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Of all pop songs for which elaborate, apocryphal backstories have been created to explicate the lyrics, Phil Collins' 1981 hit, In the Air Tonight (from his Face Value album), has perhaps the most varied and fantastic set of legends associated with it. Encompassing adultery, rape, murder, drowning, and the dramatic exposure of a reprehensible wrongdoer (resulting in an arrest or suicide), the narratives all include despicable acts either witnessed by Phil Collins or visited upon him and his family (or friends), inspiring the musician to exact a form of revenge by encapsulating the experience in the lyrics of a song: The non-specificity of the song's lyrics allowed for a variety of interpretations, with lines such as Well, if you told me you were drowning I would not lend a hand and I've seen your face before my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am, and Well, I was there and I saw what you did; I saw it with my own two eyes lending themselves to the construction of some particularly sinister scenarios: Lighting effects used when Collins performed the song on subsequent tours may have fed versions of the legend that end with the perpetrator being identified and singled out via spotlight: As Phil Collins has explained numerous times over the years, In the Air Tonight (as well as most of the Face Value album) deals with his bitterness and frustration over the end of his marriage to his first wife, and the lyrics do not reference any specific real-life event. Variations: The various forms of legend about the origins of Phil Collins' song In the Air Tonight encompass many differences in detail: Sightings: Hip-hop artist Eminem referenced the legend on The Marshall Mathers LP's song Stan in 2000: A Genius annotation surmised the titular Stan jumps to the conclusion that this myth is true, since he isn’t very rational right now.
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