Genesis released the single “Land Of Confusion” in the United Kingdom on November 10, 1986. Taken from Invisible Touch, their thirteenth studio album, it paired a warning about the state of the world with a video that turned the band and world leaders into rubber puppets. The Spitting Image treatment gave the song a very specific setting: a nightmare inside Ronald Reagan’s head.
The music came from the collaboration between Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford. In a January 1987 interview with Musician, Collins described starting the album without prepared songs. Rutherford explained that their separate projects made the opportunity to write together especially important to Genesis. A drum machine kept time while Collins sang and Banks and Rutherford played, allowing ideas to develop through improvisation. They recorded those early frameworks quickly, then replaced or refined parts while keeping the energy of the initial performance.
That approach gave Collins’ voice a role before the lyrics were finished. Explaining the band’s writing method to Innerviews in 2007, Rutherford said a vocal melody could make a simple chord sequence worth keeping. Without the voice, they might keep adding changes; with it, they could leave room. The musicians listened back to their improvisations together, looking for passages all three wanted to develop. Rutherford could then build a lyric around a phrase, a sound or even the vowels Collins had sung.
“We tend to do the music as a group and the lyrics individually,” Banks told Musician. Rutherford wrote the words for “Land Of Confusion,” and its subject changed as he worked. Banks recalled that the initial idea resembled a Mad Max scenario. As the words developed, Rutherford began connecting that imagined disorder to the world around them.
Directors John Lloyd and Jim Yukich gave those concerns a grotesque comic form. Their video followed a dreaming Reagan through a parade of political and celebrity caricatures, with puppet versions of Genesis performing along the way. It ended with Reagan reaching for a bedside button marked “Nurse” and hitting “Nuke” instead. The disaster came from a small, absurd mistake by the person with the power to cause it.
The musicians received their own unflattering treatment. In a 2014 Prog feature introducing Rutherford’s memoir, Ian Winwood recounted a practical shortcut behind the guitarist’s appearance: the Spitting Image team hadn’t made a Rutherford puppet, so the production used its Jesus puppet with a guitar over its shoulder.
The puppets also carried through to the single’s packaging. Music Week’s release coverage described artwork parodying Beatles sleeves and a CD edition housed in a miniature gatefold package without a plastic case. Virgin priced the CD alongside a 12-inch single, offering more than 24 minutes of music, including “Feeding The Fire” and “Do The Neurotic.” The release gave album owners material beyond the track they already had on Invisible Touch.
“Land Of Confusion” reached No. 14 on the UK singles chart. In 1988, the video won the Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video.
