In the Court of the Crimson King

One of my musical weaknesses is so-called "progressive rock," which is typified by Pink Floyd, early Genesis, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (I draw the line at Yes). The forerunner of this kind of music was King Crimson, and their debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, which was released forty years ago this October, was seen as the first of its kind. I picked up the CD this week and have been listening to it in the car continuously.

In retrospect, there are a lot of aspects to this record that have come to be the elements of parody of the genre. For one thing, the album is called "An Observation by King Crimson." There are only five tracks on the record, and they have titles that bear more than a whiff of pretension, along with subtitles: "Epitaph, including March For No Reason and Tomorrow and Tomorrow." The lyrics are the stuff of renaissance fairs, with kings and queens and echoes of Tolkien. It's hard to believe anybody ever took this stuff seriously.

But it's still a great record. It kicks off with "21st Century Schizoid Man," a hard-rocking fusion number. But that's the last song of that type. The second track is "I Talk to the Wind," which recalls the English folk-rock movement, typified by Fairport Convention (indeed, one of King Crimson's members, Ian McDonald, was in Fairport Convention). Then comes the aforementioned "Epitaph," which has some terrific vocals by Greg Lake (who would go on to be a founding member of ELP). If there are cogent lyrics on the album, they are found here: "Confusion will be my epitaph/As I crawl a cracked and broken path/If we make it we can all sit back and laugh/But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying."

Then comes "Moonchild," which is a pleasant enough song in the new-age category, until it goes on for about ten minutes with some experimental noodling with electronic instruments. This is one of those classic "skip ahead" moments in music history (kind of like "Revolution #9" on the Beatles' White Album).

The album closes with King Crimson's most famous and enduring song, "The Court of the Crimson King," which still gets air-play on classic rock stations. It's almost impossible not to groove to, with its pomp and majesty, mellotron (one of the first uses of that instrument on a rock record), Lake's ethereal vocals, and Micheal Giles' powerful drumming. The lyrics are the kind that might mean something after some cannabis. The name King Crimson is supposedly a euphemism for Satan, and so being in his court would mean Hell. The song doesn't sound Satanic, though, but maybe that's the point: "The black queen chants the funeral march/The cracked brass bells will ring/To summon back the fire witch/To the court of the crimson king." I'll bet that blew the minds of many a teen in '69. It still kinds of blows my mind today.