Music / Security

Though you may disappear, you're not forgotten here
And I will say to you, I will do what I can do

"Security can be shattering."

—Tagline from the album's advertising campaign.

Peter Gabriel, also known by its North American title Security, is the fourth studio album recorded by the English Progressive Rock musician of the same name. It was released through Charisma Records in the United Kingdom, and Geffen Records in the United States, on 6 September 1982.

Gabriel's final Self-Titled Album acts as both a continuation and antithesis of Melt from two years prior, diving further into its predecessor's west African-influenced sound and incorporating elements of industrial music while simultaneously orienting things in a less aggressive, more atmospheric direction. The album also sees Gabriel make heavier use of digital technology compared to the brief flirting with it on Melt, featuring extensive use of drum machines and the Fairlight CMI and being one of the earliest albums by a major artist to be recorded and mixed entirely with digital equipment^note it wasn't the first, having been beaten to the punch by Ry Cooder's Bop Til You Drop in 1979, and digitally recorded and mixed releases were being made by classical and jazz artists since 1971, but fully digital albums by popular music artists were still enough of a rarity by 1982 for Gabriel to be one of the first to put one out. Playback would still be analog for most people, as the Compact Disc format would be only be introduced in Japan that year and in North America and Europe the next year. However, when it did arrive on CD^note sources vary as to whether its first CD release was in 1983 or October 1984, it became the first popular music release to be entirely digital, from recording to mixing/editing to playback, a fact that was touted on the front cover of the U.S. CD (all other CDs at the time were derived from analog tapes).

In the United States and Canada, this album was Gabriel's first to be released through Geffen Records. Noting that Gabriel had already put out three different records named after himself, Geffen pushed him to give an original title to his fourth album in North America; Gabriel reluctantly agreed, choosing the title Security while simultaneously considering it "the world's first disposable title," favoring its eponymous branding on Charisma. Indeed, once Geffen's rights to Gabriel's back-catalog lapsed in 2010, reissues promptly reverted to the Peter Gabriel title in all regions. That said, for the sake of differentiating it from his previous albums, fans commonly refer to it by its American title— the only instance where one of Gabriel's self-titled studio albums isn't given a Fan Nickname (Car, Scratch, and Melt are all nicknamed after their cover photos).

Upon release, Security was a commercial success— albeit performing less well than Melt— peaking at No. 6 on the British Music Week charts and No. 28 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart; it would later be certified platinum in Canada and gold in the UK. Additionally, the album's second single, "Shock the Monkey", became an early MTV hit via its Surreal Music Video and managed to top Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart.

Security was supported by three singles: "I Have the Touch", "Shock the Monkey", and a Netherlands-exclusive release of "Wallflower".

Not to be confused with the Worm fanfic.

Tracklist:

Side One

1. "The Rhythm of the Heat" (5:15)
2. "San Jacinto" (6:21)
3. "I Have the Touch" (4:30)
4. "The Family and the Fishing Net" (7:08)

Side Two

1. "Shock the Monkey" (5:28)
2. "Lay Your Hands on Me" (6:03)
3. "Wallflower" (6:30)
4. "Kiss of Life" (4:17)

Cover me, when I trope:

