A long time in the making, not to mention a year-long lead-up with new songs being released on the full moon, Peter Gabriel‘s new album i/o is finally here to listen to in full. It’s officially out Friday, December 1, but as today is the full moon, we get the last of the album’s songs, “Live and Let Live.”
Gabriel says “Live and Let Live,” a very Peter Gabriel-sounding, uplifting anthem, was written about the idea of forgiveness, with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in mind, but has now taken on new relevance in today’s political climate. “Now, I know if we look at what’s happening in the Middle East now or in Ukraine, all sorts of places around the world where there’s still violence and brutality, to walk around with a bunch of flowers, preaching forgiveness seems trite and pathetic, maybe,” Gabriel says. “But in the long run, I think people have to find a way. ‘Peace only happens when you respect the rights of others’ is a quote from the Peace University in Costa Rica and I think that’s a really important message for me and for my life. You either belong to that hurt or you free yourself and forgiveness is clearly a super effective way of freeing yourself.” Listen to that and read more about the song from Gabrield, below.
The album, which is Gabiel’s first of all new material in 20 years, is available in two distinct mixes: The Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent, and the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake. “We have two of the greatest mixers in the world in Tchad and Spike and they definitely bring different characters to the songs,” Gabriel says. “Tchad is very much a sculptor building a journey with sound and drama, Spike loves sound and assembling these pictures, so he’s more of a painter.”
i/o includes contributions from Brian Eno, regular collaborators Richard Chappell, Oli Jacobs, Katie May and Richard Evans, as well as the Soweto Gospel Choir, Oprhei Drängar, the New Blood Orchestra led by John Metcalfe, Richard Russell, Tom Cawley, Josh Shpak, Paolo Fresu, Linnea Olsson, Melanie Peter, and Ríoghnach Connolly (The Breath).
You can listen to i/o in full, both the Bright-Side Mix and the Dark-Side Mix, below.
Peter Gabriel played almost all the songs off i/o on his 2023 tour earlier this year.
When someone suggested that forgiveness might be a topic to write about, at first, I thought, ‘that’s not interesting to me,’ but then I remembered two things. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was the chair of The Elders and a real mentor for me, led the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa and that really allowed people to expose, report and maybe feel again some of the horrors of the apartheid era. I remember he always said that listening made a huge difference, just making sure people felt heard and recognized. Then, sometimes, it created a space for forgiveness.
There’s also a description that Nelson Mandela gave when he was released from jail after 27 years in prison and found himself about to become president of South Africa, standing next to some of the people who’d been responsible for keeping him in jail all that time. He said he felt some of the old fear and hatred swelling up inside him but when he thought hard about it, he realized that he needed to find a way to work with these people, to build what he called his rainbow coalition. He needed to feel their humanity and ultimately to find a way to forgive them. He was quite sure that if he couldn’t forgive them and find a way to work with them, that he would remain their prisoner for the rest of his days.
Now, I know if we look at what’s happening in the Middle East now or in Ukraine, all sorts of places around the world where there’s still violence and brutality, to walk around with a bunch of flowers, preaching forgiveness seems trite and pathetic, maybe. But in the long run, I think people have to find a way. ‘Peace only happens when you respect the rights of others’ is a quote from the Peace University in Costa Rica and I think that’s a really important message for me and for my life. You either belong to that hurt or you free yourself and forgiveness is clearly a super effective way of freeing yourself.
