Hear Peter Gabriel’s New Single, ‘What Lies Ahead’

Peter Gabriel has released a new song titled “What Lies Ahead,” the third single off his upcoming album o/i.

You can listen to the song below.

As with the album’s previous singles “Been Undone” and “Put Down the Bucket,” “What Lies Ahead” arrives during the full moon. Gabriel will continue this release strategy until the end of the year, by which point he will have revealed the entire album. Each song will come in “Dark-Side” and “Bright-Side” mixes, with the second mixes arriving during each month’s new moon.

READ MORE: Top 10 Peter Gabriel Songs

‘What Lies Ahead’ Has Been in Development for More Than a Decade

In a message to fans, Gabriel detailed the evolution of “What Lies Ahead,” which he first played live in 2014 and later in 2023.

“On the Back to Front tour [in 2014], along with ‘Playing for Time,’ it was one of the songs that was played without words, as a work in progress,” he wrote. “The song actually began with a melody that my son Isaac was playing with and I thought, oh, that’s really nice – I could build that into something.”

Gabriel continued: “It’s a song about inventors and invention. My dad was an electrical engineer, inventor and I saw him go through the frustrations of not only trying to realize an idea, which has to normally go through so many iterations, but then to sell it, both to the people who’ve got the money and then to the outside world. So, I’ve always been curious about the creative process and how that applies to inventors.”

Peter Gabriel, ‘What Lies Ahead’ Cover Art

Each song on o/i will also be accompanied by a unique piece of art. The cover art for “What Lies Ahead” comes from American feminist artist Judy Chicago’s 1982 work “Birth Tear / Tear.”

“‘Birth Tear / Tear’ shows the pain of birth and, clearly, no man will ever have an understanding of what that really is, but giving birth to an idea has many (less painful) parallels,” Gabriel wrote. “I’m delighted that she was happy to let us use it.”

Gabriel also tied Chicago’s work back to his overarching trepidation regarding the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. “There’s a wonderful quote where she said that ‘truth can be found in the ignored, the forgotten, and the left out,’ and it reminds me a little bit of a Gaetano Pesce quote, ‘that beauty in the future will lie in the imperfection,’ particularly in this robotic AI world in which we are now entering,” he wrote.

“It seems our society is backing away from open-minded thinking,” he continued. “The creative arts and universities too, have been preserves for exploring ideas and debate and I hate the moves toward shutting all that down.”

Hear Peter Gabriel Perform ‘What Lies Ahead’

See how we’ve ranked every Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins album below: