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Games Without Frontiers (song)

"Games Without Frontiers"
Games Without Frontiers.jpg
Single by Peter Gabriel
from the album Peter Gabriel
B-side "Start/I Don't Remember" (UK), "Lead A Normal Life" (USA)
Released 9 February 1980
Format 7"
Recorded 1979
Length 4:05 (album version)
3:47 (single edit version)
Label Charisma
Writer(s) Peter Gabriel
Producer(s) Steve Lillywhite
Peter Gabriel singles chronology
"D.I.Y."
(1978)
"Games Without Frontiers"
(1980)
" No Self Control"
(1980)

"Games Without Frontiers" is a song written and recorded by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released on his 1980 self-titled solo album and features Kate Bush on backing vocals. The song's lyrics are interpreted as a commentary on war and international diplomacy being like children's games.

The single became Gabriel's first top-10 hit in the United Kingdom, peaking at No. 4, and – tied with 1986's "Sledgehammer" – his highest-charting song in the United Kingdom. It peaked at No. 7 in Canada, but only No. 48 in the United States. The B-side to the single was two tracks combined into one: "Start" and "I Don't Remember".

The song's title refers to Jeux Sans Frontières, a long-running TV show broadcast in several European countries, in which teams of residents representing a town or city in one of the participating countries would compete in games of skill while frequently dressed in bizarre costumes. While some games were simple races, others allowed one team to obstruct another. The British version was titled It's a Knockout, which Gabriel references in the lyrics.

The song was Gabriel's first UK Top 10 as a solo artist. Gabriel's first two solo albums were distributed in the US by Atlantic Records, but they rejected his third album (which contained this track), telling Gabriel he was committing "commercial suicide". Atlantic dropped him but tried to buy the album back when "Games Without Frontiers" took off in the UK and started getting airplay in the US. At this point, Gabriel wanted nothing to do with Atlantic and let Mercury Records distribute the album in America.

The track features Kate Bush on backing vocals. The whistling is performed by Gabriel, along with producers Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham.

The video includes film clips of Olympic events and scenes from the 1951 educational film Duck and Cover, which used a cartoon turtle to instruct US school children on what to do in case of nuclear attack. Such forlorn imagery tends to reinforce the song's antiwar theme.


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