Hackett: "Counting Out Time" is a joke

I'm assuming its because his current tour also focuses on 'highlights from TLLDOB album and maybe it was suggested and rejected and he's giving his reasoning.

'I Know what i like' was a bit of a 'novelty' song.. Gabriel still wanted to hark back to a touch of Beatles era british whimsey and pop psychedelia and i think its the same with Counting out time, just that its more incongruous because of its setting. On some levels the single 'a trick of the tail' is in the same vein.. some elements in Genesis had always wanted to be seen as ' pop songwriters' as well as creative composers and musicians and i dont think that they successfully did that unil the 1980's.

One last thought; around that time Peter Gabriel had been working with diminutive british comedian Charlie Drake, writing a novelty pop-psych song for him and getting a stellar cast of prog luminaries to play on it. It completely sunk without trace and is an extremely hard to find and expensive 7'' on the Charisma label but might give some insight into that bit of PG's mind!