Hey! Let’s focus on a 1970’s prog rock concept album song shall we??? No, don’t run away and, please stop that screaming too. Sure, this is going to be a bit on the heavy side in places but it’s a terrific song so please bear with me.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway has some great tracks on it and, in my opinion, suffers by trying to join up the songs up into a complete narrative. Consequently, and especially in the second half of the album, it feels weaker. However, if you’re going to tell a modern day Pilgrim’s Progress then the allegory needs to hang together and for that you need more than a highlights package.
However, this is an unashamed focus on what is my highlight. Carpet Crawlers is a rich, evocative and seductive song and Peter Gabriel’s vocal is pitched to match. It is low and intimate – like vocal chocolate. This seductiveness is one of the reasons that this is such an inviting song. Behind it lies a tinkling keyboard arpeggio cascading throughout. The song builds on these two key elements with growing intensity.
I’ve struggled to get a grip on the lyrics, sung along with them for years and wondered what the hell it was all about. I seem to recall T S Elliot’s objective correlative theory from school where it’s true meaning was boiled down to the idea that we can gain an emotional resonance from literature without understanding the full detail. (This is actually a side-effect from the elemental nature of things, but that’s immaterial here.) I raise this because that’s how I’ve thought of Carpet Crawlers. I sort of get it, but I have no idea why – it just makes sense.
In a 6th form sort of way, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a bit of a Waste Land tale of self discovery and catharsis. It is packed with allusion, if not allegory. In my opinion, some of it works whilst some seems immature and a little silly. But it takes on ambitious themes, wrapping them in an existentialist framework so Bunyan meets Lewis Carroll. To understand Carpet Crawlers we really ought to place it into the framework of the concept album itself. Losing the will to live now? Don’t blame you.
By the time of Carpet Crawlers our everyman character (Rael) is well through his journey, searching for his own identity and meaning. When Gabriel begins his low seductive vocal he is painting a rich and deliberately obscure picture. I’ve read interpretations which focus on the song as a sexual metaphor, from the act itself through to birth and in some ways this backs up the central theme of the album in searching for life.
For this article, I’ve spent some time on the lyrics and tried to get to grips with them once and for all. To be honest it’s no wonder they never made sense.
I see the lyrics as essentially religious. Or, to be more explicit, it targets organised religion and its impact on the individual. Let’s pick up on the religious imagery: “there is lambswool under my naked feet” – throughout the album the lamb is used as a symbol of innocence, in this song’s context that means God. Elsewhere, as in the album’s title, it’s the incongruity of an innocent in the anonymous bustle of New York City and the rush of capitalism and industry. But here it is the wool, shorn of the creature, one step removed. “The wool is soft and warm, gives off some kind of heat” – this is inviting. This is the open arms of the church. The next line seems just plain weird, “A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed”, until you discover that this is a creature fabled to be able to survive if not thrive on fire. But here it dies in the fire and so fable and myth are also destroyed. So is this therefore is place of truth? Digging deeper still, apparently the salamander was an early Christian symbol of spiritual integrity and chastity. As an emblem it was an indication of true faith, symbolizing the ability to survive the fire of temptation and therefore bravery. But here it has not survived the flames.
The good news is that I’m not going to pick through 6 verses and a repeated chorus to identify the references, logic and meaning. The point I’m making here is that there’s a lot to digest and some of it seems wilfully obscure. This is a song where the kitchen sink has been thrown in for good measure. Not quite The Waste Land but certainly not crystal clear.
All of this could get in the way of a good song – maybe that’s one reason why the lyrics are so obfuscated. There are a handful of key ideas which are at the heart of my interpretation and I’m afraid that these will have to be picked out like some middle aged revistation of an English Literature exam:
- “The fleas cling to the golden fleece hoping they’ll find peace” – this is man as a small, insignificant creature. Clinging on to the hope of religion – the golden fleece is again a reference to the lamb, but it is now an ornate precious thing. I see this as an organised religion allusion rather than anything to do with Greek mythology (although at this stage who knows?)
- “Each thought and gesture is caught in celluloid/ there’s no hiding from memory/ there’s no room to avoid” – every thought, word and deed is known by an omniscient god. There is no escape and no short cuts. We are all held to account – better be on alert for the remainder of your allotted three score years and ten. This is creating an inherent fear.
- “The crawlers cover the floor in the red ochre corridor” – this is religious faithful at prayer. C.S. Lewis’s metaphor for finding religion and true faith was that “any of the rooms is better than remaining in the hall” and here the implication seems to be that this corridor is therefore a holding pattern. But the crawlers are “moving in time to a heavy wooden door”, a clear church reference.
So we’ve established that the crawlers are the faithful – like the flea imagery, it’s not very flattering is it? But the chorus is genuinely uplifting and emanates empathy with the crawlers: “We’ve got to get in to get out”. It sounds a bit weak, but Gabriel’s low register backed by Phil Collins higher singing somehow makes this seem quite profound. The simple message appears to be that if the church states that it is host to the only true religion, then, in Christian terms, there is only one way. Only by following that route (i.e. “get in”) can one achieve salvation (i.e. “ to get out”).
This creates hope – “there’s only one direction in the faces that I see/ It’s upward to the ceiling where the chamber’s said to be”. “Like the forest fight for sunlight takes root in every tree/ They are pulled up by the magnet believing they’re free” – it’s natural and seemingly organic but this is where the lyrics are judgmental: the crawlers only believe they are free.
The rest of the song then focuses on the inertia which this creates. “Mild mannered supermen are held in kryptonite”. This is the crawler held in thrall by the church, in stasis waiting for salvation. In this case this is via one of the next track’s 32 doors, these potentially referring to the Kaballah’s 32 paths to wisdom. Although there is reference here to kryptonite and therefore Superman, this inertia could also allude to man’s innate ability to achieve his full potential via a Nietzchen path to become the Übermensch.
There is a fragility to the crawlers indicated by the “porcelain mannequin with shattered skin” – a frozen static figure. It “fears attack”, exuding anxiety, whilst also seeking guidance. “The eager pack lift up their pitchers, they carry all they lack” – this is a needy congregation, “heeding their callers” in the shape of the religious hierarchy. But, importantly, they already possess greater potential which cannot be satisfied while their lives are on hold. It is an implicit criticism of the restrictions of organised religion.
At this point you’re probably thinking that I’m reading way too much into a song. And you may well be right.
This is a song which soars and has a beauty about it which in many ways defies all the heavyweight meaning and double meanings embedded throughout. Gabriel’s low vocal, the glitter of the keyboard and the building activity of the rest of the arrangement make this a strangely euphoric song. It manages to combine a relaxing almost hypnotic tone against a rising percussive background and more urgent vocal. Listening to it fade out and blend into the following track, I always feel that sense of intrusion. OK, it’s part of a grandiose concept album but this is a song which doesn’t necessarily need its neighbouring songs. Although it sits as part of a much longer narrative it stands up on its own curious and beautiful merits.
Listen here: http://grooveshark.com/s/Carpet+Crawlers/2qZsIt?src=5
Music Noises 