Black Sheep Hit: "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" was this for the band in the U.K. at the time; it was their only charting single (it hit #21 on the UK Singles Chart) until "Follow You Follow Me" in 1978. It's arguably still one even by the band's standards, as it's unusually quirky compared to their later hits, and it's certainly still one in the context of the album, as only it and "More Fool Me" really qualify as pop songs (while several of the other songs are quite catchy, they're really too complex to qualify as pop music).
Creator Backlash: Although he is quite fond of the music of "Firth of Fifth", Banks has been highly disparaging of the lyrics, to which he contributed at least in part. Later in their career, the band only performed the instrumental parts of the song.
Creator's Favorite Episode: Although some of the band have been critical of the album, this remains Hackett's favourite Genesis album, an opinion many fans share.
Cut Song: Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett put together a track called "Déja Vu" during the album's recording sessions, but it ultimately went unfinished. Hackett would later put together a finalized version of the song for his 1996 album Genesis Revisited, which featured re-recorded songs from his time with the band.
The Seconds Out live performance of "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" is prominently featured in the India Special of Top Gear, where Jeremy Clarkson (a known fan of Genesis who wrote essays for some of their reissues) blares it to annoy Richard Hammond (who notoriously detests Genesis) as a Running Gag.
Peter Gabriel and Sting's 2016 Rock Paper Scissors tour featured the two musicians performing "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" as a form of commentary against Brexit; on some shows, Sting performed the song himself.
At 53 minutes and 50 seconds, the album had an unusually long running time by the standards of the era as a result of a compromise between the band members, and some of the band members thus consider the album to be a case of this trope as a result. Gabriel and Banks argued about the length of "The Cinema Show" and had little interest in Hackett's neoclassical instrumental "After the Ordeal". The band compromised by not excising anything, resulting in an unusually long B-side (almost twenty-nine minutes, resulting in some extra groove packing being needed to fit it on the disc thanks to it exceeding the standard 26-minute limit) and thus a lower volume and a higher noise floor on vinyl. However, this may not be noticeable to most casual listeners; the vinyl arguably still sounds a lot better than some of the remastered editions. Incidentally, this is also why the songs after "More Fool Me" sound so quiet on CD releases; neither Virgin Records nor Atlantic Records bothered to bump the volume back up to match side one.
The band also initially intended "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight", "The Cinema Show", and "Aisle of Plenty" to be a single song before splitting it up to avoid comparisons with "Supper's Ready". This explains the ending of "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight", which seems to build up tension for a release that never comes. (The release was to be the opening of "The Cinema Show".) The songs are arguably stronger if listened straight through; a possible solution is to place "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" between "After the Ordeal" and "The Cinema Show" in one's playlist, then place "Firth of Fifth" at the start, since it's the strongest alternate opening for the album.note However, it should be noted how similar in structure both albums would have been had they gone with this running order: both albums would open with lengthy Banks solos, and both albums' B-sides would be comprised of a neoclassical instrumental followed by a twenty-minute epic. Perhaps the band themselves considered this running order and rejected it for exactly this reason.
"The Battle of Epping Forest" was originally intended to be a straightforward recounting of the actual gang wars that took place in the titular forest, and Peter Gabriel scoured through library archives in an attempt to research the conflicts. However, he turned up empty-handed, leading him to create an original story loosely inspired by his recollection of the news story that inspired the song.
Working Title: "Disney" for the suite that ultimately got split up to bookend the album.
Miscellaneous Trivia:
The original US CD release of the album in 1987 is a popular novelty among both Genesis fans and CD collectors due to it being made by Sonopress, a West German plant that Warner Music Group didn't typically hire. Other US-oriented Genesis CDs before and during this time were typically made by PolyGram and PDO in West Germany and JVC in Japannote plus a couple additional one-off discs by Japanese plants Sanyo and Daio Kosan, who made CDs for various other Warner artists. Since Sonopress was actually one of Virgin Records' go-to plants for the European market, they simply took a preexisting CD edition of Selling England by the Pound that they made and changed the disc label for Atlantic Records (who in turn printed the paper inserts). The Sonopress US CD was quickly replaced later in 1987 with discs made by Warner's in-house plant, Specialty Records Corporation, which had just become equipped to manufacture CDs for widespread commercial distribution (though the mastering on these pressings is identical to that of the Sonopress pressing minus volume adjustments).
