In the Air Tonight

"In the Air Tonight" is the debut solo single by the English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. It was released as the lead single from Collins's debut solo album, "Face Value", in January 1981.
Collins co-produced the single with Hugh Padgham, who became a frequent collaborator in the following years. The song climbed to No. 2 on the UK Singles chart, but was held off the top spot by the posthumous release of John Lennon's "Woman". It reached No. 1 in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, and the top 10 in Australia, New Zealand and several other European territories. It peaked at No. 19 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the United States, but reached No. 2 on the Rock Tracks Chart, later being certified Gold by the RIAA, representing 500,000 copies sold. The song's music video, directed by Stuart Orme, received heavy play on MTV when the new cable music video channel launched in August 1981.
"In the Air Tonight" remains one of Collins' best-known hits, often cited as his signature song, and is especially famous for its drum break towards the end, which has been described as "the sleekest, most melodramatic drum break in history" and one of the "101 Greatest Drumming Moments". The song was ranked at number 35 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s" in 2006. In 2007, Mike Gruss, former columnist for "The Virginian-Pilot", referred to the song as a "soft rock classic."
Background and recording.
Inspiration.
Collins wrote the song amid the grief he felt after divorcing his first wife Andrea Bertorelli in 1980. In a 2016 interview, Collins said of the song's lyrics: "I wrote the lyrics about the kid who was drowning. Henry was right." In a 1997 BBC Radio 2 documentary, the singer revealed that the divorce contributed to his 1979 hiatus from the band Genesis, until they regrouped in October of that year to record the album, "Duke". Originally, Collins was going to include the song on "Duke", but it was rejected by the band; Tony Banks later regretted the decision.
The lyrics of the song take the form of a dark monologue directed towards an unnamed person:
Musical style.
It has been described as being "at the vanguard of experimental pop" in 1981 and "a rock oddity classic", having been influenced by "the unconventional studio predilections of Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel". Musically, the song consists of a series of ominous chords played on a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 over a simple drum machine pattern (the Roland CR-78 Disco-2 pattern, plus some programming); processed electric guitar sounds and vocoded vocals, an effect which is increased on key words to add additional atmosphere. The mood is one of restrained anger until the final chorus when an explosive burst of drums finally releases the musical tension and the instrumentation explodes into a thunderous crescendo.
Collins has described obtaining the drum machine specifically to deal with personal issues relating to his divorce through songwriting, telling "Mix" magazine: "I had to start writing some of this music that was inside me". He improvised the lyrics during a songwriting session in the studio: "I was just fooling around. I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing. The lyrics you hear are what I wrote spontaneously. That frightens me a bit, but I'm quite proud of the fact that I sang 99.9 percent of those lyrics spontaneously".
Drum sound.
The song is known for its use of the gated reverb drum sound. Fellow musicians and journalists have commented on its use in the record. Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne called the drum fill "the best ever – it still sounds awesome", while music critic and broadcaster Stuart Maconie was quoted:
The means by which Collins attained the drum sound on this recording was long a source of mystery. The exact process was a result of serendipity: an unintended use of studio technology giving unexpectedly useful results.
In this case, the Solid State Logic 4000 mixing board had a "reverse talk-back" circuit (labelled on the board as "Listen Mic"). Normal "talkback" is a button that the mixing engineer has to press in order to talk to the recording musicians (the recording and the mixing parts of a studio are, otherwise, completely sonically isolated). Reverse talkback is a circuit (also button-activated) for the engineer to listen to the musicians in the studio. In order to compensate for sound level differences - people can be close to the reverse talkback microphone or far off - this circuit has a compressor on it, which minimises the differences between loud and soft sounds. While recording "Intruder" for his former bandmate Peter Gabriel's third solo album, at some point Collins started playing the drums while the reverse talkback was activated. Engineer Hugh Padgham was amazed at the sound achieved. Overnight, they rewired the board so that the reverse talkback could be recorded in a more formal manner. Later models of the SSL 4000 allowed the listen mic to be recorded with the touch of a button.
When recording engineer Padgham was brought in to help develop Collins' demos that would become "Face Value" they recreated the "Intruder" sound using the reverse talkback microphone as well as heavily compressed and gated ambient mics. Padgham continued working with Genesis for "Abacab" later in 1981 and the same technique (generally referred to as gated reverb) was used, and the powerful drum sound has become synonymous with later Genesis projects and Collins' solo career ever since.
