WALLFLOWER

I consider "Wallflower" as the best song from PETER GABRIEL`s fourth self-titled solo album (which was titled "Security" in the U.S.). If I remember well, this song has lyrics about people who suffers some injustices. Maybe the "B" side of this single, "Kiss of Life", was a better choice in commercial terms for the "A" side, having a more "commercial sound" with the use of an electronic drum kit and a very rhythmic structure. But "Wallflower" is a melodic slow song, sung with feeling by Gabriel and with very good arrangements. Maybe both songs (with also "Shock the Monkey") are the most accessible songs from that album which is somewhat "dark" like much of Gabriel`s music for the general public. I don`t know if "Wallflower" was successful in any Hit Parade chart in the world, but anyway it was a good choice for a single release. I never listened to it being played in the FM Radio stations in my city. "Shock the Monkey" was the song that was played in the radio stations in my city.

I have a strong appreciation for Peter Gabriel's third album nicknamed "Melt" (1980), but my relationship with the fourth one, also known as "Security" by its US title, has always been more difficult, as its strange cover art too. It is definitely not an album I'd enjoy listening to from beginning to end, but some of its songs are on my list of PG favourites, 'San Jacinto' especially. Perhaps the album is for my taste a bit too percussive, hollow, dry and stark sonically. But onto this single of two album outtakes.

'Wallflower' deals with mistreatment and political injustice towards individuals, such as of political prisoners in Latin America, and I read in a PG biography that the primary source of inspiration was Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement in Poland. The song is my other highlight, the album's softest track for sure, full of cathartic emotion and beautiful melodies. Like several other songs from the albums 3 and 4, the composition was recycled into a little instrumental piece in Gabriel's first soundtrack album Birdy (1985) -- music for a film based on William Wharton's impressive novel -- and accidentally the original song has lyrics that in my opinion would quite well suit for the story of Birdy, the young man who's mentally injured by the Vietnam war and seems like a hopless case for "clean white coats" whose "eyes are all as hidden as their Hippocratic Oath". In fact 'Wallflower' became dear to me at the time I read the book and saw the film, when I was 15 or 16.

On 'Kiss of Life', the closing song in the album, PG puts on a cheerful and danceable gear, or a "commercial sound" as Guillermo put it in his review. It has in-your-face rhythm with Latin influences and a synth oriented sound I'm not fond of at all. Rather an irritating upbeat song, to be honest. Four stars for 'Wallflower' and two for 'Kiss of Life' => three stars.