Video hit Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street (Live on London's O2, 2013)

"Mercy Street" is a song written by Peter Gabriel from his 1986 album So.

The song deals with the life and conflicting emotions of the poet Anne Sexton, and makes frequent allusions to incidents from Sexton's life and a number of her poems, in particular the work 45 Mercy Street.

Themes touched on in the song include suicide attempts, troubled parental relationships, a desire to become whole, attempting to come to terms with the past, and confessing.

This is based on the book of poems of the same name by Anne Sexton. An American mental patient, she wrote as a form of therapy. Gabriel was impressed that she wrote entirely for herself rather than an audience.

Sexton made five suicide attempts, the fifth being successful: she died of carbon monoxide poisoning in 1974.

The title came from Anne Sexton's 1969 play 45 Mercy Street. She was also working on a poem with the same title at the time of her death.

Gabriel could relate to Sexton as a deep thinker with a troubling depression who searches for meaning through her art. He used the image of darkness on Mercy Street to signal her depression.

The end of this song was very intense when Gabriel performed it during live shows, where he used a high-pitched wail to simulate Sexton's death.

The song also came out of an experience that Gabriel had on a plane. He told Mojo magazine September 2013: "Pan Am had started doing mileage programmes. I got up to 100, 000 miles from touring, so I booked a free flight from LA to Rio. The catch was that I had to travel economy. On the way onto the plane, I said hello to the bass player in Earth Wind & Fire (Verdine White)."

"After we took off," Gabriel continued, "the plane developed a fault - something with the landing gear - and the pilot told us we had to fly over the Pacific and dump some fuel. That's when everyone became very scared, writing farewell letters. I even scribbled some notes. Earth Wind & Fire's bass player came back from First Class to see me in economy and just said (in a sonorous voice ) 'Pray brother'. The pilot got us down, thank God. In Rio, I met the drummer Djalma Correa. I worked on some ideas with him, and that led to the track that 'Mercy Street' was built around."

The lyrics:

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see

Are the dreams all made solid

Are the dreams all made real

All of the buildings, all of those cars

Were once just a dream

In somebody's head

She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam

She pictures a soul

With no leak at the seam

Let's take the boat out

Wait until darkness

Let's take the boat out

Wait until darkness comes

Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey

Nowhere in the suburbs

In the cold light of day

There in the midst of it so alive and alone

Words support like bone

Dreaming of Mercy Street

Wear your inside out

Looking for mercy

In your daddy's arms again

Dreaming of Mercy Street

'Swear they moved that sign

Looking for mercy

In your daddy's arms

Pulling out the papers from drawers that slide smooth

Tugging at the darkness, word upon word

Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box

To the priest, he's the doctor

He can handle the shocks

Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips

Of kissing Mary's lips

Dreaming of Mercy Street

Wear your inside out

Dreaming of mercy

In your daddy's arms again

Dreaming of Mercy Street

'Swear they moved that sign

Looking for mercy

In your daddy's arms

Looking for mercy

Looking for mercy

Looking for mercy

Mercy, mercy

Anne, with her father is out in the boat

Riding the water

Riding the waves on the sea