Credit: Far Out / Warner Music
Whether it be in their early prog rock format or their later art pop years, Surrey outfit Genesis aren’t widely deemed an offensive outfit.
Lyrically and musically, although their work is vanilla, the group that made stars of Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel also have a glaring blot on their oeuvre.
It might seem impossible, but in their post-Gabriel phase of the 1980s, when led by Collins – who had recently moonlighted as a solo act – the group conceived a song regarded as one of the worst of the era and one of the most offensive too.
The track in question is ‘Illegal Alien’, released as a single in January 1984, taken from the previous year’s Genesis. Written by band members Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford and produced by the trio alongside Hugh Padgham, to describe it as a misfire would be an understatement. Intended as a joke, it does not come across in such a way.
Part of what made the backlash so severe was how out of step the song felt with Genesis’ usual image. Even when the band leaned heavily into pop throughout the 1980s, their music generally avoided overt controversy, favouring polished songwriting and broad emotional themes over anything deliberately provocative.
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‘Illegal Alien’ stood out precisely because it felt so careless coming from a group that rarely ventured into satire in the first place.
It also arrived during a period when Collins and Genesis were virtually unavoidable on mainstream radio and television. Between the band’s commercial dominance and Collins’ booming solo career, the track received far more exposure than a lesser-known act might have attracted, which only intensified criticism of its stereotypes and tone-deaf humour.
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While some listeners defended it as misguided rather than malicious, the song remains one of the clearest examples of how attempts at comedy in pop music can age disastrously when they rely on caricature rather than genuine insight.
Notoriously, the lyrics were inspired by Genesis’ troubles to re-enter the US while on tour, telling a satirical story of an illegal immigrant attempting to enter the country. The lyrics, which were meant as lighthearted, serve as a crass diminishing of the issues facing those trying to enter America to escape a myriad of issues.
Displaying the childish humour underpinning ‘Illegal Alien’, at the opening, Collins sings in an almost laughable Latin American accent. “Got out of bed, wasn’t feeling too good/ With my wallet and my passport, a new pair of shoes/ The sun is shining so I head for the park/ With a bottle of Tequila, and a new pack of cigarettes”. Brimming with racial stereotypes, it’s easy to understand why ‘Illegal Alien’ was decried upon release and still is today.
Adding another reason to slam the song, the music video depicts Genesis as a group of Mexican men in ponchos and sombreros, leaving a particularly sour taste in the mouth. Although the song is 40 years old, there’s no escaping how misjudged it was. In light of former President Donald Trump’s incendiary comments about Mexican immigrants on the election trail, it is made all the more unsavoury.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said in 2015. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Despite lines such as that of the hooky chorus “It’s not fun being an illegal alien” and “Consideration for your fellow man/ Wouldn’t hurt anybody, sure fits in with my plan/ Over the border, there lies the promised land”, Genesis failed in their intentions. Pandering to skewed and, quite frankly, racist stereotypes is not the way.
Other points of contention within ‘Illegal Alien’ include the mariachi music-inspired bridge and the second stanza of the segment, in which the narrator offers sexual favours from his sister in exchange for passage over the border. The latter was eventually edited out of the song’s radio and music video version, with it the most heavily criticised aspect. In a wholly twisted line, Collins sang: “But I’ve got a sister who’d be willing to oblige/ She will do anything now to help me get to the outside”.
While the Genesis track rightly deserves many criticisms, it has recently experienced something of a reclamation. On one episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Questlove’s band The Roots played ‘Illegal Alien’ as American political commentator Lou Dobbs walked out, referencing his inflammatory remarks on immigration.
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