Certain Songs #1540: Peter Gabriel – “D.I.Y.” | Medialoper

Album: Peter Gabriel
Year: 1978

. . .

While Peter Gabriel’s second album, 1978’s Peter Gabriel wasn’t quite as commercially or critically successful as his debut, Peter Gabriel, or one that came next, 1980’s Peter Gabriel, it started incredibly well.

The opener, “On The Air,” featured the roaring guitar of producer Robert Fripp battling against the keyboards of E-Streeter Roy Bittan, but was instantly topped by one of my all-time fave Gabriel tracks, the statement of purpose “D.I.Y,” which featured neither of those people.

With Gabriel himself on piano, Tony Levin playing the Chapman Stick — his playing on this album was the beginning of his road to 1980s King Crimson — and future World’s Most Dangerous Band guitarist Sid McGinnis scraping out the acoustic guitar, “D.I.Y.” was as short, sweet and simple as its chorus, which led off the song.

D.I.Y.
D.I.Y.
D.I.Y.
D.I.Y.

Weirdly enough, while “D.I.Y” was one of the prime punk rock tenets — or at least the one that resonated the most with me — I think I first discovered the concept via an interview with Nick Lowe and shortly after that, this song. Which is ironic, since nobody would ever accuse Lowe, Gabriel, or me, for that matter, of being punks, it’s really more of a universal concept that got translated into the punk indie ethos, and has probably never left.

Don’t tell me what I will do, ’cause I won’t
Don’t tell me to believe in you, ’cause I don’t

(Which are actually pretty punk lyrics, right?)

For me, it’s translated into teaching myself how to create things I wanted to create: to make promos on KFSR, I learned how to splice tape so I could create promos at KFSR, I taught myself HTML; to write about music on a regular basis, so I started Certain Songs. And many many other small things: trial and error, fucking it up and figuring it out. All along, any time this song running in my head, especially that bouncy chorus.

D.I.Y
(Do it yourself!)
D.I.Y
(Do it yourself!)
D.I.Y
(Do it yourself!)
D.I.Y
(Do it yourself!)

In any event, “D.I.Y.” was released as a single in 1978, and failed to chart anywhere, which . . . makes no sense to me actually, especially in the U.K., which had already embraced “Solsbury Hill,” and this seemed like a natural follow-up. But I think I’m alone, because I just looked at whole bunch of “Best of Peter Gabriel” lists online, and “D.I.Y” was nowhere to be found, and in fact, it didn’t make his 1990 greatest hits album, either.

“D.I.Y”

The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

[from http://bit.ly/2lwcL5j]