Peter Gabriel spent 21 years building up to his 2023 album i/o. He is moving much more quickly with the next one. Gabriel announced his new album o\i a few days into the year, sharing "Been Undone" at the same time. He's continued to release one more song from the record with each full moon, which led us to "Put The Bucket Down" and "What Lies Ahead." Now it's time for another song, on a day when the moon is getting even more attention than usual.
Today's o/i offering is "Till Your Mind Is Shining." In a press release, Gabriel declares, "To my ears it's the closest I get to a pop song on this record." He continues:
The song began around a chord sequence which I liked and which felt quite poppy and playful, so I just kept on playing around with it till I had something. Of all the songs that I’ve written for i/o and o\i this is probably the poppiest for me.
It takes me back to my schooldays, in some ways, because before there was Genesis we were effectively trying to be songwriters more than musicians - pop songs or soul / R&B songs. I think this song connects me back to some of those roots and the sort of thing that I was working on then and trying to master.
Some elements of this are a few years old, I mean pretty much most things I work on take a while to mature. I leave songs for a while and go and do something else and when I come back to them and they smell alive, I will want to complete them. I really enjoyed singing this one, particularly the end, and I think the band had a good time playing it too. You can hear some wonderful performances from all the band. It was really a fun thing to create.
I’ve always been fascinated by explorations of consciousness and attempts to understand from where it originated, along with all the recent investigations into animal and plant sentience.
In some ways it’s about opening up the mind and stepping inside to understand a little more of ourselves and the world we live in with the hope that we respond a little more responsibly and compassionately.
As with most Peter Gabriel songs these days, there are multiple mixes of "Till Your Mind Is Shining," and we're getting the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake first. Listen below.
We ostensibly have to make it through many more lunar cycles before o/i comes out.
