ARTIST: Peter Gabriel

CREATOR: Ezra Soiferman

SONG: Washing of the Water FROM Us

Video info:

What a song I had the pleasure of working with for this music photeo. "Washing of the Water" is now some 30+ years old and yet, somehow, it feels as fresh - and at least as powerful - as any of the best new songs I've heard in recent years. 

Music photeos (photeos rhymes with rodeos) are my own brand of photo-based short films that lie somewhere halfway between a music video and a souped-up slideshow. For this one, I decided to dive into the motif of water alluded to so poetically in Peter's song which had captivated me from my very first listen in my college dorm room in New York back in 1992.

When the opportunity arose to create a new video for Peter's 5050 project, my mind was instantly pulled to this song and I quickly began building a framework for the project, blending my images of wildlife out on the water, combined with some of my abstract shots of water and integrating my photos of Peter performing on stage in Montreal in September 2023.

I'd shot all these images - in places as diverse as Arizona, California, Hawaii, Long Island, Ontario, and various countryside spots in my native Quebec - without the faintest notion that one day they'd be brought together and used to accompany this song, but lo and behold, the alchemy this song summoned prevailed and I'm delighted with how things turned out.

As with "This is Home", my first music photeo featured on the 5050 platform, my hope is that this video brings a deeper appreciation for the seemingly infinite (but frequently threatened) species and habitats all around us. My goal with these videos remains to shine a grateful spotlight on all these creatures and to show their interactions with each other and the natural world around them.

My sincere appreciation to Peter, his Us band and the team that recorded this gorgeous song, and the team at 5050 and Real World Records for the opportunity to create this video. 

It's always a delight to shoot my images out on the streets and out in nature, but it's also always a true privilege to be able to set them to music as deep and inspiring as "Washing of the Water". 

-Ez

Song info:

Washing of the Water is a track taken from Peter Gabriel's album Us, released in September 1992.

Words and music by Peter Gabriel. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Peter Gabriel.

Published by Real World Music Ltd. / Sony Music Publishing.

“The groove reminded me a bit of Holiday Inn cabaret music, with a quite dated feel, but I went with it anyway. It works particularly well with the sequencing of the record, the way it leads into Digging In The Dirt.”

-pg