Today's Biking Music...

... was Peter Gabriel's excellent 3rd solo album, sometimes referred to as Melt. I actually ended up listening to most of it on the ride in, and then started it over again for the ride home.

For those unfamiliar with this musical selection, it's a bunch of songs all having to do with various types of mental illness. There's one about a serial killer ("Intruder"), another about a fame-seeker ala John Hinckley (no relation to Jim) who takes a shot at a president ("Family Snapshot"), a dig at nationalism and the wars they lead to ("Games Without Frontiers"), a short little ditty about being locked away in an asylum ("Lead A Normal Life"), the frantic lament of an amnesiac ("I Don't Remember"), and Gabriel's long-time anthem song ("Biko") about the persecution, arrest and murder of Stephen Biko in South Africa in 1977, among a few others. It seldom gets mentioned when people start rattling off "theme albums" but it's one of my favourites. Before So came out in 1986, it was my fave of his first four, as it really just doesn't have a subpar song to be found on it anywhere!