SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

This is a concept album that ignores itself: the downfall of Great Britain as it loses its empire on which the sun never sets and the effects it has on every day lives of Englishmen, the crisis that they endured and the first oil crisis happening right around that time. SEBTP was the first Genesis non-gatefold and cheap lighter discs as transports and oil-derived vinyl were sending prices through the roof, many ways were considered to cut costs.

Dancing With The Moonlit Knight says it all right from the start singing the loss of greatness of Britain, speaking of the Queen Of Maybe and nostalgia. The Old Father Tames spirit not recognizing its land. The uselessness of the upper class youth is pointed out in IKWIL (In Your Wardrobe), the wish that everything stay the same when you are on top is "eroded by the sea of constant change" in Firth Of Fifth and deception in More Fool Me are many of the hints that Gabriel and consorts develop so wittily

The Epping Forest Battle depicts how lower class Brits hit on each other as they cannot do it on the rest of the world as they did during the conquest of their Empire. The instrumental After The Ordeal is about digesting such a fiasco and it bothers younger Brits to the point that they must build courage just to meet the opposite sex and maybe wishes to be Tiresias (who became both) in Cinema Show. Green food stamps and price folder (Aisle of Plenty ) remind how low the Once Mighty Empire has fallen as the first oil crisis did even more damage to England Sold By The Pound to Arab Sheiks playing fortune with the Old Lady England that lays out the credit cards and plays fortune.

Got that one? Go back and listen to it