Portrait of an Effective Song: "Mama" by Genesis
I didn't like "Mama" by Genesis when I first heard it.* The grinding synthetic heartbeat that drives the song is unsettling, even anxiety-producing. Bump-bump, CRASH! Bump-bump, CRASH! Bump-bump, CRASH! Bump-bump, CRASH! It feels like a sci-fi Telltale Heart, a relentless pounding that hurtles toward insanity.
I now consider "Mama" to be a brilliant and emotionally effective song. By emotionally effective, I mean that the song evocatively portrays the feelings contained therein, both instrumentally and lyrically. Keyboardist Tony Banks used some sort of unearthly synthesizer sound for the main melody, a kind of eerie whale call echoing into darkness. It resembles sounds you might hear in an old haunted house film, but manages to avoid sounding silly. Underneath the main melody is a subtle, but percussive and frenetic rapid-fire organ following along in time with the heartbeat. At other times, a more subtle synth pad fills in the sonic space, but never crowds it.
Mike Rutherford's use of distorted guitar also builds the desperation and anxiety. Joining the first notes of the main synthesizer part is a distorted guitar's tremolo high note, whining in response to the whale call, but far back enough in the mix to avoid sounding shrill. After the first stanza of verse one, a heavy E-minor chord strike ratchets up the emotional intensity. At other points in the song, a call-and-response organ and guitar riff interplay evokes images of strange, shadowy creatures shimmying up a wall or down a floor. The emotional climax of the song is helped along by Phil Collins' stark, high-impact gated-reverb drums, crashing front and center in the mix.
The disturbing and dark atmosphere built by the drum machine heartbeat, keyboards, guitars, and drums is well-matched by Phil Collins' emotive vocal delivery. "Mama" is certainly not a nice song. It's dark and arguably scary. The protagonist is not a hero. He's going mad, fixated on an unrequited love that's turning into an ugly obsession. Although he is desperate, his pleas come across with sinister undertones. If we are in a haunted house, it is the protagonist's mind. In the initial stanza of each verse, Collins sings low, enunciating "t's" and "ch's" in an exaggerated way. He builds to desperate pleading, cresting with long, wailing notes, occasionally screaming (though never losing melodic quality). Collins' grotesque, goblinesque laughter bursts onto the scene twice in the song to drive home the breakdown.
I think I've come to appreciate the song partially because I didn't originally like it. The song was initially off-putting in an interesting way, if that makes sense; there was something about it that called for another listen. I've long had a certain - perhaps unsavory - taste for dark songs about dark things, but I think it's more than that with "Mama." It's one of those songs where the instrumentation, arrangements, and vocals all come together to create an intense and effective musical package.
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*If you don't want to hang on for the nearly 7-minute album version, here's a link to the shorter single version.
I now consider "Mama" to be a brilliant and emotionally effective song. By emotionally effective, I mean that the song evocatively portrays the feelings contained therein, both instrumentally and lyrically. Keyboardist Tony Banks used some sort of unearthly synthesizer sound for the main melody, a kind of eerie whale call echoing into darkness. It resembles sounds you might hear in an old haunted house film, but manages to avoid sounding silly. Underneath the main melody is a subtle, but percussive and frenetic rapid-fire organ following along in time with the heartbeat. At other times, a more subtle synth pad fills in the sonic space, but never crowds it.
Mike Rutherford's use of distorted guitar also builds the desperation and anxiety. Joining the first notes of the main synthesizer part is a distorted guitar's tremolo high note, whining in response to the whale call, but far back enough in the mix to avoid sounding shrill. After the first stanza of verse one, a heavy E-minor chord strike ratchets up the emotional intensity. At other points in the song, a call-and-response organ and guitar riff interplay evokes images of strange, shadowy creatures shimmying up a wall or down a floor. The emotional climax of the song is helped along by Phil Collins' stark, high-impact gated-reverb drums, crashing front and center in the mix.
The disturbing and dark atmosphere built by the drum machine heartbeat, keyboards, guitars, and drums is well-matched by Phil Collins' emotive vocal delivery. "Mama" is certainly not a nice song. It's dark and arguably scary. The protagonist is not a hero. He's going mad, fixated on an unrequited love that's turning into an ugly obsession. Although he is desperate, his pleas come across with sinister undertones. If we are in a haunted house, it is the protagonist's mind. In the initial stanza of each verse, Collins sings low, enunciating "t's" and "ch's" in an exaggerated way. He builds to desperate pleading, cresting with long, wailing notes, occasionally screaming (though never losing melodic quality). Collins' grotesque, goblinesque laughter bursts onto the scene twice in the song to drive home the breakdown.
I think I've come to appreciate the song partially because I didn't originally like it. The song was initially off-putting in an interesting way, if that makes sense; there was something about it that called for another listen. I've long had a certain - perhaps unsavory - taste for dark songs about dark things, but I think it's more than that with "Mama." It's one of those songs where the instrumentation, arrangements, and vocals all come together to create an intense and effective musical package.
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*If you don't want to hang on for the nearly 7-minute album version, here's a link to the shorter single version.
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