The Song That Changed My Life

In the early days of COVID, before lockdown was ordered in my state, I was working at a call center for a travel company. It wasn't my dream job, but it gave me security, plus it had some good benefits. However because of COVID, many resorts and attractions closed down--causing many people to have to cancel their vacations. Which, for me and my coworkers was back to back nonstop calls for a straight 9 hours of work day in and day out. If you've never worked at a call center, there are--surprisingly--times when call volumes are low and you can more or less relax.

It had been weeks since we'd had that respite. Some people can handle the pressure, some people can't. I am one of those who can't. It was getting to me and getting to me BAD. I would cry every day before work, start dissociating, and slack off at my job more than I ever did before...simply because the volume of stress was bearing down on me more heavily than ever--along with the looming uncertainty of a growing pandemic--I was terrified. But also felt trapped in my situation. After all, I was making good money. Quitting this job would give me an uncertain future.

One day, while driving to work, I was crying again. Tearfully, I started praying for a sign. Should I stay with my job and be miserable for who knows how long? Or should I break it off and find a new path in life that will make me happier than sitting at a desk all day every day until I die?

As soon as I finished the prayer, my shuffled playlist switched to "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel. It was a song I'd heard many times, but in this moment I was more keyed in to the lyrics than I'd ever been before.

To keep in silence I resigned

My friends would think I was a nut

Turning water into wine

Open doors would soon be shut

So I went from day to day

Though my life was in a rut

'Til I thought of what I'd say

Which connection I should cut

I was feeling part of the scenery

I walked right out of the machinery

My heart going "Boom-boom-boom"

"Hey, " he said

"Grab your things, I've come to take you home"

A calm, peaceful, happy feeling washed over me as I listened to the song. It was really the first time a song had spoken to me on a personal level to my exact situation. I always said "This song speaks to me" but this was the first time I actually felt it in my bones. I'm not usually one to just leave thigs up to fate. But the feeling I got in that moment was too strong to ignore. I took this as my answer that I was not on the path I needed to be on, and needed to change directions.

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"Solsbury Hill" was Peter Gabriel's first single as a solo artist, released in 1977. Just a few years earlier, Peter Gabriel had left Genesis, the band he helped create and had acted as the charismatic, eccentric lead singer for.

During the recording of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, the band's ambitious rock opera, Gabriel became a father. His wife, Jill, had had a complicated pregnancy which led to their newborn daughter, Anna, having difficulties in her early life--at that time, the doctors were unsure of the prognosis. Gabriel was having trouble balancing his work and home life. "For me, there was no question about priorities. I was the first [of the band] to have a baby," he said years later, "and [the band] had no understanding of how it changes the way you feel."

The band complained he was spending too much time at home when they needed him, but his wife felt he was spending too much time with the band when she needed him. He was being split down the middle. Something needed to change. But what? Should he stay with the band and abandon his family, or stay with his family and abandon the band? It was clear he couldn't do both, one needed to go.

The need and want to be with his family during a stressful time, in addition to sour feelings of the band's lack of sympathy, were both two reasons he started wanting to leave the band. But the biggest reason, he claimed, was that he felt like he was just another cog in the music business machine. He didn't feel connected with his bandmates or the audience in the same way he once had. It was making him jaded.

In a 1975 issue of the British music magazine, Melody Maker, Gabriel wrote an official statement, explaining that he was leaving Genesis and why:

"I found I had begun to look at things as the famous Gabriel, despite hiding my occupation whenever possible, hitching lifts, etc. I had begun to think in business terms; very useful for an often bitten once shy musician, but treating records and audiences as money was taking me away from them. When performing, there were less shivers up and down the spine."

He knew staying with the band would be the safest bet, as he already had an established career. But he could tell that if he kept going, he would plummet towards burnout, and possibly ruin the trust he'd built with his wife and child. But the outcome of his departure from the band was uncertain.

"Solsbury Hill" details his conflicting feelings. Leaving the life you have--even if you aren't happy in it--for a different, uncertain life, is something that is difficult to do. It requires bravery. Will the changes be for the better? You don't know, if you don't try. But trying can hurt sometimes.

In Gabriel's own words: “['Solsbury Hill' is] about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get, or what you are for what you might be. It’s about letting go.”

Yes, my situation wasn't as dire as his. I didn't have a child or a spouse depending on me, so I wasn't hurting anyone else by leaving my job. But, I don't think it really matters--life change is life change, no matter who you are. Ever since that day where that song spoke to me, I try to live my life like that song. I quit my job, self-quarantined at home while I took online certification courses for teaching English as a second language, and after a couple years of working hard at a new job and saving money, I moved to Japan to teach English in their schools.

It was a big leap, and it was scary, but it was also the best choice I ever made. Rather than helping other people see the world through my travel agency job, I was now experiencing it for myself. I was truly the happiest I think I had ever been in my life. It reignited my desire to see the entire world, something that working in the travel industry had kind of slowly sucked out of me over time.

And to think, I may not have found this contentedness, or lived these experiences--had this song not come on at just the right time when I needed it the most. It's a character arc/self-discovery song that I think helps inspire anyone who listens to it to step out of their comfort zones and take a risk that will make them happy.

Now, I realize not everyone is as privileged as I was to just be able to quit a job for a pipe dream. But I think the risk you take for greater happiness can be anything. It doesn't have to be a grand gesture like traveling the world. Everyone's path to growth and happiness is different. For Peter Gabriel, it was leaving Genesis to focus on himself and his family. For me, it was pursuing adventure. For you, it might be leaving a toxic relationship to finally feel free again. Or finally deciding to do something daring--such as skydiving--instead of just dreaming about it. Maybe it's just sticking up for yourself. There's no right or wrong way to grow into yourself and become a person you are content with being.

"Solsbury Hill", if listened to at your lowest, might give you the kick in the pants you need to make it happen.