Land of Confusion


"Land of Confusion" is a song by the English rock band Genesis from their 1986 album Invisible Touch. The song was the third track on the album and was the third track released as a single, reaching No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 14 in the UK in late 1986. It also reached No. 8 in the Netherlands. The music was written by the band, while the lyrics were written by guitarist Mike Rutherford. The song's video featured puppets from the 1980s UK sketch show Spitting Image.

Music video

The song is widely remembered for its music video, which had heavy airplay on MTV. The video features caricature puppets by the British television show Spitting Image. After Phil Collins saw a caricatured version of himself on the show, he commissioned the show's creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, to create puppets of the entire band, as well as all the characters in the video.
The video opens with a caricatured Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and a monkey, going to bed at 4:30 PM. Nancy is absorbed in reading His Way, Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra. Reagan, holding a teddy bear, kisses the monkey goodnight, falls sleep and begins to have a nightmare, which sets the premise for the entire video. The video intermittently features a line of feet in combat boots marching through a swamp past the heads of Cold War-era political figures including Jimmy Carter, Margaret Thatcher, Leonid Brezhnev, and Henry Kissinger.
Caricatured versions of the band members are shown playing instruments on stage during a concert: Tony Banks on an array of synthesizers, Mike Rutherford on a four-necked guitar, and two Phil Collins puppets: one on the drums, and one singing.
During the second verse, the video shows, in order: Benito Mussolini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Mikhail Gorbachev and his aides, and Muammar Gaddafi giving speeches on large video screens in front of mass crowds. Meanwhile, Reagan is shown putting on a Superman suit and running down a street while Collins sings,

Oh Superman where are you now
When everything's gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.

Meanwhile, the "real world" Reagan is shown exhaling in a large pool of his own sweat, as Nancy and the orangutan look out the window. During the bridge, the Superman-costumed Reagan and a triceratops watch a television showing various clips of Johnny Carson, Walter Cronkite, Richard Nixon, Mr. Spock, and Bob Hope. This segues into a sequence set in prehistoric times, where two dinosaurs meet with Ronald and Nancy Reagan as a mammal eats an egg and reads a newspaper, and John Rambo hovers in the background. At the end of this part, the orangutan from the prologue takes a large bone from Reagan and tosses it in the air, mimicking the first part of.
As the bone begins to fall there is a shift to Collins catching a falling phone into which he states he "won't be coming home tonight, my generation will put it right" while a caricature of Prince applies mustard, ketchup and a bun to his tongue and devours it, and a caricature of Pete Townshend is seen playing a chord on guitar and giving a thumb-up. On the "we're not just making promises" verse the bone finally lands, he fumbles for a button next to his bed. He intends to push the one labelled "Nurse", but instead presses the one titled "Nuke", setting off a nuclear explosion. Reagan then announces: "That's one heck of a nurse!" and mugs for the camera as Nancy strikes him with her snorkel.
The video, directed by John Lloyd and Jim Yukich, and produced by Jon Blair, won the short-lived Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video during the 30th Annual Grammy Awards. The video was also nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1987, but lost to "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. It also made the number-one spot on The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau's top 10 music videos in his year-end "Dean's List" feature, and number three on the equivalent list in his annual survey of music critics, Pazz & Jop.

Singles track listings

7": Virgin / GENS 3 (UK)

  1. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
  2. "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54

    7": Atlantic / 7-89336 (U.S.)

  3. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
  4. "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54

    12": Virgin / GENS 3–12 (UK)

  5. "Land of Confusion" – 6:55
  6. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
  7. "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54

    12": Virgin / 608 632-213 (Germany)

  8. "Land of Confusion" – 6:55
  9. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
  10. "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54

    CD: Virgin / SNEG 3–12 (UK)

  11. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
  12. "Land of Confusion" – 6:55
  13. "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
  14. "Do the Neurotic" – 7:08

    12": Atlantic / PR 968 (U.S.)

  15. "Land of Confusion" – 6:55
  16. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45

    7": Atlantic / 7-89336 promo (U.S.)

  17. "Land of Confusion" – 3:53
  18. "Land of Confusion" – 4:45

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Live performances

The song was played on their Invisible Touch, The Way We Walk, Calling All Stations and ' tours, though later transposed to a lower key to accommodate Collins' deepening voice.
It also appears on their live albums ', and Live over Europe 2007. As well as on their DVDs Live at Wembley Stadium, The Way We Walk - Live in Concert and When in Rome 2007.

Disturbed version

The American heavy metal band Disturbed released a cover of the song on their third studio album, Ten Thousand Fists. The song became the fourth single from that album. Vocalist David Draiman commented that the aim of covering the song was "taking a song that's absolutely nothing like us and making it our own." The line "And the sound of your laughter" in the original's bridge was replaced by "In the wake of this madness," while the bridge of the song was replaced with a short solo by guitarist Dan Donegan.
It was accompanied by a music video animated by Todd McFarlane, known as the creator of the comics series Spawn. McFarlane had previously animated the music videos for the songs "Freak on a Leash" by Korn and "Do the Evolution" by Pearl Jam. According to McFarlane, the music video is "a big view of the corporate world and how it all ties into just one big beast for me... The world is run by one giant thing, which is driven by greed and lust." "Land of Confusion" reached No. 1 in the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks; making it Disturbed's first No. 1 single on that chart.

Music video

The video starts out with The Guy, Disturbed's mascot, falling to earth. It then shows military forces bearing the symbol of a dollar sign within a circle of white within a field of red, followed by legions of black-clad soldiers reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's Schutzstaffel. The video then shows the Guy, escaping bondage from chains, as the military forces continue to assault cities and civilians. Later on, leaders of various nations of the world are shown sitting at a table with the same dollar sign on it. Eventually, the Guy confronts the soldiers, and leads the people in rebellion. Flags of several powerful nations are then shown, with the final flag sporting the dollar sign. The Guy leads the rebels to the headquarters of the United Nations where they disrupt a meeting of the U.N. representatives. The Guy then leads the angry mob into a back room where they confront the real power behind the throne, a gigantic, bloated Fat Cat. The mob then drags him to the ground and once immobilized, the Guy destroys the Fat Cat, who explodes into a shower of dollar bills.

UK enhanced version

  1. "Land of Confusion"
  2. "Sickened"
  3. "Land of Confusion"

    UK, European and US vinyl 12" limited edition picture disc

  4. "Land of Confusion"
  5. "Sickened"

    European version

  6. "Land of Confusion"
  7. "Land of Confusion"

    Personnel