Song of the Day 6/2: Phil Collins, “I Missed Again”

You probably heard about the Enhanced Games, an Olympics-style athletic competition that allowed participants to use whatever performance-enhancing drugs they cared to. Organizers promised that doped-up athletes would shatter world records. Spoiler alert: They didn’t.

After months of hype, billionaire backing and promises that performance-enhancing drugs would redraw the limits of human ability, the event produced only one disputed world-record claim. Three athletes who said they competed clean won their events. A famous strongman failed to beat his own deadlift record. …

The truth is that Enhanced was never about sports. It’s more like a sleezy telehealth and supplement marketing ploy that aims to sell testosterone, peptides and other “enhancements” to consumers. The company’s own filings suggest the competition is less the core product than the marketing engine. It’s a way to create viral content, promote enhanced athletes and turn their performances into proof that its drugs and supplements work.

The anecdote that best captures the event: Canadian weightlifter Boady Santavy was granted an extra attempt after falling short of a snatch record. He still missed.

Phil Collins wrote this song from his debut solo album after his first wife, his childhood sweetheart, left him. While that makes the “again” in the title seem premature, it wasn’t wrong. Collins eventually went through two more divorces, none of them amicable. The lead single from “Face Value” made it to No. 19 in 1981.