Released 3 October 1983 Recorded 1983 | Format 7", 12" Length 4:23 | |
B-side "Taking It All Too Hard" (UK)
"Second Home by the Sea" (U.S.) Genre Rock, soft rock, pop rock | ||
"That's All" is a song by English rock band Genesis. It is a group composition and appears as the second track on their 1983 album Genesis. It was the album's second single after "Mama".
Contents
The U.S. single reached No. 6 in early 1984, making it their first Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hit; it included "Second Home by the Sea" as the B-side. The UK single featured "Taking It All Too Hard" as the flipside, and reached No. 16. Another single included a live version of "Firth of Fifth" from 1981.
As the band's first break into the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10, the song is included in Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock and Roll Era.
Background and recording
The song was intended as an attempt to write a simple pop song with a melody in the style of The Beatles. Phil Collins acknowledged in a subsequent interview that the song also features one of his attempts at a "Ringo Starr drum part".
The song begins with Tony Banks playing the main riff of the song on a Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano. The other keyboards used on this song are a Sequential Circuits Prophet-10 for organ pads and a Synclavier II for the organ solo in the middle section. The coda lapses into a somewhat dischordant guitar solo played by Mike Rutherford, as the drum beat intensifies, before the song fades away.
Music video
The video depicts the band as homeless men taking shelter outside a disused factory. They perform the song, eat soup, play cards, and keep warm around an open fire. It was the first time Genesis used director Jim Yukich (Collins's former director) for one of their promos.
Live performances
The song was played live during the Mama, Invisible Touch, The Way We Walk, and Calling All Stations (with Ray Wilson on vocals) Tours. The song was played only during the first few shows of the Calling All Stations tour, before being discarded.
A live version appears on the albums The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts, and their DVD Genesis Live at Wembley Stadium, as well as their home video The Mama Tour. An instrumental jazz version of the song appears on the live album A Hot Night in Paris, by The Phil Collins Big Band.
The first verse of the song is also part of the "Old Medley" featured on The Way We Walk, Volume Two: The Longs and The Way We Walk - Live in Concert.