MAN ON THE CORNER

'Man on the Corner' was among the very first Genesis songs that caught my attention when I was 11 or 12 years old, thanks to my big sister and her music listening. A few more years and I'd be diving deep into the classic prog-Genesis and prog in general, but at the time my own relationship to popular music was just about to develop from passively hearing the listenings of my sis and bro to listening to their LP's on my own -- and starting to tape music into cassettes.

I remember taping also Abacab to a short cassette and copying the simple album cover art with colour ink pens, but ever since those days I've had very little interest towards Abacab. Maybe I should revisit it again. As you can guess from my childhood memories, 'Man on the Corner' is to me more about nostalgia than anything else. I haven't listened to it for decades (I think), but I remember it up to every detail. It's so simple, both in songwriting and in the minimalistic arrangement. As a song per se, it is really too simple and repetitive to hold interest for a long time, but I mildly like the soft (programmed?) rhythm pattern. A bit similar as in 'Duchess' on the previous album Duke (1980).

Non-album track 'Submarine' is an atmospheric slow-tempo instrumental, and rather an untypical track for Genesis. I agree with Guillermo that it sounds improvised and destined to be a B-sider in the first place (it can be found on the box set Genesis Archives vol. 2, 1976-1992). A nice one to listen to once in a while, nothing more.

Objectively, neither of these songs are hardly worth more than two stars, but for the notable personality, I'll rate this single with three stars. It would be a nice addition in my tiny 7" collection.