Phil F-ing Collins

Today’s column is free to all because it’s Phil Fucking Collins, yo. If you like this, maybe consider becoming a subscriber? That would be very much appreciated.

It’s weird.

When I hear one of those Phil Collins / Genesis songs today…..it brings me back. Instantly. It’s the 80s and my mullet is still wet from the shower and the keg party at the creek is a go and the possibilities are endless even though my dreams had not yet come true. Not even close. They’d been pretty much wrecked on the rocks, like a bloated cruise ship that drifted too close to the shore, but when you’re 18 or whatever, your memory is pliable. So you never know. Tonight could be the night, and I’m hitting the town with god knows how many Phil Collins songs nailed to the inside of my skull, because he was everywhere back then. EVERYWHERE.

Even in my after-school job. I unloaded trucks at a linen place, and it sucked ass because we weren’t unloading CLEAN linen, we were dealing with the shitty linen that you savages went to town on and then sent, wrapped on large balls, on its way to $3.35 an hour making goons like me to deal with. The guys I worked with were all older than me, and they busted my balls unmercifully until I proved that I could give as good as I got, which is a lesson that every kid needs to learn, and most never do. Anyway, there was a shitty paint-splattered radio on the wall and the station that it was glued to had the “top 5 at 5” and I swear Phil Collins / Genesis was the entire lineup for 2 years.

Doesn’t matter which song. Well I guess it does. Here’s what I’m talking about.

Follow You Follow Me/ Misunderstanding / Turn it on Again / Abacab / That’s All / Inside Out / Against All Odds and of course the one with the drum thing that changed the world.

In the Air Tonight.

The single song that launched more air drumming than the entire Rush catalog.

There were LOTS of others but these were my favorites. Irresistible. Pop-ear-candy. Insanely memorable. Like chiggers burrowing their way to your brain.

He was also a good enough drummer to be seriously considered to replace the late Keith Moon in the Who, and that’s serious business, son.

Phil was balding and slightly paunchy and had multiple chins and for a time had a worse mullet than me and Live-Aid-era Bono COMBINED, and this was the last time somebody who didn’t LOOK like a star was allowed to be one. Girls would scream for him not because he was good looking but because he was Phil Fucking Collins. He even went on Miami Vice and out-cooled Don Johnson. He performed at the aforementioned Live-Aid in both Philadelphia AND London (and was asked to fill in for the late John Bonham for Led Zeppelin’s set, and that too is serious business, son), jetting between the two in THE CONCORDE, because he was Phil Fucking Collins.

Then the 90s came along and everybody got really dark and depressed and we all had to hide in our basements with our Phil Collins CDs if we wanted to retain any street-cred. Suddenly Phil was suddenly just some hack from the 80s, a maudlin MOR balladeer who got eaten by all the sweaty, long-haired grunge guys who couldn’t write a melody as good as one of his for all the heroin in Seattle.

He wasn’t Phil Fucking Collins anymore.

And then. Well. Cool is cyclical. Thankfully. If Sonic Youth could admit to having a wild musical crush on Karen Carpenter, suddenly anything was possible.

We were allowed to come up from the basement.

So….yea….some of this stuff may have been cheese. But you know what? People LIKE cheese. It’s one of the most popular foods in the world, yo.

Over the last few years Phil married and then divorced and then reconciled with some whack job he finally had to file an eviction notice against….when he learned that she went and secretly married another man….and moved her new husband into Phil’s Miami house. All of this was after, according to Wikipedia, “Collins had surgery on his upper neck, which was to correct an issue that occurred while drumming on the 2007 Genesis tour. Following the operation, he lost feeling in his fingers and could only grip drum sticks if they were taped to his hands..”

Continuing in that sucky vein…

“In January 2017, Collins said he was a type 2 diabetic and had received treatment with a hyperbaric chamber after he developed a diabetic abscess on his foot that became infected. In June 2017, Collins cancelled two shows after he slipped in his hotel room during the night and hit his head on a chair as he fell, resulting in stitches for a severe gash close to his eye. The fall was caused by his drop foot, developed as a result of his back operation. In 2017, Collins began to use a cane to assist with walking, and performs on stage while sitting in a chair.”

He was falling apart. But he wanted to say goodbye to Genesis with one more tour. Covid wrecked it initially. Twice. It gave him a good reason to say “fuck it”. But he forged ahead. Rescheduled the shows. At first glance it was sad to see. He was seated….unsteady…..hunched like an old man….which we never thought he’d become. Dressed in a sweat outfit, like the kind you might bring to your grandfather if he was in a nursing home.

But it was also strangely triumphant. He sang his ass off even while sitting on it, and never lost his sense of humor. Say what you want about Phil Collins, but do not doubt his bravery.

And so yesterday when “Inside Out” popped up on a Spotify playlist I was back there slinging linen with my mullet and it made me smile, because things seemed more possible then than they do now.

I think Phil had something to do with that.

In a bit..

—tf