[5] Mike Rutherford began writing songs for the album in September 1987, shortly after the conclusion of Genesis's Invisible Touch Tour.

However, he found himself immediately stricken with writer's block, a circumstance he attributes to stress over the complications with his wife's pregnancy, which endangered their child's life.

In January he entered an extremely prolific songwriting period, and by the end of the month he had what he and producer/co-writer Christopher Neil felt was a good album's worth of material.

However, things changed dramatically with the next single off the album, "The Living Years", which was a worldwide hit, reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week ending 25 March 1989 and number two in the United Kingdom, held off the top for three weeks over January and February 1989 by Marc Almond and Gene Pitney's reworking of "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart.".

[citation needed] Paul Carrack, who would sing lead on the recording, had himself lost his father when he was only eleven years old,[7] and he continues to feature the song regularly in his solo performances.