“The Man With the B Side” – TWR takes an affectionate look at those also ran tracks which never quite made the grade for an album...

Another part of the fascination of collecting work by a band or musician is the B side, you know those, curious tracks that for one reason or another were never quite ready to be part of an album. They are also the incentive (one of several) for collectors to look out for them and collectors of Phil's material have been lucky to have quite a selection to choose from.

Phil has always used his demos as the basis for his songs and we very early on got to hear several of those as they formed the b sides of what was effectively the If Leaving Me Is Easy EP, the song was the third single to be released from Phil's debut album; Face Value. Comprising the bare bones demos of In The Air Tonight, I Missed Again and If Leaving Me Is easy, it is amazing how far a song can develop from a basic piano and vocal track and it also shows how faithful Phil was to the spirit of the original demos in the final result. Phil gave us more “demo” as part of the Take A Look At Me Now series of reissues and on Face Value we were treated to The Roof Is Leaking, once again pretty much as it ended up on the album. This Must Be Love, also didn't change that much apart from the use of full keyboard and guitar to flesh out what was already a classic song in the making. The inclusion of the demos of two of Phil's contributions to Duke – Please Don't Ask and Misunderstanding are fascinating as they are radically different to the versions that ended up on that album. Makes you wonder what Genesis would have made of In The Air Tonight eh? Some marvellous meaty basslines from Alphonso Johnson give this one a totally different feel to how it ended up on Duke. Misunderstanding reduced to snare drum and piano is another fascinating listen especially as here Phil really hasn't worked out any vocal lines and resorts to his version of “Gabrielese” to fill in the gaps. Makes you wonder what Genesis saw in this on from such a basic starting point.

The last offering on the revised Face Value is the demo of Against All Odds, a bit of an oddity given that it wasn't eventually released for a further four years. The song is reduced to piano and it is here that we can see that although Phil doesn't shout about his keyboard playing skills, he can nonetheless produce an effective and harmonious result. It is weird hearing it without lyrics though!

Eighteen months later and Phil was back gain with Hello, I Must Be Going and despite the trio of singles from the album only one B side was to appear and this only on the 12inch single and the 3inch CD single released a few years later. Titled Oddball, you would think that with a title like that it was a demo for Thru These Walls. Oh no, this one was the B side to I Don't Care Anymore, a wonderfully dark and murky synth drone and drum machine percussion along with Phil's bluesing along lyrics, its remarkably effective as a demo, never mind the dynamic finished version.

Once again, the Take A Look At Me Now project gave us one more previously unreleased demo of Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away. Again, reduced to piano and Phil's improvised vocals it demonstrates that the evolution of a song can begin from one simple phrase and emerge as something amazingly different and beautiful.

Phil's next album, No Jacket Required generated several non-album B sides and as the new-fangled CD format was now becoming increasingly important the album also had an extra track on its CD variant but more of that in a moment. The debut single, Sussudio stormed the charts both at home and abroad and it was accompanied by a nifty little jazzy number; The Man With The Horn which certainly would not have been out of place on the album itself. I Like The Way was to be a B side in several foreign territories as well as being the B side to One More Night here in the UK. An innocent enough song but unremarkable. The same can be said really for the CD extra: We Said Hello, Goodbye which also graced the B sides of singles across the world. On the Take A Look At Me Now package of the album the only demo was that for Take Me Home which once again showed just how far a song can change between initial idea and final brilliant realisation.

But Seriously was the album which seriously catapulted Phil's solo career into the stratosphere and generated numerous singles and their concomitant B sides although the debut single; Another Day In Paradise contained album material its sequel, I Wish it Would Rain Down contained a brilliant track which deserved to be on the album; You've Been In Love (That Little Bit Too Long) which is a really nifty tune. In addition to this, there was another slice of demo with Homeless which was, of course, the working title for Another Day In Paradise and once again, it is fascinating to hear how far a basic idea can go before ending up as a finished song.

That was in turn followed by the irrepressible Something Happened On The Way To Heaven and it was on this single that the format which was to increasingly become the bane of my life made its first appearance on a Phil record – the remix. I have never understood exactly why these monstrosities are created, all they serve to do is ruin what's an enjoyable song. Anyway, rant over, here we have the “One World” remix, an irritatingly tedious percussion pattern and bass line which does absolutely nothing for the song at all. Thankfully we also get another slice of demo with the original version of I wish It Would Rain Down which gives us another behind the scenes glimpse at the creative process.

