Description
Original German press
Land Of Confusion from Genesis 1986 album Invisible Touch was the third track released as a single, reaching No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 14 in the UK in late 1986. It also reached No. 8 in the Netherlands. The music was written by the band, while the lyrics were written by guitarist Mike Rutherford. The song is widely remembered for its music video, which had heavy airplay on MTV. The video features caricature puppets by the British television show Spitting Image. After Phil Collins saw a caricatured version of himself on the show, he commissioned the show’s creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, to create puppets of the entire band, as well as all the characters in the video. The video opens with a caricatured Ronald Reagan (voiced by Chris Barrie), Nancy Reagan, and a chimpanzee (parodying Reagan’s film Bedtime for Bonzo), going to bed at 16:30 (4:30 PM). Nancy is absorbed in reading His Way, Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, in which claims are made of sexual relations between Sinatra and the then actress Nancy Davis prior to her marriage to Reagan. Reagan, holding a teddy bear, goes to sleep and begins to have a nightmare, which sets the premise for the entire video. The video intermittently features a line of stomping feet, illustrating an army marching through a swamp, and they pick up heads of Cold War-era political figures in the swamp along the way (an allusion to Motel Hell). Caricatured versions of the band members are shown playing instruments on stage during a concert: Tony Banks on an array of synthesizers (as well as a cash register full of cookies), Mike Rutherford on a four-necked guitar (parodying Rutherford’s dual role as the band’s guitar and bass-player), and two Phil Collins puppets: one on the drums, and one singing. During the second verse, the video features various world leaders giving speeches on large video screens in front of mass crowds; the video shows Benito Mussolini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Mikhail Gorbachev and his aides (appearing like Frank Sinatra’s ‘Rat Pack’), and Muammar Gaddafi. Meanwhile, Reagan is shown putting on a Superman suit, fumbling along the way, while Collins sings,
Oh Superman where are you now
When everything’s gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.
At the end of the video, Reagan awakens from his dream, and surfaces from the sweat surrounding him; Nancy at this point is wearing a snorkel. After taking a drink (missing his mouth and, indeed, his face), he fumbles for a button next to his bed. He intends to push the one labelled “Nurse”, but instead presses the one titled “Nuke”, setting off a nuclear explosion. Reagan then replies “Man, that’s one heck of a nurse!” Nancy whacks him over the head with her snorkel. The video, directed by John Lloyd & Jim Yukich and produced by Jon Blair, won the short-lived Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video during the 30th Annual Grammy Awards. The video was also nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1987, but lost to “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel (coincidentally, Genesis’ former lead singer).
Track list:
1. Land Of Confusion-extended remix
2. Land Of Confusion
3. Feeding The Fire