Solsbury Hill is an important song in Peter Gabriel’s career for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was the first song he published as a single after leaving his band Genesis, where he had been the lead singer since the start. Secondly, it is the song that he played the most often in concert: he included it in the setlist for every tour and played it no fewer than a total of 706 times to date.
2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Peter Gabriel’s debut album featuring Solsbury Hill and he (or his team?) came up with a special idea to celebrate: they put together a montage of his live performances of the song. In the video below you can see six rather different Peter Gabriels playing the same song, from 1978 to 2013.
The listening task that follows is not very difficult in itself as you only have to choose the missing words from a list. Later you’ll find more tasks based on this song, most of them more difficult than this introductory one.
We’ll come back to revisit this song (and this video especially) since the lyrics should be interesting to look at more closely and also because this version contains a slightly modified version of the final verse.
