King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King ('69)

Every single track on this album is a keeper. This is one of those rare albums where I won't dare to skip a track, nor do I get the urge to do so. An album with brilliant words sung to beautifully composed melodies that elicit serenity. My words don't do justice and only underestimate the sheer lyrical, musical, and artistic aesthetic of this album. I should also add that the cover of the album was painted by a man named Barry Godber who died after the album release. That was the only painting he ever did:
"...The face on the outside is the Schizoid Man, and on the inside it's the Crimson King. If you cover the smiling face, the eyes reveal an incredible sadness. What can one add? It reflects the music."
-Robert Fripp

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1. 21st Century Schizoid Man
Cat's foot, iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more,
At paranoia's poison door
Twenty-first century schizoid man

--
Blood rack, barbed wire,
Politicians funeral pyre,
Innocents raped with napalm fire,
Twenty-first century schizoid man

-
Death seed, blind man's greed,
Poet's starving, children bleed,
Nothing he's got he really needs,
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Regardless of your volume settings, this song still retains that noise which is loud, discordant, and predominately filled with screeching saxophones all madly being played as if momentarily keeping pace with the racing heart beat of a paranoid man.

--

There's a broad message behind the song which covers different aspects of society that have driven (or will drive, according to the year the song was written) man to an oblivious state of insanity. I'm not too sure about the specifics (cat's foot, blood rack, etc.) but the 21st century schizoid man is the product of a society (notably, Western) that plunders beauty from its belonging, dissociate's man from his nature, and provokes an incessant consumation of items absolutely unessential to the survival of man. This is just my partial interpretation, perhaps far from Sinfield's underlying message. It could also be that this so titled schizoid is not the average citizen but the "fools who have the fate of all mankind" in control. Nonetheless, the less specific the song, the more prolific its assumptions but I can generalize and decipher on how this entire album revolves around the cause and effects of a corrupt society spinning in a downward spiral.

_

The chaotic outro of "21st Century Schizoid Man" carries us into "I Talk to the Wind". With a beginning so light and tranquil, "I Talk to the Wind" is a beautiful piece with simple lyrics heavy with meaning. I consider this one of those clever songs where it wont let you listen without deep thought. While your mind transcneds to a dimension of utter relaxation, your frontal lobe remains at deep thought when taking in the words of this song:

-

2. I Talk to the Wind
Said the straight man to the late man
"Where have you been?"
I've been here and I've been there
and I've been in between

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear

I'm on the outside, looking inside
What do I see?
Much confusion, disillusion
All around me.

-

You don't possess me
Don't impress me
Can't instruct me, or conduct me
Just use up my time.

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear

-

This song, along with Moonchild, is hauntingly beautiful.

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3. Epitaph
The wall on which the prophets wrote

Is cracking at the seams.

Upon the instruments of death

The sunlight brightly gleams.

When every man is torn apart

With nightmares and with dreams,

Will no one lay the laurel wreath

As silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,

The seeds of time were sown,

And watered by the deeds of those

Who know and who are known;

Knowledge is a deadly friend

if no one sets the rules.

The fate of all mankind I see

is in the hands of fools.

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,

Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.

Epitaph is my favorite track, both instrumentally and lyrically. It's genius, it's depressing, and it's pessimistic but it gives me an ounce of hope just to hear and read this from them.

The general idea I get here is that people are numb and/or apathetic to parts of society that need to be fixed and paid more attention to. The relationship between society and individuals is ironic. People conform to pop culture to fit in yet at the same time they're only concerned about themselves. No one cares about what's written on the "prophet's wall" which is why it's deconstructing and "cracking at the seams". We make our cries known and complain about our issues with the government but on a larger scale we don't put enough effort to be that change which Gandhi once said we wanted to see. We're passive activists and we really can't blame ourselves because of the amount of power from politicians and other elite bastards constraining us.

Everything in life always seems to me a paradox. My skeptical senses are always on the look-out for contradictions and they're not hard to catch. It's all around and it's confusing and it breeds uncertainty which in turn breeds hopelessness; but that's only if you're the 'schizoid man', then you are doomed if you continue to live life lifelessly and you easily suffer, at most obliviously, leading a mainstream life. And the people at the top are schizoid as well, they are the fools which hold our fate. But we also hold our own fate too, and we too are fools for tolerating the ways society raises us. There needs to be a change. People need to stop thinking technocratically, stop accepting "facts" at face value and start questioning. People need to abandon their fear of challenging the system and of challenging theirselves. We need to dig deep and scratch layer after layer off the surface of socialization. Once you arrive to some understanding of all your "why's" you start to live life, and you're only alive when you're aware and attentive. And most of us do get to that point where we understand how screwed up this world is and why; and when we reflect on the ways we sheepishly followed, we laugh, we laugh at our own stupidity but we cry for the unpredictable dawn of tomorrow.

Society is the court of Crimson King. When I see the words Crimson King I think of Satan. So being in Satan's court is another way of saying that we're living in hell, but Sartre always said that "hell is other people" and indeed these lonely intellects were, and are, right.