Song · Genesis
“Watcher Of The Skies” by Genesis
From the album Foxtrot (1972)
“Watcher Of The Skies” by Genesis appears on 2 radio countdowns from 1 station between 2014 and 2020. It was first released in 1972 on the album Foxtrot. Its best result is #566 on the WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #3,140 indie & aaa song of all time.
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"Watcher of the Skies" throws open Foxtrot, the fourth Genesis studio album, released on Charisma in October 1972, and it throws it open like the doors of an observatory. Tony Banks built the introduction on a pair of chords that rang out gloriously on his cranky Mellotron Mark 2, an instrument whose wayward tuning left some other chords unplayable, and he went for melodrama and sheer scale on purpose. It works.
Banks, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford share the writing credit, Gabriel supplied the words, and the title comes from Keats and his 1817 poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". The band produced it with David Hitchcock, and as the album's only single it was recut in a shorter, heavily reworked form. It often raised the curtain on their shows and opens the 1973 live album Genesis Live.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 566 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) | 885 |
| 2020 | 1038 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
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