Peter Gabriel has spoken well about how masks can reveal and not just conceal.
One mask/muse; persona/personage he dreamed up years ago ...partly as a followup to his Genesis character Rael (note: an anagram for "Real", No accident) in
"The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," was a character named Mozo (note: sounds like "Moses'". No accident)
Even a lot of serious fans are not aware of the Mozo story/song cycle, which can be traced and trainspotted throughout his discography.
And maybe discography is biography, and maybe masks unmask us.
Is Mozo a voice/mask/beard (see Indecent Exposure: Show MeYour Beard; I'll Show You Mine.") f
for Gabriel to process his pilgrimage?
I think Bono admits that all the characters he created for the "No Line on the Horizon" album
were partly him
Bono. of course, has had plenty to say about masks/characters concealing and/or revealing. McPhoisto, anybody (see "Self-Disclosure with Sunglasses On"
“All my characters are me. I’m not a good enough actor to become a character” Ryan Gosling
If anything, fans that go back a ways (before "So" went viral) remember hearing the Mozo name in an early number "On The Air": Mozo is here"
Very obscure. except for deep cut, vintage Gabriel fans
Until now.
As he did with a the' I/O" album, Gabriel is releasing a track on each full moon until the "O/I" album, is complete. Last moon's offering was such a
surprise.
I didn't see it coming.
I never expected Mozo to be back, let alone be resurrected..
Let alone to find redemption.
"I'd always wanted to do a little more with Mozo, who I had introduced many years back, and I thought, well, let's give him another blast here. He's been brought back from the dead.
What was interesting for me about Mozo was that he was not fully of the world and not fully outside it. For the original second album narrative, he was found on this waste tip, and there was a reference to alchemy, and how you only really get the opportunity to create gold out of the lowest material; shit. In Japanese culture, they also have kintsugi (kin: gold, tsugi: repair) where a broken cup is repaired with gold or precious metals and the repaired cup with its faults showing ends up more valuable than the original. It's a beautiful symbol for humanity, because we're remarkably easy to break and trying to reassemble self, psyche and sanity, is really the journey of the song." link
And I never expected my 2011 post from the vaults on Mozo to pick up hits again!
But it sure has. And here \ is its sequel
From the new song, "One by One:"
Mozo was a broken man
He was lying on his land
Every home that he designed
Was sinking in the sand
And unity was goading him
About his shattered heart
Reminding him of how it was
So rock-like at the start
And later on he fell apart
Left slivers on the road
When strangers asked him, "Where do you come from?"
He said, "No fixed abode"
And at first there was no sign of it
It looked like all was fine
The clouds came in and swept around him
They were bringing back the rain...
..And yet I could be standing at the pole if I learned to be still
To be quiet for a moment, to silence the will
Swept away from the center by the one centrifuge
I was hot, I was cold; I was small, I was huge
What is and what isn’t, life wants to exist
Was there on the island that I formed in the mist
And the contract was signed in the darkest red ink
And the bridges all appeared that opened up the link
To the other world that had grown in my mind
And I caught sight of the ocean that lies right behind
I was looking for admission and fighting for a place
But wherever my gaze fell, I could make out Your face
Like a jigsaw, it's coming back
Piece by piece, one by one
One by one
Like a jigsaw
There's nothing left to do, nothing left to feel this love
Feel this love
I hate to flirt with cheesy Christianizing, but I don't think it is too much of a stretch that in an earlier song in the cycle, "Red Rain," Gabriel was nodding to the red rain of the blood of Jesus (See
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the Red Rain of Jesus"
And now to see in this sequel/final installment (?) " the contract was signed in the darkest red ink".
Of course that is.......... among other things>.......... the salvific blood of Jesus, securing salvation
And reminds me of another current song "I'm the name on the form that demands your release" (U2's "Scars")
Mozo is under contract, as am I.
The mercurial one is unmasked...Resurrected, released...reassembled.
I'm putting it all togethеr
Though it doesn’t make sensе
Putting it back together
This is my only self-defense
I'm putting it back together
Filling in these blank spaces
Putting it back together
This is my only release
