When Genesis entered the studio to make Nursery Cryme in 1971, the band was still searching for the sound, and lineup, that would carry it through one of progressive rock’s most celebrated runs.
“The Musical Box” became an early answer. Stretching beyond 10 minutes, the ambitious opening track moved from delicate passages to explosive guitar-driven sections while giving Peter Gabriel an increasingly dramatic story to inhabit. It never needed to become a conventional single to emerge as one of the defining songs of Genesis’ early years.
The track also arrived at an important turning point for the band.
Nursery Cryme was the first Genesis album to feature guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins, joining Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford. That five-man lineup would remain together through 1974’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and become synonymous with Genesis’ classic progressive-rock period.
“This was the first year I was doing professional gigs,” Hackett reflected in an interview with Louder. “I got a Hiwatt stack, a Les Paul and the 12-string. It was guitar heaven for me. I probably talk about it in more glowing terms than the others, for whom it was just another year in the life of Genesis. For me, this was day one.”
Parts of “The Musical Box” actually predated Hackett and Collins.
The song developed from an earlier composition called “F Sharp,” created when guitarist Anthony Phillips was still in the group. Genesis continued reshaping the material after Phillips’ departure, eventually building it into the elaborate piece heard on Nursery Cryme.
“When I joined the band, the song ‘The Musical Box’ was already written,” Hackett said in a 2012 interview. “They were performing it live. They said to me, ‘As soon as you join the band, we’ll share all of the writing.’ So, I came up with guitar parts on top of what they had written.”
The story was every bit as unusual as its structure.
“One of the influences on Nursery Cryme was the dark childhood of The Turn of The Screw,” Gabriel told Mojo in 2010. “Also Great Expectations. These are very English and evocative. One of the reasons, I think, that films and programs about school are of interest to people is because that is when so much of your interface with the world gets formed.”
The album’s accompanying tale describes a young girl named Cynthia who kills a boy named Henry by striking off his head with a croquet mallet. Later, she opens Henry’s musical box, unleashing his spirit. Henry rapidly ages into an old man consumed by desire before his former nurse destroys the musical box and him along with it.
Gabriel made the bizarre story even more memorable onstage.
During performances, he eventually donned an old-man mask for the song’s climactic section, transforming Henry’s accelerated aging into a piece of visual theater. Such performances helped establish the elaborate costumes and characters that became hallmarks of Gabriel-era Genesis concerts.
Musically, “The Musical Box” offered plenty of drama on its own. Quiet 12-string guitar passages gradually give way to increasingly forceful playing, culminating in Hackett’s guitar, Banks’ keyboards and Gabriel’s feverish vocal finale.
Fifty-five years after Nursery Cryme, “The Musical Box” remains a powerful snapshot of Genesis discovering just how far it could push a rock song. At more than 10 minutes long, it gave the band room to combine storytelling, theatricality, and intricate musicianship into a sound that was unmistakably its own.
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