From: mcmahan@cs.unca.edu (Scott McMahan -- Genesis mailing list owner)
Subject: Re: Supper's ready???
Organization: University of North Carolina at Asheville
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 13:05:37 GMT


Straight from the Genesis archives, from a FTP site near you
(cs.uwp.edu, check it out) comes...     

THE REST OF THE SUPPER'S READY STORY:

	Seems that his wife Jill's parents lived in this old house, and on the
top floor there was a really strange room, all draped in purple and black,
and permanently colder than the rest of the house. Now, for some reason Pete
and Jill were up there one day, and they had this really wierd experience. Pete
doesn't go into too many details, but it was probably something supernatural,
and he does say that the climax was when he looked at Jill and actually saw
another face inside hers - an evil one...(c.f. "I swear I saw your face change,
it didn't seem quite right"). Quite understandably, this freaked Peter out
to a high degree, and it inspired him to write "an epic story about good and
evil" (his own words) which became "Supper's Ready". It gradually grew in the
writing, until it picked up all the Book of Revelation stuff - Pete says that
he sometimes felt he was being "led" to these sources (yes, but by what? :-))
All of which explains why Gabriel always had such a high emotional link to
the song - he says that he felt sometimes that he was "singing for his soul"...
wow! spooky, eh!

Well, there's more to it than that, as told by Peter in Gallo's
Genesis book. Seems there was an ex-friend of Peter & Jill's
who was dabbling with the occult, and sending very negative stuff
towards Peter & Jill. While they were having their experience up
in the strange room, Peter looked out the window and actually
saw a ghostly procession on the lawn. He felt as if their lives
were in actual danger at that time.

(John) Anthony, The Charisma house producer, befriended Peter and Jill more
than the rest of the band.  One night Anthony went with Jill and Peter to her
parents' flat at the Old Barracks in Kensington Palace.  They were in a cold
room decorated in glaring turquoise and purple at the top of the house. "Jill
and I were having a conversation about power and strength and will," said
Anthony.  "Suddenly I was aware that the whole room's atmosphere had changed. 
Jill had gone into some sort of trance.  Suddenly the windows blew in,
followed by extreme cold, followed by this psychic phenomenon."
     "Neither Peter, Jill or I were doing drugs or drinking.  I realized it
was a basic manifestation.  I have seen it before, the room was full of cold
astral smoke, psychic ether.  The thing that scared me was that it started
moving in the form of a tourbillion - the great wheel that projects spirits
into the astrosphere.  It is nothing to do with death.  It is a phenomenon
that can occur with people with strong psyches.  If you go through one there
is a good chance that if you come back you will never be the same."
     Peter admitted he was extremely frightened. "We saw other faces in each
other.  It was almost as if something else had come into us and was using us
as a meeting point," he said. "The curtain flew wide open, though there was
no wind, and the room became ice cold.  And I did feel that I saw figures
outside, figures in white cloaks, and the lawn I saw them on wasn't the lawn
that was outside."
     "I was shaking like a leaf and in a cold sweat, and eventually I made
a cross with a candlestick and held it up to Jill when she was talking in
this voice. She reacted like a wild animal and John and I had to hold her
down."  The incident inspired 'Supper's Ready', the epic track that takes up
the entire second side of FOXTROT, the subsequent Genesis album.  "I
experienced a sense of evil at that point," said Peter. "I don't know how
much of this was going on inside my head and how much was actually happening,
but it was an experience I could not forget and was the starting point for
a song about the struggle between good and evil."



(All this comes from various books on the subject, and various 
recollections of members of the Genesis mailing list. Mail 
genesis-serv@cs.unca.edu a message with "HELP" in the body to 
discover how you can automatically subscribe!)

Scott


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