Selling England by the Pound

Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Genesis and was recorded and released in 1973. It followed Foxtrot and was the band's commercial peak so far hitting #3 in the UK^[1] where it remained on the charts for 21 weeks. The album went gold in the US in 1990. It was also a major breakthrough in terms of critical reception.

The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick called The Dream. The original painting did not feature a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the song "I Know What I Like."

A digitally remastered version was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and on Atlantic Records in the US and Canada. The remastered booklet features the lyrics and credits which were missing on the original CD, while they had been on the inner sleeve of the LP album.

A SACD/DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and stereo mixes) was released in the UK on 11 November 2008, including extensive interviews with the band and footage from concerts performed during 1973-74.

1 Track listing
2 Theme
3 Sound and live performance
4 Legacy & Appreciation
5 Personnel
6 Charts
7 Certifications
8 Notes

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford.

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Dancing with the Moonlit Knight"	8:04
2.	"I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)"	4:07
3.	"Firth of Fifth"	9:35
4.	"More Fool Me"	3:10

Side two
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Battle of Epping Forest"	11:49
2.	"After the Ordeal"	4:13
3.	"The Cinema Show"	11:06
4.	"Aisle of Plenty"	1:32

Theme

Retaining the pastoral yearning for ancient or medieval England as its primary thematic material, the album focuses on traces of this past in the present. Songs about England's mythological past ("Dancing With the Moonlit Knight") co-exist with sketches of contemporary lawnmowers ("I Know What I Like"), and the centrepiece of the second side, the epic "Cinema Show", has two lovers serve as reincarnations of ancient Greek figures, drawing on elements from "The Fire Sermon", the 3rd section from T. S. Eliot's long poem The Waste Land.

Sound and live performance

The musical performances are much more polished and tight than on the preceding LPs. Musical diversions are more often unified into the general song structure. In particular, Steve Hackett's guitar solos in "Firth of Fifth" show his unique voice on guitar at its best, while the song opens with a highly structured classically inspired piano-instrumental by Banks. As with previous efforts, unusual time signatures and shifts in key and pace continue as key structural devices, and while these formal aspects are no less present on this album, they often serve to support the general melodies of the songs, rather than dominate them. In fact, this album in general shows a focus on melody as the structural unifying force of the songs, as opposed to having the music centre around Gabriel's vocal and lyrical forays.

The album contains many pieces that would become central to Genesis' live act for years to come, particularly "Firth of Fifth" and "Cinema Show," both of which use short lyrical sketches to frame extended instrumental compositions. Along with "The Battle of Epping Forest," a song based upon a gangland brawl yet full of references to the squabbles for the English countryside of the far removed past, songs such as "Firth of Fifth" and "The Cinema Show" make prominent use of Tony's recently acquired ARP Pro Soloist, marking the first use of a synthesiser on any Genesis recording. "Firth of Fifth" has continued to be included in Genesis live sets, but Tony Banks' piano introduction has not been included in a performance since 1974, in a Drury Lane Theatre concert, when Banks misplayed and Phil Collins covered by starting the song from after the intro. Compositionally, "The Cinema Show" provides the climax for the album's second side, starting off with Rutherford and Hackett's trademark intertwining acoustic guitars, providing the backdrop for mythological lyrics, and leading to a long-form synthesiser solo by Banks in which Gabriel and Hackett played no part; during live performances, they both left the stage for this section. This anthemic solo section would later form the melodic centrepiece of the extended instrumentals at the core of the band's 'Cage Medley' (a combination of song excerpts that Genesis would perform live years after it had stopped performing other songs from the '70s), demonstrating Banks' increasing role as one of the band's primary songwriters.

Ending with the reprise of motifs from the start of the album, "Aisle of Plenty" mournfully brings the album full circle to where it began - nostalgia for old England. The album also produced the shorter track "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", which became Genesis' first single to receive any sort of chart action, hitting #21 in the UK in April 1974.^[1]

Legacy & Appreciation

During his induction speech for Genesis at the 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York City in March 2010, Phish's Trey Anastasio stated that Selling England By the Pound is his favorite Genesis album of all time.

Personnel

Peter Gabriel – lead vocals, flute, oboe, percussion
Phil Collins – drums, percussion, backing vocals, lead vocals on "More Fool Me"
Tony Banks – backing vocals, piano, keyboards, acoustic guitar on "The Cinema Show"
Steve Hackett – Guitar, backing vocals on "I Know What I Like""^{[citation needed]}
Mike Rutherford – bass guitar, bass pedals, rhythm guitar, cello on "Dancing With The Moonlight Knight"

electric sitar

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1973	UK Albums Chart	3
1974	Billboard Pop Albums	70

Certifications

Organization	Level	Date
RIAA – U.S.	Gold	April 20, 1990

Notes

^ ^a ^b UK Chart Stats Genesis hits

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