The lyrics, written by Mike Rutherford, deal with a man who does nothing more than watch his television, so much that he becomes obsessed with the people he watches on it, believing them to be his friends.

The song is also characterised by a rhythmic structure uncharacteristically complex for pop music but commonplace in the band's progressive rock back catalogue, with verse/chorus sections in alternating time signatures, 6
4 to 7
4 (13
4), while the intro and bridge sections are in 4
4 and 5
4 (9
4). The song was originally much slower, written mostly by Mike Rutherford, with help from Phil Collins. He explains in the Songbook DVD "I had this riff, [plays lead riff on guitar] but at the time I was playing it like this, [plays slower] and Phil said 'why don't you try it in a faster speed?' and then he said to me 'do you realize it is in 13
8?' and I said 'What do you mean it's in 13? It's in 4
4 isn't it?' 'No, it's 13'". Collins confirms "You can't dance to it. You see people trying to dance to it every now and again, they get on the off beat but they don't know why".

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Wikipedia