one point, a rubber duck floats by).
During the bridge, a Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus are shown forcing Reagan to watch a television with various "news clips", showing then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and other news figures engaged in various activities. Meanwhile, the gorilla from the introduction is shown throwing a bone in the air (an allusion to 2001: A Space Odyssey).
As the bone lands at the beginning of the final verse, it turns into a telephone that Collins uses to inform the person on the other end that he "won't be coming home tonight, my generation will put it right" (which is when a caricature of a 1980s Pete Townshend is seen playing a chord on guitar and giving thumbs up for putative mentioning of his own song, My generation). Reagan is then shown riding a Triceratops through the streets while wearing a cowboy hat and wardrobe (a reference to Reagan's down-home public persona and ranch). As the video nears its climax, there are periodic scenes of a large group of spoofed celebrity puppets, including Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Hulk Hogan singing along to the chorus of the song, in a spoof of the charity driven song "We Are the World."
At the end of the video, Reagan awakens from his dream, and surfaces from the sweat surrounding him. After taking a drink, he fumbles for a button next to his bed. He intends to push the one labeled "Nurse", but instead presses the one titled "Nuke", setting off a mushroom cloud. Reagan then replies "Man, that's one heck of a nurse!" (This is somewhat reminiscient of the opening of Far Out Space Nuts when a "Launch" button is pressed, thinking it was labelled "Lunch".)
The video, directed by John Lloyd & Jim Yukich and produced by Jon Blair, won the short lived Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video during the 1988 Grammys.[1] The video was also nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Video of the Year in 1987, but lost to "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel (coincidentally, Genesis' former lead singer). It also made the number-one spot on The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau's top 10 music videos in his year-end "Dean's List" feature, and number three on the equivalent list in his annual survey of music critics, Pazz & Jop (again losing out to "Sledgehammer").[2]
"Land of Confusion" was also a track used for the final episode of the 1980s cop show Miami Vice (in which Phil Collins periodically played a minor role) called "Freefall" and was applied as the characters of the show Crockett (Don Johnson) and Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) were in the middle of a stakeout. The song was to imply the complexity of the story during the finale.
Singles track listings
7": Virgin / GENS 3 (UK)
- "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
- "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
7": Atlantic / 7-89336 (US)
- "Land Of Confusion" (Edit Of Remix) - 4:45
- "Land Of Confusion" (LP Version) - 5:54
12": Virgin / GENS 3-12 (UK)
- "Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55
- "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
- "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
CD: Virgin / SNEG 3-12 (UK)
- "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
- "Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55
- "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
- "Do the Neurotic" – 7:08
12": Atlantic / PR 968 (US)
- "Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55
- "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
- Remixes by John Potoker
Credits
- Phil Collins - Drums, Percussion, Vocals
- Tony Banks - Keyboards, Vocals, Bass pedals
- Mike Rutherford - Guitars, Bass guitar
Quotes
- "...Phil offers thoughtful, well intentioned lyrics which tackle the world's problems of war and chaos;...Phil's worries in 1987 have a prophetic ring to them." ~ Welch, Chris. The Complete Guide to the Music of Genesis. 1995 ed [3]
This quote, while a nice observation, is stunningly inaccurate, since it was Mike Rutherford that penned the lyrics for this track.
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Cover versions
The song has been variously re-recorded as cover versions by several artists spanning a number genres.
One-time Genesis guitarist Daryl Stuermer reworked the song into a jazz tune on his album Another Side of Genesis.[4]
It has been covered by reggae group Fourth Dimension.[5]
The American electronic band Interface has covered the song, performing it in concert and recording it for the upcoming 2 CD compilation Machines Against Hunger.
The Melodic Heavy Metal Band In Flames also did a cover of Land of Confusion, featured in their Trigger (EP) album, released in 2003. [6] It differs from the Genesis versions, featuring a faster pace, and Anders Fridén signature screaming voice.
In 2004, Swedish pop group Alcazar released a partial cover of the song, entitled "This is the World We Live in", which keeps only the chorus (from which the title is derived).
Disturbed cover version and video
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The most recent cover version was released by the band Disturbed in July 2006, as the fourth single from their album Ten Thousand Fists. It was accompanied by a music video animated by Todd McFarlane, known for his work with the Spawn comic book series. McFarlane had previously animated the video for "Freak on a Leash" by KoRn, "Do the Evolution" by Pearl Jam, and the "Land of Confusion" video has a very similar style. The song became their first #1 single on the Mainstream Rock Charts on October 26, 2006.[citation needed]
The video, credited to McFarlane and Terry Fitzgerald, is a spiritual sequel of sorts to the original Genesis video. However, where Genesis used the "Spitting Image" caricature puppets to parody the Cold War and its leaders, McFarlane uses dark imagery and much more direct attacks on the G8 leaders to get his point across.[citation needed]