This was followed by That's Just The It Is which gave us a rather mediocre pairing of Broadway Chorus which, of course is the demo to Something Happened On The Way To Heaven and an extended version of In The Air Tonight. Neither of which are particularly exciting but essential to collectors. Hang In Long Enough was where things got interesting. The two CD set contained two remixes – the “Pettibone Dub Mix” and the “Pettibone 12” Mix” neither of which do anything for me personally but if they float your boat... That's How I Feel however is another classic slice of upbeat Collins featuring some excellent guitar work from Daryl and the horn section are as sassy as always. The other disc also contained the strangely titled Around The World In 80 Presets. A delightful instrumental romp very much in the same mould as Take Me Home and I love it.

Even the live album released after Phil's mammoth world tour of 1990 got in on the act with a two part CD single containing live tracks from the show. Of especial interest is the Carousel shaped box single – collectable in itself but even more so for the rare performance of The Roof Is Leaking which was recorded at the show in Chapel Hills NC and goes to show once again just what a great song it is.

Then we get to 1993 and the release of Both Sides, the most personal album from Phil since Face Value and the singles released from it contain a great mix of unreleased material, live cuts and demos starting with the title track single which is powerful enough on its own but once again spread over the two CD singles which were now replacing the vinyl format we have the album cut, its demo version which once again is a fascinating glimpse of the creative process. We also get a live rendering of the Irving Berlin classic, Always, which Phil and the band sometimes closed their shows with on the 1990 tour. It is a respectful reading of a bona fide masterpiece. And then there is Rad Dudeski... A pre Big Band big band work out and one of the highlights of the subsequent Big Band shows, snappy and sassy and totally wonderful.

Next up we have Everyday which once again was released as a two part CD single the first part not only sporting unreleased tracks but came with an “Exclusive '94 Calendar” as the sticker on the single loudly proclaims. On this disc we have Don't Call Me Ashley which although not labelled as such is almost certainly a demo for an as yet unreleased song. Simple, understated percussion, keyboards and bass make it interesting but not exciting. As usual, we get a demo too in this case the demo of Everyday as well as another live cut in the shape of Doesn't Anybody Stay Together Anymore which is omitted from the second disc.

The final single from the album, once again spread over two discs gives us several collectable items beginning with the first disc which contains the plaintive Take Me With You one of the most underrated songs in Phil's catalogue. Once again we get a demo as well, this time it is Stevie's Blues the working title for There's A Place For Us. A rarity as it is the instrumental track, melancholy and bluesy. The other half of the single has another unreleased song on it, For A Friend another underrated effort, Phil always manages to convey raw emotions and this one is no exception. We also have Phil's demo for the David Crosby song, Hero which appeared on his third solo album Thousand Roads which Phil co- produced.

Dance Into The Light was something of a disappointment singles wise. Very little in the way of unreleased studio material appeared on any of the three singles from the album apart from the demo of It's Over which is pretty standard fare. The remixes of Wear My hat are, if I am brutally honest, absolutely awful and should never have been released. It wasn't until we got to It's In Your Eyes that we got a track worthy of listening to: I Don't Want To Go, which musically to me has a few echoes of Both sides, mainly in the introductory rhythm but the song itself is upbeat and very catchy – it should have made the album in my opinion.

Although not a single, 1997 also saw a highly collectable item with several cuts on it which remain unavailable elsewhere. The 1997 tour was promoted by Toyota and as part of the promotion they released the You Ought To Know... EP which contained six tracks, four of which were not available anywhere else and remain so to this day. Of these, the first I Don't Want To Go reminds me of The Beatles at their most celebratory, a declaration of independence featuring some fine guitar work from Daryl.

Another Time is another song which deserved a better fate than being on a relatively rare EP, it would not be out place on the Dance Into The Light album and is well worth checking out if you can find it. It's Over is a truly beautiful piano driven ballad the likes of which Phil doesn't write these days – marvellous. The last of the unreleased tracks, It's Everywhere picks up the pace with a jazzy rhythm section and is everything that Wear My Hat isn't! Joyful, heartfelt and an instant toe-tapper. With the exception of the singles released from the Love Songs album, and the two Disney Soundtracks, none of which generated any unreleased material, we finally come to Testify, an album which both the critics and fans seem to dislike quite intensely. In the UK two singles were released, the first of these was the cover of the Leo Sayer classic Can't Stop Loving You, a one track single. The second single; The Least You Can Do was coupled with Wake Up Call and the unreleased Hey, Now Sunshine, simple bright and one of the better songs from the Testify sessions.

And that's it, like any artist Phil has produced some truly remarkable material which would have graced anyone else's albums. That's the problem when you create so much quality music not everything can be found a home so I hope you enjoyed this look at Phil's musical waifs and strays.