Phil Collins built this song on a drum-machine pulse that never stops, like footsteps on a long walk back. Collins has said it was inspired by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and you can feel a man who’s been told what to think, where to sleep, and who he is. Sting and his old Genesis bandmate Peter Gabriel sing backup. The chorus asks for one thing: take me home. Every prodigal knows that ache. When the world has locked us inside its own story about us, God still knows our real name. Home isn’t a place we earn our way back to. It’s a Father already watching the road.
“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” — Luke 15:20 (KJV)
— JC
