This song, from Peter Gabriel’s third album is another of those depressingly relevant songs that keeps popping up these days. The album was the third in a row to be titled Peter Gabriel and it is also known as Melt due to its cover photo of Gabriel’s melting face. The sleeve’s designer Storm Thorgerson said: “Peter himself joined with us at Hipgnosis in disfiguring himself by manipulating Polaroids as they ‘developed’… Peter impressed us greatly with his ability to appear in an unflattering way, preferring the theatrical or artistic to the cosmetic.”
The first line is a perfect encapsulation of the ignorance underlying bigotry. It could also be the tag line for Trump’s Muslim ban.
It’s only water in a stranger’s tear
Looks are deceptive but distinctions are clear
A foreign body and a foreign mind
Never welcome in the land of the blind
You may look like we do
Talk like we do
But you know how it is
You’re not one of us
Not one of us
No you’re not one of us
There’s safety in numbers when you learn to divide
How can we be in if there is no outside?
All shades of opinion feed an open mind
But your values are twisted, let us help you unwind
You may look like we do
Talk like we do
But you know how it is
You’re not one of us
Not one of us
No you’re not one of us
Words & Music by Mike Power 