"Turn It On Again" is a song by the English rock band

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

featured on their 1980 album ''

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are r ...

''. Also released as a single, the song reached number 8 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

, becoming the band's second top 10 hit. The lyrics, by

Mike Rutherford Michael John Cloete Crawford Rutherford (born 2 October 1950) is an English guitarist, bassist and songwriter, co-founder of the rock band Genesis. Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks are the group's two continuous members. Initially servin ...

, concern a man who does nothing more than watch television. He becomes obsessed with the people he watches on it, believing them to be his friends. The song is featured on the Flash FM station playlist in the game '' Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories''.

Background

"Turn It On Again" was built from leftovers from projects by each member: The second set of verses was conceived by Tony Banks for ''

A Curious Feeling ''A Curious Feeling'' is the debut solo album from English keyboardist Tony Banks. It was recorded at ABBA's Polar Music Studios during a brief hiatus for Banks's main group Genesis and released in 1979 on Charisma Records. It is one of only t ...

'': "We kind of put utherford's riff– the bit he didn't use on '' Smallcreep's Day'', curiously enough – with the bit I didn't use on ''A Curious Feeling'', and put these two together. We made it much more rocky; both bits became much more rocky. My bit was a bit more epic, and Mike's bit was a bit slower and a bit more heavy metal. And then Phil gave it a much more straightforward drum part; perhaps neither of us would have thought that we would want that on that bit ..We put on one or two other bits, too, that ended up from there". The song is characterised by a rhythmic structure uncharacteristically complex for pop music but common in the band's

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. I ...

back catalogue. The verse/chorus sections alternate

time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...

s, to (), while the intro and bridge sections are in and (). The song – written mostly by Rutherford, with help from

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...

– was originally much slower. Rutherford explains on the ''Songbook'' DVD: "I had this riff lays lead riff on guitar but at the time I was playing it like this: lays slower And Phil said, 'Why don't you try it in a faster speed?' and then he said to me, 'Do you realize it is in ?' and I said, 'What do you mean, it's in 13? It's in , isn't it?' 'No, it's 13.'" Collins confirms: "You can't dance to it. You see people trying to dance to it every now and again. They get on the off beat but they don't know why". Tony Banks adds: "You can't dance or clap along to it because of that time signature. When we play it live, you can always see the audience getting caught out." Blake, Mark: "The stories behind the songs"; ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prim ...

'' #216, November 2015, p26 "Turn It On Again" has been a favourite at Genesis's shows. Consequently, the group's 1999 compilation '' Turn It On Again: The Hits'' and its 2007 expanded reissue, subtitled '' The Tour Edition'', were named after it, as was the band's 2007 Turn It On Again: The Tour reunion tour. In the 1980s, the band would attach a medley of 1960s pop songs (referred to by the band as the "

Blues Brothers The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on ''Saturday Night Live''. Belushi and Aykroyd fronted the band, in character, respectiv ...

" medley, as the first song was " Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"). The song would be returned to its album form for the '' We Can't Dance'' tour and the band would later regard the medley as a poor decision.

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

played drums when he reunited with his former bandmates at 1982's

Six of the Best Six of the Best was a reunion concert between the rock band Genesis, their original lead singer Peter Gabriel and former guitarist Steve Hackett. It took place on a wet Saturday, 2 October 1982, at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshi ...

show and found himself baffled by its time signatures. "It was typical Peter: 'Oh, I can play this'," observed Tony Banks. "But once he started playing, he kept looking around going, ''Oh fuck!'' 'Turn It On Again' does funny things – it's truly a Genesis song." Originally written and recorded in the key of B Major, it was transposed down to A for the 2007 tour and further down to G for the 2021 tour to compensate for the lowering of Collins' voice.

The Duke Suite

"Turn it on Again" was originally a section of a long

suite Suite may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition ** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach ** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó ** ''Suite ...

written by the band that was split up into individual songs before it was released. At the time, was just an interlude between the preceding and next sections of the suite.

Chart performance

"Turn It on Again" was a moderate hit in North America, but failed to reach the Top 40 except in regional markets such as Chicago (#31 on WLS-AM). However, it was a bigger hit in Europe, particularly in the UK where it reached #8.

Personnel

– drums, percussion, lead and backing vocals * Tony Banks – keyboards, backing vocals *

– guitars,

bass pedals Bass pedals are an electronic musical instrument with a foot-operated pedal keyboard with a range of one or more octaves. The earliest bass pedals from the 1970s consisted of a pedalboard and analog synthesizer tone generation circuitry package ...

References

External links