Der Song „twenty first Century Schizoid Man“ von King Crimson | EUROtoday

In nur wenigen Jahren hat die britische Popmusik in den Sechzigern riesige Schritte gemacht: Von den naiven Nachahmungen afroamerikanischer Rhythm-’n’-Blues-Musiker durch Beatles und Rolling Stones bis zu den elaborierten Werken der Zeit ab 1966 haben die Pioniere vor allem in London viele Stile ausprobiert, die immer noch Einfluss haben, ein Bühnengebaren entwickelt, das bis heute verstanden wird, und ikonische Aufnahmen produziert, die den Grundstein des Popkanons legten.

Kaum vorstellbar, dass eine Aufnahme wie „In The Court Of The Crimson King“ von King Crimson schon in den frühen Sechzigerjahren aufgenommen worden wäre. Harmonik, Stilistik, Phrasierung von Gesang und Soloinstrumenten – all das setzte mehrere Zwischenschritte voraus: Beatles-Experimente wie den Song „I Am The Walrus“, den elektronischen interstellaren Overdrive von Pink Floyd und Soft Machine, die Erweiterung der musikalischen und lyrischen Textpalette durch Procol Harum und die extravagante Einverleibung klassischer Musik durch The Nice etwa.

Das Album, das zurecht von vielen als die Geburtsstunde des Progressive Rock angesehen wird, hatte Vorläufer und zahllose Nachahmer. Es machte Zeitgenossen Mut, ihre Vision einer Kombination von virtuoser Schulmusik, epischer Gesangsgemälde und moderner Rockmusik weiterzuverfolgen: Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf Generator und bei stärkerer Akzentuierung von Folk-Bezügen auch Jethro Tull waren in ganz ähnlichem Fahrwasser unterwegs – unterstrichen durch phantasievolle Albumcover und extravagante Bühnenshows.

If “In the Court Of The Crimson King” was the place to begin, the primary track “21 Century Schizoid Man” was the beginning sign, so to talk, the very first thing you could possibly hear from this new scene on file. Measured towards what would come out of the prog rock years, the 7:22 minute piece begins leisurely with a brief sound collage, till after about half a minute a riff is available in, carried by a distorted saxophone and pushed by drum cascades typical of the model, which is among the most placing and distinctive of this period. Finally, Greg Lake, the later initiator of the prog band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, begins his acclamatory message with a beforehand not often heard distortion impact.

The textual content was written by Peter Sinfield, one of many band’s founding members, who joined the band Giles, Giles & Fripp with Ian McDonald in 1968, which they based the earlier 12 months. Sinfield was one of many many London abilities on the lookout for a spot within the rising rock scene, taking part in guitar and singing. But Lake’s room-filling voice was no match for him and he focused on an uncommon position that solely Keith Reed from Procol Harum had stuffed in an analogous approach earlier than him: He turned the band lyricist, contributing the lyrics to important songs that made their approach by way of distinguished by particular language expertise.

Unlike Peter Gabriel from Genesis or Jon Anderson from Yes, he by no means turned an interpreter of his personal phrases within the band till he left after the fourth file (“Islands”) – however throughout this time he was a style-defining artist by way of his generally delicate, generally expansive wordcraft . As a singer, after leaving King Crimson in 1973, he recorded the album “Still”, which confirmed his strengths as a songwriter with high-quality instrumentation from mates from the scene. As a singer, nonetheless, he could not sustain with the distinctive voices of Lake or the later short-term King Crimson frontman John Wetton. The file highlights how tough it’s to grasp the vocal richness that progressive rock requires.

Sinfield died on November 14th on the age of eighty. This leaves solely Michael Giles and Robert Fripp of the 5 founding members of the band. Their contribution to King Crimson’s long-standing success, which continues to today, could be very inconsistently distributed. Drummer Giles left the band after the primary album. Since then, guitarist Fripp has been the central star of a formation that has frequently searched for brand spanking new sound ideas through the years, from expansive early work performed near jazz rock to a symphonic part to instrumental music influenced by minimal music stuffed with meandering guitar strains to the legendary stay performances of the double trios two guitars, two basses and two drums every.

Lyrically, “21st Century Schizoid Man” references a major generational expertise. The acclamatory model mixed with the brutality of the placing riff has a really rapid impact on the recipient. “This has to be the hardest riff that has been captured on these black vinyl discs since Mahler’s Eighth Symphony,” a Rolling Stone article concerning the piece quotes an evaluation by Who songwriter Pete Townshend, who wrote for the file when it was launched USA was marketed. Afterwards, heavy steel musicians adopted this sample.

When the track was written, the horrors of the Vietnam War, which had been occurring for a number of years, had been changing into more and more public consciousness. Sinfield’s verses mirror this and assume that these occasions may have a long-term psychological affect into the approaching twenty first century. They led to a technology of schizoid males rising up. The copywriter broke down his concepts intimately to Hank Shteamer, the writer of the 2019 article. The lyrics had been supposed to mirror the conceitedness of the immodestly named band that was able to such different music.

