SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND

The greatest song on this album is "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight", it has the best lyrics a Genesis song could produce with a great sound, I think this song is right up there with "21st Century Schizoid Man" (King Crimson). "Battle of Epping Forest" is comical song where the lyrics involve two working class gangs fighting over gang boundaries with a sour ending, it suggests that they have been controlled by the "blacked capped barons" that represents lords or the higher classes. The music is bouncy, well engineered, apart from the chorus, where the music sounds a bit off beat with the lyrics. All in all, a brilliant song.

Other great songs include "I Know What I Like" and "Firth of Fifth", this song is said by others to be the best on the LP but it's not as good as "The Moonlit Knight". There is superb piano work from Tony Banks in this song, but the lyrics more vague compared to songs like "Epping Forest". I think the Cinema Show is overated, it has one great line where Gabriel sings "once a man like the sea I raged. Once a women like the earth I gave. And there is in fact more earth than sea". Whic suggests to me there is more people in the world who would give up land than cause trouble (more good people than bad). This is a more positive outlook of the world compared to King Crimson's "Epitaph".

I think "After The Ordeal" is a very good musical piece. I think Gabriel took some of the musical outline in this song for his piece "Family Snapshot". I could be wrong but listen to "Family Snapshot" and see if you agree. There isn't a bad song on this album, "More Fool Me" gets the closest but is still a good song, it gives a bit of light relief half way through. It has some nice soft vocals from Phil Collins with a higher pitch voice, maybe he had to do this so people don't Gabriel's voice mixed up with his own. People seem quick to blame Phil for "More Fool Me" being in the album, but at the end of the day they did all write it, not just him.

There second Genesis masterpiece after "Foxtrot" 1972.

Social review comments

Review related links

• Send comments to
• Report this review (#9816)
• Buy GENESIS music online with PA partners
• Show all GENESIS MP3/Stream
• Go to GENESIS page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Selling England by the Pound page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for GENESIS related discussions