Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Rock star, lead singer of Genesis, hugely successful solo artist with 35 million records sold, and actor in films like 'Buster'.
On the island
Eight records
Helpless HeartFavourite
Paul Brady is one of my favorite songwriters. He has a wonderfully pure voice and um he quite often has written songs that I do wish that I'd been responsible for. But this song certainly meant a lot to me in the last half a dozen years or so.
This is a song which in the same way has the same kind of sentiment as Helpless Heart. And I'm an old romantic at heart, so hang on to a dream.
I mean no collection would be complete without one or two Beatles records. I mean the Beatles were the reason I'm in this business really. Although I've been playing drums since I was five it was the Beatles that suddenly gave me a purpose. And this I think sums up that early mid sixties feeling for me when I was at school and really loving it. It's all my loving.
I remember making this big impression on me when I first heard it. It's one side of a conversation. And I and I love songs like this. It's when from from what you hear in the conversation you know exactly what's going on. And it's a bit like I Get Along Without You Very Well, Ho Gee Carmichael. I've I've written my own version of that on the new album, I've forgotten everything. It's a bit like when you meet someone oh no, I've met her and I thought I'd forgotten all about her. It's called Downriver and it's by David Accles, who has since kind of disappeared, but it's a great song.
Well, this is the old romantic coming out again, I'm afraid. Um Aretha Franklin is I've always loved her voice, and uh she did a version of this song somewhere, and it's probably my favorite version of the song.
Well, this is one of my favorite bands. They've only ever made two records. Blue Nile is the name of the band. And I find this very uplifting. We used to play this before we went on stage on the Genesis tour. It's called The Downtown Lights.
Well, talking about my acting career, well, this was um I was in A Hard Day's Night, although I've never seen me. But I got paid for it. Um but this is a song that they sang in a Hard Day's Night when we were there doing the screaming at the end of the s the end of the film. Again, like All My Love and it sums up a a wonderful period of my life, you know, the sixties.
Nimrod (from Enigma Variations)
BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Well I find this piece of music very moving. This is um a B B C Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Bernstein uh conducting and it's uh Elgar's Enigma variations. And this is the one that I I I love this as as a as a piece of music I love this. It's in the um Nimrod.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:57Your major problem seems to be that you have this wholesome reputation and you don't much care for it. Why does it grate on you?
Wholesome uh yeah, well it kind of does a bit. Um ... Yeah, I'm not quite sure. I think it all started from a newspaper ringing my mother up and saying ... Now, come on, Mrs. Collins, give me some of Phil's faults, you see. And my mum sort of actually she told me this after she said, Well, I all I said was I can't think of anything off the top of my head, and so ah. So suddenly I became Mr. Perfect, you know, and then that became Mr. Nice Guy. ... Although there's nothing wrong with being nice, and I actually uh really when it comes down to it. I don't mind it at all. It's just that musically, you know, the connotations are average and middle of the road. Nice. You know, it's always one of those words. Nice. You don't want to be pigeonholed with Barry Manhillow and the other.
Presenter asks
2:41Is it also perhaps because you've seen too many of your friends fall foul of drugs and alcohol?
Yeah, some friends and some of course people that you've admired um and never met. See them go that way. I mean, now, for example, I mean, apart from Eric, who's um, you know. Harry clapped. Eric Clapton. A drug and an alcohol alcohol abuser. David Crosby is is another one of my great friends now. And um God knows, he he was as low as they can go, you know. And I've seen him come back and now he's as sharp as a sharp as a needle, he's great.
The keepsakes
The book
The Prehistory of the Far Side
Gary Larson
Well, in contrast with some of this music, I would um I would take the prehistory of the far side. Which is um GARY LARSON COLECTION OF CARTONS. Gary Larson is one of the I think the funniest cartoonist living. And I I can look at his cartoons and get things different things out of them all the time. And I I just think that uh in contrast to some of this music, I would need to laugh. And I think that uh that I would know that I would laugh. Get away from the heavy romance one.
The luxury
I take a piano. Because That's a way of expression, you know, and I would need that.
Presenter asks
6:04Would you go as far as to say, if you haven't experienced something, you can't write about it? When you write a song, it's usually because you've been there.
Yes, I think that's generally true. Although when I write a song like Another Day in Paradise, which is about the homeless, I have not been homeless. I mean, obviously I haven't you know, although I'm very well off now, though you know, I joined Genesis run a tenor a week. I mean, when I get criticised for writing songs like that, because how would he know about it? He's a rich rock star, then obviously the logical conclusion is that do you have to, you know, do you have to go out and kill someone to write a film like Bonnie and Clyde, for example? So, um. I don't necessarily go along with all that, but I I I I write things about things that bother me and and the way I feel.
Presenter asks
19:08Did you feel always like the outsider, the boy from Hounslow, the grammar school boy, when you joined the public school band Genesis?
Well, I I didn't really feel like an outsider. I felt very different. And I think my role became that of class clown, you know, I that I mean, I always think that drummers are usually got they're usually the jokers in the band. I mean, they're the ones that always know the the jokes and they tell everybody else and usually uh in Genesis it I was kind of felt that I was always diffusing a pot a potentially very volatile situation. And quite often we they'd in the middle of the song someone would just stop playing and storm out because of something somebody had said that I'd missed. And uh I was sort of amazed by this. It was a very different kind of group. To be in.
Presenter asks
24:55Do you have an enormous sense of power when you see stories about children who need life-saving operations? How do you feel about being able to help?
I know. Well, I mean, I to be honest, I d did one at one point a a guy came to my front door. And said to me, You know, Mr. Collins, I don't know you from Adam, you don't know me, but I live down the road, and they're going to throw me out unless I get eight thousand pounds. And cut long story short, I gave the guy eight thousand pounds. Give him a check there and then. And he went away. And I he said, I'll pay you back. I said, Listen, pay me back. If you don't pay me back, then I won't do this again. But if you pay me back, I probably will. And he said, I might not be for a year or two. I said, Just pay me back at some point. And then two years later, he came back, gave me eight eight thousand pound cheque. So I I've since done that. to some extent. It's just impossible to help everybody that I g get that asks me. But occasionally you'll or more than occasionally you'll you'll see a photograph, you know, the kind of thing you're talking about, of a girl, little a little eight, nine year old that hasn't been able to to crawl. since birth and needs a wheelchair all the time and she needs a wheelchair lift. And well in the in the amount of time that it takes me to read the letter, I've earned the money that she needs. So you it it connects and say you send the money off and you hope to change someone's life or affect or at least help someone. along those lines. And so I I do that because I just can't see any reason why not, you know.
“I think it all started from a newspaper ringing my mother up and saying ... Now, come on, Mrs. Collins, give me some of Phil's faults, you see. And my mum sort of actually she told me this after she said, Well, I all I said was I can't think of anything off the top of my head, and so ah. So suddenly I became Mr. Perfect, you know, and then that became Mr. Nice Guy.”
“Yes, I think that's generally true. Although when I write a song like Another Day in Paradise, which is about the homeless, I have not been homeless. ... I don't necessarily go along with all that, but I I I I write things about things that bother me and and the way I feel.”
“Well, I I didn't really feel like an outsider. I felt very different. And I think my role became that of class clown, you know, I that I mean, I always think that drummers are usually got they're usually the jokers in the band.”
“I'm drowning, not waving.”