Video hit Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (Live in Athens, 1987)

Sledgehammer is a song by British musician Peter Gabriel from his 1986 album So.

It hit number one in Canada on July 21, 1986, where it spent four weeks; number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States on July 26, 1986 and number four in the UK singles chart, thanks in part to a popular and influential music video.

It was his biggest hit in North America and ties with "Games Without Frontiers" as his biggest hit in the United Kingdom.

The song's music video has won a number of awards, including a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, and Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards.

Gabriel was also nominated for three Grammy Awards: Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.

As of 2011, "Sledgehammer" is the most played music video in the history of MTV.

In October 1987 after many months on the road, it was in the elevated surroundings of the hillside open-air theatre at Lycabettus overlooking Athens, that the "So" tour came to a climactic close. The three nights were filmed in what was the first-ever Peter Gabriel concert to be committed to film. As a concert film, it was brilliantly shot and has now been equally brilliantly remastered, a crystal-clear record of Gabriel and band in their mid-80s pomp. The viewer is placed right in the heart of the action all the way, from the band's synchronised choreography on opening number "This Is The Picture", right through to the skin-pricking closer "Biko". In between, we're lost in music, spellbound by the spectacle, totally absorbed by the imperfection-free tightness of a band that's been on the road for so long.

The song was influenced by 1960s soul music, in particular the music made by the Memphis label Stax. The distinctive horn track was provided by the Memphis Horns, house musicians at Stax. The song also features a synthesized shakuhachi flute generated with an Emu Emulator II sampler.

The lyrics are a mosaic of sexual innuendos, with references to steam trains, bumper cars, Big Dipper (roller coaster) and fruit cage as metaphors for male and female sexual organs and references to pollination, acting like a sledgehammer, fruit and bees as metaphors of sexual acts.

"Sledgehammer" was Peter Gabriel's first and, to this date, only number-one hit in the United States. It replaced "Invisible Touch" by his former band Genesis, which had been that group's only US number-one hit the previous week. "Sledgehammer" also achieved chart success on other Billboard charts in 1986, spanning the range between Album Rock Tracks (two weeks at the summit in May and June) and Hot Dance Club Play (one week atop this chart in July).

The single release also included a previously unreleased track called "Don't Break This Rhythm" and an "'85 Remix" of his 1982 single "I Have the Touch." US versions of the single contained an extended dance remix of "Sledgehammer." It was among the first singles released on compact disc.

The lyrics:

You could have a steam train

If you'd just lay down your tracks

You could have an aeroplane flying

If you bring your blue sky back

All you do is call me

I'll be anything you need

You could have a big dipper

Going up and down, all around the bends

You could have a bumper car, bumping

This amusement never ends

I want to be your sledgehammer

Why don't you call my name

Oh let me be your sledgehammer

This will be my testimony

Show me round your fruit cakes

'Cause I will be your honey bee

Open up your fruit cakes

Where the fruit is as sweet as can be

I want to be your sledgehammer

Why don't you call my name

You'd better call the sledgehammer

Put your mind at rest

I'm going to be-the sledgehammer

This can be my testimony

I'm your sledgehammer

Let there be no doubt about it

Sledge sledge sledgehammer

I kicked the habit (I kicked the habit)

Shed my skin (Shed my skin)

This is the new stuff (This is the new stuff)

I go dancing in, (We could go dancing in)

Oh won't you show for me (Show for me)

I will show for you (Show for you)

Show for me (Show for me), I will show for you

Yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do mean you

Only you, you've been coming through

Going to build that power

Build, build up that power, hey

I've been feeding the rhythm

I've been feeding the rhythm

Going to feel that power, build in you

Come on, come on, help me do

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you

I've been feeding the rhythm

I've been feeding the rhythm

It's what we're doing, doing

All day and night, come on and help me do, come on and help me do