Phil Collins has reflected on his rarely discussed cover of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, calling it the forgotten track from his 1981 debut solo album Face Value during an appearance on Vernon Kay’s BBC Radio 2 program Tracks Of My Years.
by Paul Cashmere
Phil Collins has spoken about his cover of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, describing it as the overlooked song on his landmark 1981 solo debut Face Value. The comments came during a recent episode of the BBC Radio 2 series Tracks Of My Years, hosted by Vernon Kay, in which the former Genesis drummer and singer selected ten tracks that marked key points in his life and career.
Collins told Kay that the track received almost no attention when Face Value was released. “This is the forgotten track and no one really has ever talked about it in the reviews or anything,” he said. “When the album came out, it was just like everybody concentrated on In the Air Tonight, I guess, and everybody forget about the rest of the tracks.”
The song was included among the ten selections Collins made for the program. He explained that he had long admired the original Beatles version from the 1966 album Revolver and felt another interpretation was possible. “I always thought there was a different kind of song that was kind of trying to get out,” Collins said. While working on ideas for what became Face Value, he recorded a demo that took a different approach to the material. “I kind of took a different verse, took a different way of looking at it as a harmony thing. And it’s a difficult song to do because it’s all on one chord, you know, but I really like that version of it and I think it’s the forgotten song on that record and nobody ever hears it.”
Face Value itself emerged almost by accident. Collins explained that he had not set out to make a solo album. At the time his marriage was under strain and he left Genesis temporarily to address personal matters in Canada. When he returned, bandmates Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Steve Hackett were occupied with their own solo projects. With time on his hands and access to a portable studio, Collins began recording at home, often after visits to the local pub. The demos he produced formed the foundation of the album. Record company executive Ahmet Ertegun heard the material and encouraged him to complete it as a full release.
The writing process for the album was largely instinctive. Collins noted that many of his lyrics arrived while he was playing piano, with only a few lines needed to establish the direction of a song. In the Air Tonight, the album’s best known track, was largely improvised in a similar fashion. Tomorrow Never Knows, by contrast, was a deliberate reinterpretation of an existing composition rather than a new original.
Collins’ appearance on Tracks Of My Years also covered earlier chapters of his career, including his childhood introduction to drums, his time as a professional auditioner before joining Genesis, and the gradual commercial growth of the band through the 1970s. He discussed his admiration for Motown, the Beach Boys and The Who, and spoke warmly of later associations with artists such as Bruce Hornsby and Taylor Swift. The program concluded with Collins reflecting on family and the forthcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, following Genesis’s earlier induction.
The selection of Tomorrow Never Knows as one of his ten tracks underscores Collins’ continuing attachment to the song more than four decades after its release. While Face Value is remembered primarily for the atmospheric drama of In the Air Tonight and the commercial success that followed, Collins used the BBC interview to draw attention back to a cover that he regards as an important and under appreciated part of that record.
Collins has not indicated any plans for new recordings or major tours in the immediate future. His comments on the program serve as a reminder of the depth of the Face Value sessions and the personal circumstances that shaped one of the defining solo albums of the early 1980s.
Watch the Vernon Kay interview with Phil Collins:
Phil Collins 10 Tracks of My Tears selections:
The Beatles – I Want To Hold Your Hand
Martha And The Vandellas – Dancing In The Street
Dusty Springfield – Some Of Your Lovin’
Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything Is Alright)
The Beach Boys – God Only Knows
The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again
Phil Collins – Tomorrow Never Knows
The Traveling Wilburys – Handle With Care
Bruce Hornsby – Barren Ground
Taylor Swift – White Horse
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