Supper’s Over The River

Dallas, TX –

It’s Steve’s fault.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Not that he did anything.

I mean, I’ve never met the guy.

From what I understand, he’s a perfectly nice chap.

Very polite, and easy to get along with.

But I’m still going to place the blame squarely in his lap.

After all, if it wasn’t for him, none of this would have turned out the way it did.

Therefore, it’s his fault.

See, when I sat down to start thinking about what I wanted to do for a Twisted Christmas song this year, I had Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited, Live from the Royal Albert Hall in my current playlist.

A very good album, by the way.

If you like 70’s era Genesis.

Back before they became the hit machine they were during the 80’s.

Back when Peter Gabriel was their singer.

Before he or Steve went out on their own.

Anyway, that album was in my playlist, so those songs were in the shallow end of the back of my mind.

And I was starting to think about what Christmas song to do.

I selected three or four to consider, and for some reason, picked Over The River to start working on.

At this point, I began taking my usual starting steps.

I stripped the song down to just the melody, and started re-harmonizing it.

Try it in a major key with a new chord progression.

Try it in a minor key with a different chord progression.

And then a strange thought entered my mind…

What would it sound like over the opening guitars of Supper’s Ready?

Not being the type to leave a musical idea alone, no matter how demented, I ran with it.

It required making subtle alterations to the melody, to accommodate the existing chord changes.

And then I kept going.

And going.

Mapping out how I could go back and forth between Supper’s Ready and Over The River.

I couldn’t do the whole thing.

That would be too long.

After all, Supper’s Ready is a twenty-three minute epic.

That would be wa-a-a-ay too long for a Twisted Christmas song.

So I cut out whole sections of the song.

And the extended keyboard solos.

(Sorry Tony!)

And I got it down to a more reasonable length.

And then the idea for some new lyrics popped into my head.

I could change it from a song filled with apocalyptic hallucinations to a song about family squabbles.

Full disclosure here, this is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to existing families, and how they do or don’t get along is purely coincidence.

In other words, to my siblings and their kids: This is not about us!

This is about your stereotypical extended family that gathers together in tight quarters for the holidays, and finds the lack of space amplifies the pushing of emotional buttons that happens when they get together.

Like I said, a (mostly) complete work of fiction.

But it seemed to work.

And that brought it back from far left field to being a holiday song again.

A very strange and unusual choice for a holiday song…

But still a “holiday” song.

Sort of…

It was still a very rough draft, so I fine-tuned the cuts in the song.

Changed most of the flute solos to be variations on the Over The River melody.

And played them on a synth instead of flute.

(Sorry Peter!)

Changed some of the guitar solos to be synth solos.

(Sorry Steve!)

And I eventually got something I was happy with.

Definitely not your normal Christmas fare.

Probably closer to a Tim Burton-esqe type of thing.

(Twisted Nightmare Before Christmas?)

Still, being the type that, no matter how far a musical idea takes me from what most people might consider acceptable, I’ll still pursue it (as long as I like it), I decided that I would stick with it.

So I began the challenge of converting this arrangement into a performance.

Learning the parts.

Practicing the parts.

Recording the parts.

And still get it done in time.

In short, the race had begun.

And as for the final product, well…

Some will love it.

Some will tolerate it.

Some will probably hate it.

After all, it is so far removed from your normal Christmas fare that it’s practically unrecognizable.

And even though the original song I started with is well known.

Something most of us sang as young kids in school.

Or at least some of us sang in school.

And then pasted it onto a musical piece that is foreign to most people.

Definitely not one that you ever heard on the radio.

After all, it was way too long for most radio formats.

Even your “album oriented” FM radio formats.

And for those that are familiar with the original, they may be upset that I cut favored sections of the original (goodbye Willow Farm, goodbye Eternal Sanctuary Man).

Well, sacrifices had to be made…

And so, without further ado, I present this year’s Twisted Christmas song…

Supper’s Over The River…

For the full archive of Twisted Christmas songs, click here.

Many thanks to The SR Project Team, who’s MIDI sequence saved me tons of time by eliminating the need to transcribe the Genesis original myself.