Contents

Keep It Dark

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this articlebyadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Keep It Dark" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

"Keep It Dark"
SinglebyGenesis
from the album Abacab
B-side	"Naminanu"
Released	23 October 1981
Recorded	1981
Genre	Progressive Rock
Length	4:32
Label	Charisma/Phonogram
Songwriter(s)	Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford
Producer(s)	Genesis, Hugh Padgham
Genesis singles chronology
"No Reply at All" (1981) "Keep It Dark" (1981) "Man on the Corner" (1982)

"Keep It Dark" is a song by British band Genesis, released on 23 October 1981 in the UK as the second single from Abacab. ^[1] It reached number 33 in the UK Singles Chart.^[2]

"Keep It Dark" describes a man who has been to the future and has seen a bright, happy world where everyone is filled with joy, cities are filled with light, with no fear of war, and all exploitation has ceased as all creatures have happier lives. Once he returns, however, he is pressured to lie about the incident. The cover depicts the three wise monkeys.

In the DVD interview accompanying the 2007 re-release of Abacab, the album from which the song comes, composer Tony Banks said that "the idea was that this character had to pretend that he'd just been robbed by people and that's why he'd disappeared for a few weeks, and in fact what had happened [was] he'd been to the future and gone to this fantastic world where everything was wonderful and beautiful and everything... but he couldn't tell anybody that, because no one would believe him and the powers that be kept him silent."

The song's unusual structure (the rhythm is in a 6/4 time signature) kept it from being released as a single in the US.^[3]

A music video supported the single release of the song, featuring Collins, Tony Banks, and Rutherford in two different settings. In the first and second verses and the fade out, the band walks along bleak city streets (inAmsterdam) wearing trenchcoats and fedoras. When the chorus comes in, it shifts to the band wearing all-white suits and sunglasses, and walking through a field, with the sun shining. In both settings, Banks mimes with a mini Casio keyboard and Rutherford with the neck from a guitar, while Collins keeps the beat of the song with drumsticks, mostly hitting air, or the walls of the Amsterdam houses.

• Tony Banks – keyboards
• Phil Collins – drums, percussion, vocals
• Mike Rutherford – electric guitar, bass pedals