“‘The Lamb’ was intended to be like a “Pilgrim’s Progress”, an adventure through which one gets a better understanding of self – the transformation theme. I was trying to give it a street slant, and that was before punk happened. I felt an energy in that direction, and it seemed that prancing around in fairyland was rapidly becoming obsolete.”Peter Garbriel (692)

“This was 1974; it was pre-punk but I still thought we needed to base the story around a contemporary figure rather than a fantasy creation. We were beginning to get into the era of the big, fat supergroups of the seventies and I thought, “I don’t want to go down with this Titanic”. In some ways it was quite a traditional concept album – it was a type of Pilgrim’s Progress [a reference to John Bunyan’s allegory of religious salvation, composed in a jail and published in 1678 – Ed] but with this street character in leather jacket and jeans. Rael would have been called a punk at that time without all the post-‘76 connotations. The Ramones hadn’t started then, although the New York Dolls had, but they were more glam-punk. The Lamb was looking towards West Side Story as a starting point.”Peter Garbriel (693)

“It was about a greasy Puerto Rican kid! For once we were writing about subject matter which was neither airy-fairy, nor romantic. We finally managed to get away from writing about unearthly things which I think helped the album.”Mike Rutherford (693)

“In the early 1800s, large groups of mainly unskilled labourers build England’s railways. The cosy in human life was very high…”Liner Notes (1344)