Question I heard that there is a signifigance to the song "In the Air Tonight." A friend told me that it was written about an incident that happened when Phil was a youth. He said it was something about a drowning and that he invited some guy that he new that watched a friend of his drown. At the end of the concert he finished with that song, and had that guy he new was arrested after the show. This may seem like a stupid question but after being told this, my curiosity has been peaked.
Answer Hello Shannon....
Yes, this is a very common rumor and one I get asked about quite a lot.
No, it's not true and Phil Collins has been trying to dispell these rumors for years now.
Let me give you a couple of quotes on In The Air Tonight from Phil Collins himself.
This quote comes from the Classic Albums - Face Value DVD/VHS cassette from 1999:
"When someone says, 'Now, tell me Phil, what is it really about?', I say I don't know. I have no idea becuase I made it up as I went along ... I didn't know what I was singing about. I mean obviously, when you're going through a divorce, all kinds of things run through your mind. There's anger, there's bitterness, there's hurt, you know. And all that stuff is in In The Air Tonight. Menace, you know. Finally losing your temper at the end when the drums come in."
This one comes from Phil Collins' appearance on VH-1's Storytellers in 1997:
".....(In The Air Tonight) is a song with many faces. And the truth is, is that I don't what it's about. The way I write lyrics is I open my mouth and I see what comes out. And I was going through an unpleasant divorce and I guess I was very angry, I was very bitter, I was very upset, and I think you can probably tell that from the song. But all these stories, it's like Chinese mysteries. Whenever I come to America, I hear a new bit. There's this person who reckons that I saw someone drowning, and I witnessed the thing, and then I invited the guy to come to the concert, and sat him down in the front row, and sang this song. All I did was write the song really! But anything you hear, let it be said right here, right now, anything you hear about this song is not true."
