THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

741-Genesis-Mama.

1983-Number 4 single.

Best Bit-At 2.14. On the songs official video, where you can watch Phil Collins doing an impression of a scary monster.

Genesis were formed in Godalming, Surrey, England, in 1967, with the first line up consisting of Tony Banks, (keyboards, and guitar) Mike Rutherford, (bass) Peter Gabriel, (see also best songs 254) (lead vocals) Anthony Phillips, (guitar) and Chris Stewart (drums.) Phillips, and Stewart had left by 1970, with Phil Collins (lead vocals, and drums) joining that year. Peter Gabriel left the group in 1975, and in total there have been 11 official members come and go, with the group finally being retired in 2022. The groups five original members had all met while attending the ‘Charterhouse Public School,’ in Godalming, Surrey, and it was Jonathan King, who also attended the school at the same time, who gave the band their name. King was the producer of the groups debut Album ‘From Genesis to Revelation,’ in 1969, and in order to announce his new career as a music producer, he called the group ‘Genesis.’

Throughout the course of their time together, the music that the group made changed drastically from their early days of ‘Progressive Rock,’ to ‘Pop Rock,’ with the change bringing great commercial success, and record sales estimated anywhere between 100 to 150 million sold, making them one of the best selling groups of all time. The discography of Genesis includes 15 studio Albums released between 1969-1997, and 49 singles issued between 1968-2006, there are also four official compilation Albums, six live Albums, and 10 box sets available.

‘Mama’ was the first of five singles released from Genesis’ twelfth studio Album called ‘Genesis’ from October 1983, the song was written by Tony Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford, who were the three members of Genesis at that time, with the production being by Hugh Padgham (see also best songs 727 and 603.) Hugh Charles Padgham was born on February 15th, 1955, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England, as a producer his career highlights include producing eight Albums for Genesis, and two for the ‘Police.’ Hugh Padgham is credited with creating the ‘gated reverb’ drum sound used so prominently on Phil Collins’ 1981 single ‘In the Air Tonight,’ which became the template for much of the recorded pop drum sound of the 1980’s. Padgham’s gated drum effect is created by adding a large amount of heavily compressed room ambience to the original drum sound, and then feeding that reverb signal through an electronic device known as a ‘noise gate.’ The result is the ‘gated reverb’ effect, in which the reverberation cuts off abruptly, rather than fading away. Padgham has said,’The whole thing came through the famous ‘listen mic’ on the SSL console. The SSL had put this massive compressor on it because the whole idea was to hang one mic in the middle of the studio and hear somebody talking on the other side. And it just so happened that we turned it on one day when Phil (Collins) was playing his drums. And then I had the idea of feeding that back into the console and putting the noise gate on, so when he stopped playing it sucked the big sound of the room into nothing.’

‘Mama’ which is the highest charting single for Genesis in the UK is a song about a young man who is obsessed with a prostitute whom he sees as a mother figure, the prostitute has no interest in him on a personal level. Phil Collins partly got the idea for the song after reading the British actor David Niven’s (1910-1983) memoir ‘The Moon’s a Balloon,’ where Niven describes meeting a 45 year old prostitute shortly after coming out of cadet college. Hugh Padgham has said that the inspiration for Phil Collins’ sinister laugh at 2.14 on the tracks official video came about after hearing the 1982 ‘Rap’ song ‘The Message,’ by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, (see also best songs 290) where that songs rapper Melle Mel menacingly laughs over that track.

‘I can’t see you mama, but I can hardly wait, and to touch and to feel you mama, oh I just can’t keep away. In the heat and the steam of the city, oh its got me running and I just can’t brake. So say you’ll help me mama, ’cause its getting so hard, oh.’