Misunderstanding

Album

Duke

Label

Atlantic Records

Genre

AOR (Album-oriented rock)

Duration

4:00

Composer(s)

Phil Collins

Entered Chart

May 24, 1980

Peak Date

Aug 16, 1980

Released

May 1980 (US) 29 August 1980 (UK)[

Recorded

June 15, 1979

Catalog #

Atlantic 3662

B-Side

Behind The Lines

This was one of the first songs Phil Collins wrote on his own. He was going through a very difficult time - his first wife Andrea had left him and taken their two children with her. Phil found himself alone in the house he once shared with them, and began writing songs - sad ones. "Misunderstanding" finds Collins getting stood up and failing to understand that the girl wants nothing to do with him. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he keeps blaming her evasiveness on "some misunderstanding." In a way, Collins is looking at himself as a witness observer - his story about a man who is delusional in love reflects his hopeless attempts to put his marriage back together (they divorced in 1980). At the time, Collins had much deeper concerns than being left out in the rain, and those concerns are laid bare on the song "Please Don't Ask," which is one of his most personal tales. "Misunderstanding" has a lot more distance, and also a lot more hit potential. Both songs were used on the Genesis album Duke; Collins poured out more of his heart on his first solo album, Face Value, which was released the following year. This was the second Top 40 US hit for Genesis, following "Follow You, Follow Me." The band began divesting themselves of their progressive rock roots in 1978 with the release of their album And Then There Were Three. They continued moving toward more compact pop songs with "Misunderstanding," which runs just 3:08. To write songs for the Duke album, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks moved into Collins' house in Surrey, England for six weeks. Collins hadn't done much writing at that point, but Rutherford and Banks were very impressed when he played them this song. Five of the other songs for the album were group efforts written during these sessions when the band would jam together. Banks recalled to Cleveland's 98.5 WNCX: "'Misunderstanding' was the first song we recorded that Phil wrote. Phil didn't used to write all that much of Genesis' material in the early days, up to and including Duke, really. He just didn't rate himself as a writer that much, I don't think, and he'd never really tried it before. But after his problems with his marriage in that year, he started to write songs. And he played us a load of the songs he'd written and we picked out of them two songs. One of them was 'Misunderstanding.'" Genesis recorded this at Abba's studio in Sweden. During a concert at Chicago's United Center on November 15, 2021, Genesis played this song live for the first time in 37 years. The band hadn't performed "Misunderstanding" in full since their 1984 Mama tour (They incorporated part of it into a live medley during their 1988 gigs).

There must be some misunderstanding
There must be some kind of mistake
I waited in the rain for hours
You were late

Now it's not like me to say the right thing
But you could've called to let me know
I checked your number twice, don't understand it
So I went home

Well I'd been waiting for this weekend
I thought that maybe we could see a show
Never dreamed I'd have this feeling
But seeing you is believing
That's why I don't know why
You didn't show up that night

There must be some misunderstanding
There must be some kind of mistake
I was waiting in the rain for hours
You were late

Since then I've been running around trying to find you
I went to the places you always go
I rang your home but got no answer
Jumped in my car, I went round there
I still don't believe it
He was just leaving

There must be some misunderstanding
There must be some kind of mistake.