King Crimson - The Court of the Crimson King

Good news everyone. We can now listen to King Crimson online. Spotify, youtube, and on other streaming sties I assume, we can now listen to King Crimson everywhere and it feels good.

As a random person, with a random music blog on the internet, I have struggled with basic maintenance, usually in the form of making sure the youtube videos I embed are still in existence. The hardest post I have had keeping in working order was a 2013 review of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” I never thought much of it. Only in recent years have publishers embraced online streaming and we have had consistent quality uploads by the artists and/or their producers. However, it turns out King Crimson music was particularly targeted for take downs.

See that weird neon gold lion I used as my intro image for this post? If you recognize it, then you are like me; a big King Crimson fan, who tried and tried to listen to “The Court of the Crimson King” on youtube and had to settle for the live version with that image of the background. We all kind of got used to it. For me that neon gold lion is now forever a nostalgic memory.

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself. Let us return to the beginning of this story.

1969 is the possible the best year for music ever, and strangely the best-selling album of the year is King Crimson’s “In The Court of Crimson King.” I did talk about this fact in my earlier “21st Century Schizoid Man” review from 2013:

https://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.com/2013/08/king-crimson-21st-century-schizoid-man.html

King Crimson is simultaneously a flash in the pan, and a long-lived cult favorite musical band. Somehow, King Crimson is still an active group today, and it has been over fifty years since inception. However, if you ask anyone, who knows anything about King Crimson, myself included, we are all probable to reflect upon their debut album from 1969 “In The Court of The Crimson King.”

If you were to ask me, what are my five favorite King Crimson songs? I would have to list the five tracks from “In The Court of The Crimson King,” with the only possible caveat being, maybe, “Starless Bible Black,” possibly sneaking it’s way into the list.

It is almost impossible to completely comprehend just how outstanding of a progress rock album “In The Court of The Crimson King” is. However, we must try.

Only five tracks occupy the forty-five minute time, and “The Court of the Crimson King / The Return of the Fire Witch / The Dance of the Puppets” is just under ten minutes of the run time. Like many people my favorite song from “The Court of the Crimson King” is the title track, and by extension this is also my favorite King Crimson song. I believe one of the reasons so many progressive rock fans are fixed on this one album is because both it and its title track perfectly encapsulate all the reasons to admire this music. The spirit of King Crimson, as a musical concept, is best personified in this long mysterious epic that somehow feels fantastical yet uncomfortable the entire time. It is a magical adventure, but something is wrong, and the lyrics are cryptic enough to keep us guessing as to what exactly is being described to us.

It is not surprising to me that many works of fiction reference King Crimson as it is very easy to project fantasy world building ideas on to King Crimson’s first album, and especially the title track. Some like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, merely adopt the name King Crimson for one it’s stand characters, which is par for the course in that series, as random western musical references are everywhere in that show. When Stephen King titled one of his reoccurring evil mysterious entities “King Crimson” this felt just as much as a homage as it did an exploration to what could perhaps be an interpretation of the unexplained presence of the title character from this classic album and song. That is just two examples, there are many. Even myself, I am not immune from this, I have a fire witch in the fantastic epic in my head and I would be lying if I said she was not sparked into my creativity without King Crimson.

For the most part the song “The Court of the Crimson King” is a dark fantasy tale, but this early example of pure progressive rock also created what I like to call “the jam session.” Around the four minute and fifteen second mark, the song more or less stops being a song for a moment, and instead is the band playing their individual instruments in unorthodox ways, hit odd notes and putting together short strings of sounds. I do not normally much care for long stretches of pure experimentation, but “The Court of the Crimson King’s” venture into a psychedelic sound check gets a pass from me. Maybe it is because it feels like a breath of cool air in the dense inferno that is this song, giving us the time to reflect on the hollow tale and regroup our wits for the end. Maybe since I have listened to it so many hundreds of times that I have grown comfortable with it.

The original lineup of King Crimson contains the following members:

- Robert Fripp
- Michael Giles
- Greg Lake
- Ian McDonald
- Peter Sinfield

Lake McDonald and Sinfield would all leave King Crimson very early on and have tremendous success with other musical acts. Robert Fripp was the leader of King Crimson. Robert Fripp is King Crimson. Giles the drummer seemed to have remained loyal to Fripp, with the majority of his work being associated with Fripp.

Without Lake, McDonald and Sinfield, the King Crimson we all fell in love with in 1969, or retroactively if you are like me and were not born yet, ceased to exist. However, Fripp never stopped. Technically King Crimson is still active today, but they are nothing like they used to be. No incarnation of King Crimson is very much like any other. Fripp does not treat King Crimson like a rock band. For him it is something far more artistic, something far more philosophical. For Fripp King Crimson is a an purely artistic endeavour and must be protected from outside influences. It must be allowed to change and even mutate over time however the artist feels fit. Because Fripp feels so strongly about his creation, it is personal for him. His music is his, and he is completely and utterly uncompromising.

Even regarding legality.

So, for years Fripp demanded complete control over the distribution of King Crimson music and he refused to let anyone listen to the music without his involvement and supervision. Fripp was not anti-technology, nor anti-internet, King Crimson setup a website for music downloads as early as 1999, but it was not free, and it did not evolve very much over the decades that followed. The point is Fripp was so protective of King Crimson, that everything was taken down off of everywhere for copyright infringement, and he refused to cooperate with any internet service who would have gladly worked with him.