The original single version of "In the Air Tonight" features extra drums that play underneath the song until the signature drum crash (referred to by fans as the "magic break") appears. These were added at the suggestion of Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun. In 2007, Collins wrote:
Release.
Speaking about the song's rapid ascension in the music charts, Collins wrote the following in 2007:
The song appeared as part of the soundtrack for the 1983 movie "Risky Business" and plays when Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay have sex on a subway train (the scene is like a music video in itself). 
In 1984, the song was memorably used in a scene from the first episode of the television series "Miami Vice", which film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz cited as why the song has been stamped as "Property of Michael Mann" (the series' executive producer) for years, rarely being used in other screen works due to its indelible use in the series, akin to Martin Scorsese's signature use of songs by The Rolling Stones for his films. "In the Air Tonight" received a new wave of attention thanks to its use in the series, enough for it to briefly re-chart in the United States just outside the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 102.
The song was remixed in 1988 by Ben Liebrand for his weekly appearance in the radio show on Dutch radio. The mix was completed and then taken by Liebrand to be part of a mix showcase at the DMC Mixing Championship Finals in London, attended by 3500 worldwide deejays. The mix was picked up by Virgin Records for an official release, which hit Number 4 in the UK charts.
Urban legend.
An urban legend has arisen around "In the Air Tonight", according to which the lyrics are based on a drowning incident in which someone who was close enough to save the victim did not help them, while Collins, who was too far away to help, looked on. Increasingly embellished variations on the legend emerged over time, with the stories often culminating in Collins singling out the guilty party while singing the song at a concert. Collins has denied all such stories; he commented on the legends about the song in a BBC World Service interview:
The urban legend is referenced in the song "Stan" by Eminem. The reference is contained in the following lyrics:
The urban legend is referenced in the "Family Guy" episode "The Peter Principal" as Brian is listening to Bonnie and Joe argue about the contents of the song.
In July 2020, Andrew Norman Wilson released a video titled "In the Air Tonight" on the Phil Collins subreddit that narrativizes the urban legend in detail.
Music video.
The music video (directed by Stuart Orme) animates the photograph of Collins's face from the cover of the "Face Value" album, slowly fading in through the introduction until it fills the screen, singing the first chorus. The video then cuts to Collins sitting in an empty room at night. Twice a spectral figure appears in the window, but only the second time does Collins get up to look at it, then is shown walking to the one door of the room.
Collins's face returns for the second chorus. He is then shown leaving the room and entering a hallway full of doors. The first one is locked, then the second opens and Collins sees himself looking at the window again, only now the spectre has turned into his own reflection.
The third door is locked, but as the fourth one opens, the drum break sounds and the viewer is returned to Collins's face again, this time in thermal coloring, which gradually reverts to black and white. Collins recedes into the darkness as the song repeats and fades.
In 1983 the music video was released on the home video "Phil Collins" available on VHS and LaserDisc which received a Grammy nomination for Best Video, Short Form.
As of April 2021, the music video has received over 221 million views on YouTube.
Performance.
"In the Air Tonight" remains a popular selection on classic rock radio stations. It is the song most often associated with Collins' solo career, and he has performed it at many events, including Live Aid, where he played the song on a piano on the same calendar day in both Philadelphia and London. He also performed the song at "The Secret Policeman's Ball", which was his first live performance as a solo artist. "I remember doing 'In the Air Tonight' at Live Aid," he recalled, "and [Pete] Townshend saying, 'Are you going to do that fucking song again?' as it was the only one I ever played."
Single and credits.
VSK102 UK Single Release (Martin H)
Sleeve includes a black and white 12 page cartoon storyboard drawn by Collins' brother Clive Collins.
Cover versions.
In 2016, the newly-formed boy band MiC LOWRY released an adaptation of the song titled "Oh Lord". MiC LOWRY adapted both from the lyrics and the music of the Phil Collins song. A music video was released on September 29, 2016 on the band's official YouTube page. Based mainly on the success of the song, the band was chosen Elvis Duran's Artist of the Month for March 2017 and were invited to perform the song nationwide in the United States through the "The Today Show" presented by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. They also performed live on "The Wendy Williams Show" on March 8, 2017. The song charted in the UK Singles Chart reaching number 54 on the chart.