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View Full Version : In The Air Tonight? WTF? Phil Collins

jeangreydp
03-19-2005, 10:47 PM
What is this song about???

I'm having a dispute w/ the Starbucks guy and I need to know.

Is it about;

1. A drowning
2. A rape
3. An astronaut
4. Or something else??

PLEASE HELP!
Cody H
03-19-2005, 10:52 PM
There's an urban legend that says Phil wrote it about a person who could've saved a guy from drowning but didn't. As the story goes, Phil finds him at a concert years later, sings the song, and the man commits suicide shortly thereafter.

But... that's just an urban legend. Apparently he says it's about his ex-wife. He was going through a rocky divorce (or was divorced) and much of the album with In The Air Tonight pertains to their relationship.

So yeah, it's about #4. Something else.
Reptisaurus!
03-19-2005, 10:54 PM
... You... you mean... Eminem lied to me!?!?!

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There's nothing left to believe in.
zombie
03-19-2005, 10:54 PM
From an interview with Playboy:

PLAYBOY: In In the air Tonight you're confessing that the person to whom you're singing left you for someone else.

COLLINS: People ask me, "Aren't you embarrassed? You're putting your private life out for all the world to see." It's like I oughtn't to let people see that I was hurt, that I cry, that I do unmanly things. But I'm not embarrassed by it.

PLAYBOY: The lyric goes, "It's all been a pack of lies." How autobiographical is that?

COLLINS: I don't want to talk about details. All of that was reflecting on the split-up of my first marriage, but that's all I want to say about it. It's not fair to my ex-wife, who has her own side to all of this and now has a life of her own and is very happy, and it's not fair to my wife, Jill, who has been living with me for six or seven years now. We have our own life now and we're very happy.
jeangreydp
03-19-2005, 10:56 PM
YOu guys are awesome.

Thank you kindly.

I will go to Starbucks and laugh in his face about the astronaut thing. :p
WSLer
03-20-2005, 09:03 PM
From an interview with Playboy:


Of course, Collins has now also divorced Jill, so there it is.
Punchy
03-20-2005, 09:12 PM
"In the Air Tonight" is all about the drum fill.
Alex
03-20-2005, 10:14 PM
"In the Air Tonight" is all about the drum fill.
"Do do, do do, do do, do do dodo"
monkeysweat
03-20-2005, 11:28 PM
I will go to Starbucks and laugh in his face about the astronaut thing. :p
... the hell?! There's an astronaut thing?!
Matt_K
03-20-2005, 11:56 PM
I love the chorus of One More Night. Pity the verse sends me to sleep.
Reptisaurus!
03-21-2005, 12:13 AM
... the hell?! There's an astronaut thing?!

Yeah! What's the astronaut thing?

(Are you sure he's not getting it confused with that Ground Control to Major Tom song?)
Alex
03-21-2005, 12:15 AM
Yeah! What's the astronaut thing?

(Are you sure he's not getting it confused with that Ground Control to Major Tom song?)
Which is about drug use, not a space ship.
Damnit.