Firth of Fifth

Banks wrote most of the music. He offered the solo piano introduction for Foxtrot, where it was rejected, then the band joined three separate Banks pieces into one at Rutherford's suggestion. The introduction moves in irregular meters and Banks played it without the sustain pedal because the pedal noise would not go away. The lyrics, by Banks and Rutherford, punning on the Firth of Forth, follow a river and, Banks said, got caught up in the cosmos; he counts them among the worst he was involved with.

In the instrumental middle, Gabriel's flute plays a melody that Hackett then restates on guitar, using an Echoplex and fuzz so that it fed back and the notes seemed to go on forever. Hackett said the theme sounds like French impressionism on piano and something Middle Eastern on guitar, and that it will always be twinned with him. Edward Macan called it among the finest nine and a half minutes Genesis recorded, and Ultimate Classic Rock ranks it their best song of the 1970s.

Live

The piano introduction was dropped on stage from 1973 because Banks's electric piano was not touch-sensitive enough. After Hackett left it disappeared until 1981; from 1983 the band played only the instrumental and guitar section, with Daryl Stuermer taking Hackett's part, often running into I Know What I Like, through to the final concert in 2022. Hackett recorded it again on Genesis Revisited and plays it as an encore on his own tours.