Here Comes the Flood

Gabriel wrote it in 1976, soon after leaving Genesis. He recalled writing it after running down a hillside with his eyes closed and feeling an energy point there, and said it more or less wrote itself. He described the flood as mental: a release, a wash over the mind, in a world where thoughts become public through telepathy. In 1981 he told The Bristol Recorder that it could stand for a psychological breakthrough and an evolutionary leap toward collective consciousness. Short-wave radio, whose signals grow stronger at night, also fed the idea. It is the first of his songs to mention the character Mozo.

The 1977 album recording, produced by Bob Ezrin, uses the London Symphony Orchestra and a full band. Gabriel later felt it was overproduced and further from his demo, and Uncut found it a little overcooked. A simpler version with Robert Fripp and Brian Eno appeared on Fripp's Exposure in 1979, and Gabriel said it matched his original concept more closely. In 1990 he recorded it again for Shaking the Tree with only voice and piano, though he said he preferred the 1979 take. Critics were kind to the song, and Melody Maker's Alan Jones heard hope within an apocalyptic setting.

Live

It was in his sets from the first tours, and on the 1977 tour a truncated version opened the show before the full one took its place. Later it appeared as solo piano near the end of shows on the 1986 and 1987 tour, and on the I/O Tour his German and Swiss shows used the German title Jetzt kommt die Flut.

The upload in the hypersongs web is a live television performance from the Rockpalast broadcast at the Grugahalle in Essen, Germany, in 1978, not the album version. It runs 3:50 and was posted on Gabriel's official channel.