The Story Behind - In The Air Tonight

About this episode

This episode explores the true story behind Phil Collins' song 'In The Air Tonight', focusing on his marriage breakdown and the urban legends surrounding the track.

Did Phil Collins really watch on as a drowning man was refused help by a bystander and did Phil confront this bystander when inviting him to the front row of his show? For over 40 years, one of rock music’s darkest urban legends has surrounded the hit "In The Air Tonight.". However the misunderstood lyrics actually tell the true story of Phil's marriage breakdown and the bitterness, betrayal and anger he felt when he discovered his wife had been unfaithful. In this episode of the Story Behind we dive deep into the collapse of Phil’s first marriage caused by his commitment to Genesis which helped inspire the song In The Air Tonight. As we also delve into Phil's alleged "secret" dig at his ex wife with his infamous top of the pops appearance, the lengths he went too, to salvage his marriage and the technical studio accident that created the most iconic drum fill in history as In the air tonight goes from Phil's makeshift bedroom studio in Surrey to the top of the global charts. Enjoy! This episode was written, researched, narrated, edited and produced by Adam Hampton. If you enjoyed this episode feel free to click the free subscribe or follow button and leave the podcast a positive…

People in this episode

Host: Adam Hampton

Topics covered

• Phil Collins
• In The Air Tonight
• marriage breakdown
• Genesis
• urban legends
• music history

Keywords

• rock music
• lyrics
• betrayal
• anger
• drum fill

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Story Behind - In The Air Tonight, In The Air Tonight, the Story Behind, In the air, Buy Me A Coffee

Places: Surrey

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