• all lowercase letters: The Peter Gabriel logotype on the front is once again written in this manner.
• Alternate Album Cover: Cassette and 8-track copies used the back cover inset's solarized images of Gabriel biting on a rope for the front cover.
• Big Beautiful Woman: "Kiss of Life" mentions one in its second verse:
  See me, a big woman, big woman so full of life
  See me, a big woman, big woman going to be my wife
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Both "Lay Your Hands on Me" and "Kiss of Life" metaphorically examine the idea and practice of faith healing.
• Concept Album: Most of the record revolves around exoticism, examining it in both tongue-in-cheek and serious manners with an overall tone of criticizing the concept.
• Creator's Culture Carryover: "San Jacinto" mentions the Native American narrator "watch[ing] Scouts and Guides make pow-wow signs;" while the phrase would easily make sense in Gabriel's native UK, being shorthand for Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, to Americans it can be a bit confusing, as both organizations are known as Scouts in the United States (with people simply using the full names of "Boy Scouts" and "Girl Scouts" to differentiate between the two)^note while "guides" might also refer to the YMCA Y-Guides (then known as "Indian Guides"), which taught children to imitate Native American traditions, they tend to be less well-known than the Scouts.
• Deliberate VHS Quality: An odd example in that it entails a still image; the photos included throughout the album art, including the front and back covers, are stills from an experimental videotape shot by Malcolm Poynter, a sculptor whose work Gabriel admired.
• Design Student's Orgasm: Breaking away from the Hipgnosis collaborations on Gabriel's first three albums, Security sees him instead work with sculptor Malcolm Poynter, putting together an experimental videotape making heavy use of light and image distortion tools and effects to create an elaborately chaotic portrait of Gabriel in blue and yellow.
• Digital Destruction: Later Geffen Records CDs prior to the 2002 remaster are sourced from analog safety tapes, resulting in a more muffled sound compared to both Geffen's earlier "target" CDs and Virgin Records' discs for European markets.
• Double Entendre: "The Family and the Fishing Net" features lyrics that can either describe a Hollywood Voodoo ritual and a wedding depending on how you read them. For instance, "vows of sacrifice and headless chickens" can refer to either beheading a chicken as part of a voodoo ritual or uttering one's wedding vows and serving rotisserie chicken (which is served mostly whole, with just the head and feet removed) at the reception.
• Epic Rocking: "San Jacinto", "The Family and the Fishing Net", "Lay Your Hands on me", and "Wallflower"— exactly half of the album's tracklist— all surpass the six-minute mark.
• Everything Is an Instrument: As revealed in a 1982 episode of The South Bank Show, many of the samples used throughout the album were taken from recordings of Gabriel and company playing around with items in a junkyard, including sounds of them hitting TV screens, blowing into rusty pipes, and smashing windshields. Other samples were presets already included with the Fairlight CMI, such as the pulsing flute sound that opens "The Rhythm of the Heat". Gabriel ended up using a whopping 64 kilobytes worth of samples in the making of the album.
• Evolving Music: "I Have the Touch" went through three different permutations:
  • The original version, included on this album.
  • A remix in 1983 with additional percussion and a shorter runtime, featured as a B-side to the "Walk Through the Fire" single (recorded for the 1984 film Against All Odds, which by coincidence also featured a far more famous Title Track by former Genesis bandmate Phil Collins) and later included on the 1990 Greatest Hits Album Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats.
  • A re-recording in 1996 with a slower tempo, new lyrics, new instrumentation, included as part of the soundtrack to Phenomenon.
• Face on the Cover: Believe it or not, that strange, mask-like head on the front cover is actually Gabriel; the image is a still from an experimental video directed by sculptor Malcolm Poynter, with the effect created using a combination of flexible mirrors, Fresnel lenses, and very heavy solarizing. Gabriel's choice to use this technique was inspired by a book on image distortion, like that seen in a fairground mirror.
• Genius Loci: The dark room in the music video for "Shock the Monkey" is implied to be one, with the standing lamp and ceiling both mysteriously coming to life, with the latter appearing to attack Gabriel.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: "San Jacinto" features a passage between the first and second verse where Gabriel and his wife chant "hyena wakan tanka," a Lakotan prayer to the "Great Spirit" or "Great Mystery" that represents the sacred/divine forces acting upon the world.
• Healing Hands: Invoked throughout "Lay Your Hands on Me", a musing on faith healing.
• Hollywood Voodoo: According to Gabriel, "The Family and the Fishing Net" juxtaposes voodoo imagery with that of a modern-day wedding, acting as a commentary on contemporary wedding traditions and the similarities between them and older rituals that modern society brushes off.
• I Have Many Names: While a Self-Titled Album in most regions, the album was released as Peter Gabriel IV in Japan and Security in the United States and Canada. The 2002 remasters would later retitle the album 4 outside of the US and Canada, where the Security title was retained, and as of the 2010 reissues the album has reverted back to being self-titled worldwide.
• In the Style of: "Shock the Monkey" is written as Gabriel's take on Motown-era Rhythm and Blues rhythms, mixed in with the industrial-infused Post-Punk that drives the rest of the album.
