Just in time for the full moon, Peter Gabriel is releasing a new song: “Love Can Heal”, which is said to be a tribute to the murdered MP Jo Cox. Like the previous singles, “Love Can Heal” was played on Gabriel’s European tour, but made its live debut during Peter Gabriel and Sting’s Rock, Paper, Scissors tour of North America in 2016.
Peter Gabriel on his newly released song: “It should be a place where you just drift away”
The 73-year-old himself writes about the song on his website: “A dreamy, experiential piece with some abstract imagery. A tapestry of sound, a tapestry in which things are woven together, but which are not necessarily meant to stand out, but are simply part of a whole.”
Explaining the genesis of the song, the Genesis founding member said: “‘Love Can Heal’ was written around 2016 and I started playing it midway through the tour and dedicated it to Jo Cox, the British MP who was brutally murdered by an extremist and whom I had met at a leadership conference. I think the song fits right into the themes of the album in that ‘i/o’ is about feeling connected to everything and in a way the next evolution of being connected to things is a feeling of love for everything.”
Gabriel admits that it sounds banal to say “love can heal”, but: “I really believe that it is a key element and that people who feel interactive, warm, giving, part of something alive and not isolated, much more able to feel comfortable and give more themselves.”
He ends the paragraph with a tribute to his colleagues: “With the work that Hans-Martin Buff has done on the immersive mix, you get the feeling of being touched in many places. And it should be a place where you just drift away. That was my goal.”
Peter Gabriel is expected to release his long-awaited new studio album “i/o” later this year.