Guitar_Player__January_2018

RIFFS
SESSION FILE
Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill”
BY STEVE HUNTER
IN MY OPINION, “SOLSBURY HILL” IS
one of the most perfectly written and produced
pop songs ever. I know that Peter
was having trouble with a line or two in
the lyrics at one point, so this song ended
up being the last one we recorded. Literally,
the day after we recorded it, all the
New York musicians were scheduled to
fly back to New York. Robert Fripp had
already flown back to England because he
had sessions scheduled.
I remember Peter and I went into producer
Bob Ezrin’s office so that Bob could
show me what he had in mind for the tune
on piano. As Peter was playing it, I began
to realize it was in an odd time—7/4—
and that it was a particular style of 7/4.
The first section was counted as a bar of
3, and then a bar of 4. But the next section
was counted as a bar of 4, and then a bar
of 3. Just to make things even more interesting,
at the end of the cycle were two
bars of 4. Okay, so I was already sweating
a little. Then, Bob said he would like
to do the whole song on acoustic guitar
with modified Travis-style picking. Now
I’m really sweating. To my credit, I didn’t
panic—at least visibly—and Bob showed
me the idea on a nice acoustic. Oh, yeah—I
almost forgot: The song is in the key of B.
To make the Travis picking flow better, we
put a capo on the second fret, so that the
part could be played as if it were in the key
of A. I worked out the chord voicings and
the Travis picking in Bob’s office with just
the three of us as an audience.
The beautiful thing about this song is
that it’s so well written it flows from your
fingers. It wasn’t long before I had completely
forgotten the meter was 7, and I
simply played the song. I triple-tracked the
acoustic part, and as I added each overdub,
Bob sped up or slowed down the tape
speed so that each pass was slightly out
of tune with the previous track—which
created this lovely, natural, and lush chorusing.
After we were finished with the
acoustics, we recorded some beefier guitars
at the end.
As most of you know, “Solsbury Hill”
has become one of Peter’s signature songs,
and it is, without a doubt, one of the most
brilliantly written songs I have had the
great pleasure of playing on. g
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