Carpet Crawlers

The tempo is unhurried, almost somnambulant, and that is precisely the point. The figures in this song move on hands and knees toward a staircase they cannot identify and cannot resist, and the music traps you in the same compulsion. Tony Banks's keyboards establish a hypnotic, circular pattern that does not resolve so much as repeat with accumulating weight, and the rhythm never rushes — the crawling is the pace. Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins share the vocal, and the doubling gives it an uncanny quality, as though consciousness itself has split and is observing the body from a slight remove. The harmonies are gentle and almost pretty, which makes the underlying strangeness more effective than if it had been played for obvious dread. From "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," this is one of the most emotionally accessible moments in that complex, difficult album — a still point in the surreal storm of Rael's New York odyssey. The lyrics speak of inevitability and yearning without explaining their own meaning, which is the correct choice. You do not need to decode it to feel it. Late nights, when you are tired but not sleepy, when something unnameable is pulling you forward — that is when this song finds you, and it already knows your name.