Firth of fifth review PDF

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Review of Genesi's song for an English exercise...

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SONG REVIEW:FIRTH OF FIFTH

Firth of Fifth is the most famous song from Genesis, released in1973 in the album “Selling England by the pound”. It is considered one of the most iconic song of the progressive rock. The song is credited to the entire band, but it was mainly composed by the keyboardist Tony Banks. As I sais, this song is considered a masterpiece of the progressive rock genre: very famous are the piano introduction by Tony Banks and guitar solo by Steve Hackett. The song is very complexed, expecially the piano intro that continually changes tempo. The title is a pun(paronomasia) on the estuary of the river “Forth” in Scotland, commonly known as the “Firth of Fourth”. The lyrics are a metaphore of the life flowing, seen as a river that runs for a long way to end into the sea. So Peter Gabriel, who wrote the lyrics, believes in destiny: life is a path that is decided since its beginning (like a river): it begins, grows, becomes more or less big but always ends into the sea. But “Firth of Fifth” isn’t just this: in fact the lyrics are also a controversy on the English society heavily attached during all “Selling England by the pound”. Symbolic is the sentence “the sheep remain inside their pen though many times they’ve seen the way to leave”; but the final sentence too “The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change”, that means that the time, with is flowing, has completely changed a whole nation. So, in conclusion, I want to explain why this is my favourite song. Firstly, as a musician, the complexity of the music is incredible: as I said before the piano intro, the guitar solo and also the flute solo that I didn’t mention are simply wonderful. Furthermore the lyrics are so poetic and they deal at the same time with the meaning of life and the satire of the contemporary society. When I listen to this song, I feel so fulfilled: it’s the perfect music to listen after an hard day to relax and enrich yourself every time you listen to it....