• Lighter and Softer: While still quite dark by Gabriel's standards, Security lacks much of the bleakness and aggression of its predecessor, opting for a more atmospheric sound with more introspective lyrics.
• Little People Are Surreal: The music video for "Shock the Monkey" features a scene where several little people start dragging him down to the ground. They appear out of nowhere, and never show up again afterwards. And that's hardly the weirdest thing in the video.
• Lonely Piano Piece: "Wallflower", a sparse, piano-driven piece about the plights of political prisoners in Latin America.
• Loudness War: Averted with the 2002 remaster; like Gabriel's other self-titled albums and So, the remaster of Melt clocks in at an average dynamic range of 11.
• Market-Based Title: At the insistence of Geffen Records, the album was retitled Security in the US and Canada.
• Mood Whiplash: The moody and quiet "Wallflower" is followed up by the bouncy, blaring, and all-around jovial "Kiss of Life".
• Near-Death Experience: The narrator of "San Jacinto" intentionally undergoes one at the start of the song as part of an Apache rite of passage; this is contrasted in the second verse with imagery showing white appropriation of Native American culture and iconography, which represents the true death of the Native American in America. The song was based on a story told to Gabriel by an actual Apache man, who had to let a rattlesnake bite him as part of a coming-of-age ritual in his youth.
• New Sound Album: Less aggressive and more atmospheric compared to Melt, with more overt emphasis on west African percussion and composition tropes. Gabriel also makes much greater use of the Fairlight CMI than on Melt, concurrently bringing in elements of industrial music (though keeping the reduced aggression) and informing the digital-centric direction of his following output (only abandoning the Fairlight in the mid-'90s because of the rise of far more versatile digital audio workstations).
• Numbered Sequels: The album was released as Peter Gabriel IV in Japan.
• Obsession Song: According to Gabriel, "Shock the Monkey" is about jealousy and the obsessive behavior/attitudes that can result from it.
• One-Word Title: Security, "Wallflower".
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: The base concept behind the trope is criticized in "San Jacinto", in which the mass appropriation of Native American culture by white America acts as a further erasure of Native Americans in their own homeland.
• Protest Song: "San Jacinto" and "Wallflower" respectively speak out against the still-ongoing erasure of Native American culture and life and the harsh treatment of political prisoners in both Poland and Latin America.
• Raster Vision: The front and back cover art is taken from photos of a video monitor, and the scan lines are visible.
• Re-Cut: 8-track releases of the album adjust the tracklist to account for the limitations of the four-program configuration. On such copies, "Wallflower" is moved to track four, "Kiss of Life" is moved to track six, and "Shock the Monkey" is moved to track seven.
• Self-Titled Album: Gabriel's last studio album to fulfill this trope, owing to Executive Meddling pushing to have him quit the practice. In the US and Canada, additional meddling had it released under a different title, Security, under which it is more commonly known.
• Special Guest:
  • John Ellis (of the Vibrators and the Stranglers) provides backing vocals on "The Rhythm of the Heat", "I Have the Touch", and "Kiss of Life".
  • King Crimson bassist and frequent Gabriel collaborator Tony Levin plays bass on "The Rhythm of the Heat", "Lay Your Hands on Me", "Wallflower", and "Kiss of Life", as well as Chapman stick on the remaining tracks.
  • Van der Graaf Generator guitarist & vocalist and former Charisma Records labelmate Peter Hammill provides backing vocals on "The Family and the Fishing Net", "Shock the Monkey", and "Lay Your Hands on Me".
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Security, an album full of abstract, introspective, and mostly dour songs closes with the incredibly upbeat "Kiss of Life".
• Surreal Music Video: "Shock the Monkey", intertwining scenes of Gabriel playing both a businessman in a dark blue room and a shaman in a hauntingly white room, alongside footage of a caged monkey, Gabriel being chased by an unseen foe in the woods, and various other snippets of idiosyncratic footage as the video becomes increasingly agitated and aggressive. Wikipedia explicitly calls the video "bizarre and disturbing."
• Textless Album Cover: Like the rest of Gabriel's back-catalog, the Peter Gabriel logotype was removed from the cover on later reissues.
• Translated Cover Version: Like Melt, a German-language version of Security was recorded under the title Deutsches Album (removing the Ein this time around), once again in very broken German.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Inverted in "San Jacinto", as the final verse is sung much softer than the rest.
• Unnaturally Blue Lighting: The music video for "Shock the Monkey" features the businessman in a room with a vivid blue tint, contrasting the stark white room that the shaman resides in.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: "The Rhythm of the Heat" was inspired by famed psychologist Carl Jung's observations of a team of traditional drummers in sub-Saharan Africa.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: "Lay Your Hands on Me" consists of Gabriel rapping the verses and singing the choruses.
• World Music: Like Melt before it, Security is hugely influenced by west African music.
• The X of Y: "The Rhythm of the Heat" and "Kiss of Life", incidentally the first and last tracks on the album.

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We will walk on the land.
We will breathe of the air.
We will drink from the stream.
We will live. Hold the line.
Hold the line.
Hold the line.