“Family Snapshot” by Peter Gabriel

"Family Snapshot" turned up on Peter Gabriel's third self-titled album, released on May 30, 1980, though he had already played an early version live in 1978 and started tracking it that year. It's sung from inside the head of an assassin talking through his plan and his state of mind, and Gabriel took his cue from An Assassin's Diary, the 1973 book by Arthur Bremer, who tried to kill the segregationist Democrat George Wallace on May 15, 1972. What got to Gabriel, he told Sounds, was Bremer's hunger for fame, down to trying to get the shooting onto American dinnertime TV and European late-night broadcasts.

Steve Lillywhite produced and Hugh Padgham engineered. Gabriel sings and plays piano, with Larry Fast on synthesizer, Jerry Marotta on drums, Phil Collins adding snare and Dick Morrissey on saxophone. Pieces of it resurfaced in "Close Up" on Gabriel's 1985 Birdy soundtrack.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.