Back then, he watched quite a lot of documentaries about Vietnam on tv and examine them. The well-known picture of a woman operating by way of hearth on a avenue caught with him. He needed to throw the phrases on the listeners. “If it were a movie, it would just be a series of frames,” he mentioned. “I wanted to scare and upset and frighten people and send them running out the door – or I wanted to relate them to other violent elements in their lives.”

The hearth of battle is related to the point out of cat’s ft within the first verse. It alludes to the expression cat’s paw from a French fable a few monkey and a cat. It was used to roast chestnuts. Sinfield didn’t touch upon the iron claws in the identical verse; they could possibly be an allusion to the weapons of battle. With the second verse, “Neurosurgeons scream for more,” the author alluded to the psychiatric results of battle experiences. That neurologists demanded extra of it’s a hyperbolic attribution.

In the dialog that preceded the article, Sinfield made it clear that some expressions within the track had been “pure phonetics,” i.e. used just for sonic impact – similar to the next verses, “At paranoia’s poison door.” paranoia) or “politician’s funeral pyre” (the shambles of politicians, an expression that had been heard in rock music for 2 years since “Light My Fire” by The Doors). The plosive impact of the sounds performed an vital position for them. “When they came out the other end, they were like a machine gun,” Sinfield advised the writer.

The reference to bloody cabinets was supposed to evoke the picture of a butcher’s store; the barbed wire is an emblem of navy battle. The track’s most express line is “innocents raped with napalm fire,” an indictment of warring U.S. navy leaders who raped innocents with lethal napalm.

The second verse is adopted by the primary lengthy instrumental passage, which is titled “Mirrors” on the album cowl and refers to jazz improvisations from the sixties. Ian McDonald’s saxophone stays the instrument main the melody till a guitar solo follows, which was uncommon for rock music on the time. A free jazz passage with hypnotic drums results in a collective improvisation paying homage to Frank Zappa’s Mother’s of Invention. A saxophone transition lastly marks the transition into the well-known riff from the start of the track.

The third verse is about dying seeds – in all probability an allusion to using chemical compounds like Agent Orange, the greed of a blind man, the hunger of a poet and bleeding kids. The schizoid man of the twenty first century says that he would not really want something he has, because the penultimate verse of the track says. This concept might have been influenced by a science fiction novel he was studying on the time, the lyricist recalled half a century after composing the track. He could not bear in mind how he got here up with the adjective “schizoid,” however he did keep in mind that he was on the lookout for one thing that expressed that we’re actually going loopy. “I had to say it and sound good, that was important,” he mentioned.

The lasting affect of the opener of their first file, which has repeatedly discovered new interpretations within the band’s stay repertoire, additionally has to do with the file cowl that opens and might subsequently be stretched to twice its dimension, depicting a screaming loopy man who may be seen up shut. Designer Barry Godber had listened to some early rehearsals and ultimately delivered a portray to the studio, which ultimately turned the quilt.

The track “21^st Century Schizoid Man” stands in distinction to the next “I Talk To The Wind” (“Said the straight man to the late man – where have you been”). This too is associative. He performs with the unclear location of a lyrical self that communicates with the wind. These two songs already present the vary of this band in its early part, by which an uncommon interaction of the abilities of world-class musicians like Fripp and Lake with Sinfield’s allusive lyrics created thrilling results. On their second file they copied this efficient album begin with an expressive opener adopted by an imaginative ballad. “Pictures Of A City” and “Cadence And Cascade” are sequels to those sensible compositions utilizing the identical means. Hardly much less thrilling.

After that, the band’s line-up modified fully apart from the one fixed Robert Fripp, who made a major contribution to basic rock songs within the late Nineteen Seventies by way of visitor appearances with David Bowie (“Heroes”) and Kate Bush (“Wuthering Heights”). In distinction, on numerous masterpieces similar to “Lark’s Tongues In Aspic” (with the title monitor being the one one within the band’s repertoire that comes near the facility of “21st Century Schizoid Man”), “Red” or “Discipline”, King Crimson all the time remained a band that targeted on the experiment. They are one of many few progressive rock bands from England that by no means had a radio hit – similar to Genesis with “Invisible Touch”, Asia with “Heat Of The Moment”, Emerson, Lake & Palmer with “Lucky Man” or Yes with “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”.

With his altering band ideas, Robert Fripp by no means reached the lots like his colleagues. But with King Crimson he left a legacy that opened up new sound paths for a lot of imitators similar to Mars Volta, Tool, Primus, Dream Theater, Voivod and Trans Am. And as a result of the band by no means tailored to the zeitgeist or viewers style, “21st Century Schizoid Man” was in a position to stay some of the distinctive songs of their catalog. It was later sampled by Kanye West in his 2010 track “Power.” The punk band Bad Religion paid homage to him with “21st Century (Digital Boy)”.

The track is a legacy, a press release that may solely be defined from its time, with prophetic options each lyrically and musically. The start line of an interesting music style that dominated a complete decade and provoked the punk and new wave waves with its expansive and unparticipatory intellectualism. But additionally introduced daring and virtuosic insanity into rock music.