I recently reviewed Afro Celt Sound System’s fine retrospective album Capture for Whisperin’ & Hollerin’ . The double album compiles tracks from their 15 year career to date.
One of the key tracks is When I’m Falling with vocals by Peter Gabriel, the story in song of a man in crisis to the point that he doesn’t know up from down.
When this song was released in 2001, the video featured , without any great originality….wait for it….. a man falling. Bad call.
He comes from the clouds, passes a plane (see those bemused pilots-one is Gabriel), then critically he is falling into a metropolis and down past skyscrpapers that look horribly like the twin towers and office workers (one is Gabriel) look to see him falling and wouldn’t you just know it, on the ground stands Peter Gabriel once more. It would have been a neat touch here if Gabriel had caught him but the man hits the ground, smashes through the sidewalk and keeps on going into the underworld.
Of course, now it’s impossible to watch this video without thinking of attack on the World Trade Center. Continue reading
