Peter Gabriel

Till Your Mind
Is Shining

The fourth song from o\i, and by Gabriel’s own account the nearest he comes to a pop song on the record: it grew out of a chord sequence that felt light and playful, and it takes him back to school, when he and his friends set out to write pop, soul and R&B before there was a Genesis. Underneath, it is about consciousness – where it comes from, and the new research into sentience in animals and plants – and the hope that looking inward makes us treat the world with more care. Tchad Blake’s Dark-Side Mix came first, at the full moon on April 2; Mark “Spike” Stent’s Bright-Side Mix followed at the new moon on April 17.

Words and music by Peter Gabriel; produced by Peter Gabriel. Recorded at Real World Studios, Bath; The Beehive, London; and Phantom Studios, Gallatin, Tennessee. Peter Gabriel: piano, synths and vocals; Manu Katché: drums; Tony Levin: bass; David Rhodes: electric guitar and backing vocals; Katie May: acoustic guitar and additional synths; Richard Evans: 12-string acoustic guitar and mandolin; Faye Dolle: additional synths. Engineered by Oli Jacobs, Katie May, Faye Dolle and Dom Shaw. Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake; Bright-Side Mix by Mark “Spike” Stent; mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis. Real World Records. Artwork for the single: Tatsuo Miyajima, Warp Time with Warp Self, No. 2. Photograph: Agence Meurisse, Jagadish Chandra Bose lecturing on the “nervous system” of plants at the Sorbonne, Paris, 1926, glass-plate negative – the Bengali physicist and plant physiologist spent decades measuring how plants answer to touch, light and injury. Bibliothèque nationale de France.