Hairless Heart

Hairless Heart is an instrumental song originally from the 1974 Genesis concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, sometimes referred to as 'Lamb'. The song is collectively written by Genesis. Given that former Genesis member Steve Hackett has released multiple live versions of it [Discography at [http://www.stevehackett.com Steve Hackett's website] ] , he may have been its primary or sole composer.

Structure

On the original 'Lamb' album, the three songs "Back in N.Y.C.","Hairless Heart" and "Counting Out Time" flow into one another without a musical pause. This continuation effect is a trademark of Progressive Rock concept albums and is used numerous times throughout the album, generating a free-flowing ambience and aiding in the creation of a story-like atmosphere prolifically demonstrated on 'Lamb'.

The song itself is instrumental, but follows a typical song pattern with a repeated, but varied musical phrase used in both the 'Verse' and 'Chorus' sections, the latter being more harmonious and collective. If following a verse/chorus format, the song would have a structure similar to the following:

1. Verse 1 [Solo instrument]
2. Verse 2 [Solo instrument]
3. Chorus
4. Verse 3 [Solo instrument]
5. Chorus

The running time of the song is 2 mins 13 seconds on the original album, but 2 seconds less as indexed on the 1994 remastered version.

Theme

Although 'Hairless Heart' is entirely instrumental and could be commented on as a musical 'filler' (allowing time to elapse in the plot of the album), it does deal with an idea presented in the previous song "Back in N.Y.C." and referred to in the title: the act of the album's primary character Rael shaving the hairs off of his heart. This can be interpreted in many ways, one of them being that the 'punk kid' Rael has become too emotional and that he must shave his heart to remove this build up of emotion from within himself. Like the rest of the works on 'Lamb', the whole of the album can be interpreted in multiple ways and personal reception a key to unlocking the complexity of its concept.

References