Peter Gabriel, photo by Nadav Kander

The celestial rollout for Peter Gabriel’s o/i continues today with “A Hard Lesson,” the sixth single from his 11th studio album. Like 2023’s i/o, which brought Gabriel back to the studio for his first new release in 21 years, the icon’s new project has been slowly unfolding with the lunar calendar since January, with “Dark-Side” and “Bright-Side” mixes by Tchad Blake and Mark ‘Spike’ Stent landing on the full moon and new moon of each month. Gabriel says the latest preview, after “Been Undone,” “Put the Bucket Down” and “What Lies Ahead,” “Till Your Mind Is Shining” and “Won’t Stand Down,” is the oldest song on the project.

With the Blue Moon last night, Gabriel shared the Bright-Side Mix of “A Hard Lesson.” Though it’s co-produced by pop and rock hitmaker Mile Elizondo, it’s still of a kind with the tracks that preceded it, and the singular brand of progressive art-pop Gabriel has stoked over six decades, tilting his malleable balance of moody atmosphere and infectious melodies slightly towards the latter. A shuttering rhythmic cadence takes great bounds forward with bright bolts of guitar and arresting bass drums at the hook, and his intricate, off-kilter layering blurs into a propulsive groove over six minutes. Like the prior singles, the latest comes coupled with a thorough and reflective artist’s statement:

“This is the oldest track of the project. It probably started in the late 80s or early 90s when I was in Senegal. I was falling in love with the music I heard there. I loved the tension created by the use of polyrhythms, particularly the threes and fours, so that was the start of this song.

It’s a quirky, strange and long track but it’s a journey. It’s about trying to find a place, your place, how you fit in. I’ve enjoyed playing with old R&B and folk references as well.

It’s one of those songs that has been in the ‘almost’ category on a couple of earlier projects but it’s had to wait 30 or 40 years before actually hitting the surface. Sometimes things take time – most people do stuff a lot faster – but I have no problem with understanding my own process. Some things will mature and evolve spontaneously and some will just stay hidden-away in a box until their moment in the light appears.

This has had such a long history and I think the number of people who’ve contributed to this at one time or another probably outnumbers all the contributors for the rest of the album. I’ve enjoyed so many of the things that people have thrown at it over the years that it’s been ‘assembled’ if you like, a bit like a jigsaw. 

Tony Berg, who was my A&R in the 90s, added some guitar on it and David Rhodes has added a lot of things on this over the years. Richard Evans also had a go doing a more industrial version and there are little elements of that that remain too. I tried a harpsichord sample on the synth which created the folky character of the chorus and then asked Richard to augment that with some organic, natural instruments, like mandolin, which I think gives it a much better flavour on the middle section and the choruses. Mike Elizondo co-produced this version and had a big input on this track – he also added his fat bass, and Abe Rounds, with whom he collaborates, added some lovely fluid rhythms.”

“A Hard Lesson” is paired with a series of stills from a film by Mexico City-based artist Francis Alÿs. Cuentos Patrióticos was created in 1997 and deals with a 1968 event where civil servants protested government orders to disrupt a student demonstration by making sheep noises. Gabriel says the film has the same “quirky and strange” character as the track. “There was no rational argument as to why I was drawn to it,” he shared, “but it did seem to be talking about place, so I felt it really worked for the song.”

Listen to “A Hard Lesson (Bright-Side Mix)” and watch Gabriel’s explanation of the track below.