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Speaker 1: Let Me tell You a Story on.

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Speaker 2: Time Clearsy releases the story behind the song.

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Speaker 1: The song in question today is in the Air Tonight.

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Speaker 1: It was Phil Collins' debut solo single, and it was

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Speaker 1: released as the lead single from Collins' debut solo album,

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Speaker 1: Face Value all the Way back in January nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 2: Because he had his name, his reputation as the drummer

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Speaker 2: and then singer of course with Genesis before that, and

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Speaker 2: he went solo.

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Speaker 1: So In the E to Night reached number one in Austria, Germany, Switzerland,

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Speaker 1: and Sweden, number two in Canada, and the top ten

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Speaker 1: in Australia, New Zealand and several other European territories that

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Speaker 1: reached number nineteen in the United States. In the e

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Speaker 1: Tonight is one of Collins's best known hits, often cited

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Speaker 1: as his signature song, and is especially famous for its

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Speaker 1: drum break.

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Speaker 3: The sound was different from many other records that was

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Speaker 3: around at the time. Drums really normally were recorded and

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Speaker 3: acousticbly perfect surroundings, you know, that was the way you

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Speaker 3: know studios were built. But there was a studio in

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Speaker 3: London called the Townhouse which had this stone room and

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Speaker 3: that's where I'd recorded with Peter Gabriel. You know, I

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Speaker 3: was his drummer for a little while when he couldn't

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Speaker 3: afford American musicians. So he invited me to play on

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Speaker 3: some tracks on that album, which was his third album,

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Speaker 3: and there was a song called Intruder on that which

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Speaker 3: was basically my drum part and a song he adapted

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Speaker 3: to fit it. But I fell in love with the

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Speaker 3: engineer who got this sound. So when I did my

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Speaker 3: solo album, I know, got together with him and we

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Speaker 3: did face value together. So when we did in the

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Speaker 3: Air Tonight, you know, we got set up set up

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Speaker 3: in the in the live room and I was playing

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Speaker 3: from and he was getting the sound. And then when

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Speaker 3: we came to record, I did a drum fill into

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Speaker 3: my intro and that film was and and d Ad

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Speaker 3: and that, and we thought that sounds good.

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Speaker 2: It's a fil Even bad drummers can.

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Speaker 1: Play, no word play, it's a drum fill.

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Speaker 2: It's a fill drum we loved and it ended up

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Speaker 2: on the Cabriad with the guy in the gorilla suit playing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah the inspiration. Collins wrote the song amid the grief

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Speaker 1: he felt after divorcing his first wife Andrea Bertarelli in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. In an interview in twenty sixteen, he said,

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Speaker 1: of the song's lyrics, I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. I'm

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Speaker 1: not quite sure what the song is about, but there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of anger, a lot of despair, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of frustration. But there are also a lot

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Speaker 1: of urban legends. We've all heard the myths about this song,

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Speaker 1: the main one being that story that the lyrics are

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Speaker 1: based on an incident where someone drowned and someone was

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Speaker 1: close enough to help save the victim but did not

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Speaker 1: say help, while Collins, who was too far away to help,

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Speaker 1: looked on right and.

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Speaker 2: Knew everything and it was supposedly roughly docum it around that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: See he had this discussion with Jimmy Kimmel on his

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Speaker 1: tonight show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, is this true?

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Speaker 1: That this is what happens? Is when I heard you

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Speaker 1: were you were on your outside at night.

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Speaker 2: And there's a dot, you saw somebody saw someone drowning,

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Speaker 2: and he didn't yeah, and he let him drown. He

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Speaker 2: let him drown, and you go and you watched the

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Speaker 2: man basically murder somebody. And then so instead of calling

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Speaker 2: the authorities, you invited the man stranger.

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Speaker 3: To your concert and then shone the lights on him.

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Speaker 2: He showed, yes, you shone a light at him, and

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Speaker 2: you say, in the earth. Then you go, I know

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Speaker 2: what you did, buddy, Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that is the best story I've ever heard.

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Speaker 2: Of it I know.

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately none of it is true.

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Speaker 2: What you know.

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Speaker 3: I was just pissed off, you know, I was angry

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Speaker 3: at what. Well, you know, you go through a divorce

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Speaker 3: and you know, sometimes it's like I love you, I

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Speaker 3: love you, love you, don't hang out, don't and then

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Speaker 3: it's like, well yeah, and then of course that's when

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Speaker 3: a song like in the Air Tonight comes out. There's

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Speaker 3: obviously a lot of anger in there.

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Speaker 2: Well, yes, a bit of anger. He's written a lot

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Speaker 2: of love songs and break up once with Jimmy fallon there.

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Speaker 1: So the myth went that he then spotted the guy

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Speaker 1: at a concert in the audience, and the audience even

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Speaker 1: references in his song Stan where he talks about you

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Speaker 1: know the song by Phil Collins in the Air Tonight,

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Speaker 1: about that guy who could have saved that other guy

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Speaker 1: from drowning but didn't. Then Phil saw it all Then

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Speaker 1: at a show we found him.

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Speaker 2: It's so bizartically. This wasn't about that, No, no, it wasn't.

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Speaker 2: But the song got even bigger and it was on

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Speaker 2: the pilot of Miami Vice, the old Crockett and Tubs.

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Speaker 2: Remember that, almost the whole song on there. And it's

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Speaker 2: funny how eventually Phil ended up acting. Because Phil was

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Speaker 2: a bit of a child actor, he ended up acting

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Speaker 2: on an episode of Miami Vice. But I used it

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Speaker 2: was one of the first times a song, that popul

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Speaker 2: rock song had been used almost in its entire in

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Speaker 2: the TV show. Well that's a groundbreaker.

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Speaker 1: It's not. It's not a short one.

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Speaker 2: It's not. It's not what a classic Phil Collins the

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Speaker 2: story behind the Cune