Here is a great video explaining Robert Fripp and his views of copyright regarding King Crimson, far better than I can:

Pseudiom - In The Court of The Crimson Copyright Strike:

Hence why a live cover of “The Court of Crimson King” by Steve Hackett on youtube was King Crimson fan’s best option for a long time.

Hence the neon golden lion many of us remember.

Covering “The Court of the Crimson King” is bold. That is like covering Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” It is a song complex enough, that the execution is delicate, and it would be very easy to screw it up and look foolish, but to Hackett’s credit, he performed a great live performance. So good in fact, that King Crimson fans settled for his version while on youtube for years, and that warrants a lot of respect.

Steve Hackett - The Tokyo Tapes - Cover:

When I recently discovered King Crimson finally had a topic profile on youtube my first thought was that Robert Fripp had died. That must have been it right? He was never going to change. Well apparently, Fripp is still alive and I do not know what has changed. I am just happy I can listen to King Crimson on youtube finally. I will continue to listen to Hackett’s live version from time to time, variety is nice, but the original studio recording is what I have been wanting in my progressive rock playlist, and it is finally there, and it feels good.

- King of Braves

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

“In The Court of The Crimson King” is one of my favorite albums. As one of first ever “progressive” rock bands King Crimson did a lot to influence and inspire a variety of musicians in a variety of ways. King Crimson was one of the first bands to focus on building dark atmospheres in their music and incorporated lyrics of far out fantasies. Many of their instrumentals were long and highly experimental, almost to the point of sounding like a casual session or note exploration than an actually structure song. Also interesting is that “In The Court of The Crimson King” was the best selling album of 1969.

1969 was a good year for music, arguably the best year ever:

- Led Zeppelin I
- Led Zeppelin II
- The Beatles – Yellow Submarine
- Three Dog Night (Debut)
- Jefferson Airplane – Bless Its Pointed Little Head
- Cream – Goodbye
- The Velvet Underground (Debut)
- The Guess Who – Wheatfield Soul
- Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline
- Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends
- The Moody Blues – On The Threshold of a Dream
- Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
- The Who – Tommy
- Deep Purple (Debut)
- Yes (Debut)
- Janis Joplin – I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!
- The Band (Debut)
- The Beatles – Abbey Road
- Credence Clearwater Revival – Willy and the Poor Boys
- David Bowie – Space Oddity
- Mott The Hoople (Debut)
- The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed

Just to name a few of the albums that came out in 1969.

At the time King Crimson’s “In The Court of The Crimson King” managed to outsell everybody, even Zeppelin, even the Beatles. Now since then many of the albums listed above have gone on to eclipse the selling numbers of King Crimson’s debut album, still it is impressive they managed to garner the popularity and attention they did and in such a prestigious year too. King Crimson’s success would be short live, sort of. After 1969 the progressive rock band would be reduced to a cult favorite loved by few but forgotten by most everyone else.

Many people have gotten it into their heads that the Crimson King is the devil and his court is hell, but I don’t think that works. The kingdom described to us in “The Court Of The Crimson King” is eerily specific in many details, and many things suggest the setting to be a fantastic place of magic and manipulation. The Crimson King’s subjects are presented to us as slave or victims of his will, and while this could be used to describe the biblical devil it only works given our broad multi-dimensional interpretation of the traditional “Satan.” It is a weak connection at best.

The Crimson King
from Stephen King's
The Gunslinger Series

It was not just music King Crimson would influence, their cryptic lyrics would allow for a large array of interpretations. One of the primary antagonist in Stephen King’s “The Gunslinger” series was called “The Crimson King” a not so subtle reference to the music Mr. King obviously loves. Interestingly enough, even though Stephen King’s works are ultra famous and his musical reference is painfully obvious the cult status of King Crimson prevents the overwhelming majority of people to catch the reference. So hurray! I got it.

Along with the title track “In The Court Of The Crimson King” the only other song King Crimson has ever had that appears to made any kind of splash in the minds of the general population of casual listeners is “21st Century Schizoid Man.”

“21st Century Schizoid Man” is in many ways a logical first choice to present to someone unfamiliar with King Crimson as a first listen. It is the second shortest song on their debut album at seven minutes and twenty-four seconds and the one song that allows for abridging for radio play. It is also one of King Crimson’s only songs that have an easily identified hook to catch casual listener’s ear early on. Most King Crimson songs are an adventure onto themselves, perhaps, maybe “21st Century Schizoid Man” least of all, but still.

There are only a handful of lyrics in “21st Century Schizoid Man” but they are deep;

“Cats 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,
Poets starving, children bleed,
Nothing he’s got he really needs,
Twenty first century schizoid man.”

The lyric, “Innocents raped with napalm fire” should strike up this image:

"Innocents raped with napalm fire."

I am nearly one hundred percent certain that King Crimson is deliberately referencing this moment in history with that lyric. I am so certain in fact I didn’t bother doing any research to confirm my suspicion. For those of you don’t know this image was taken during the Vietnam War after a payload of napalm was dropped on a village, that poor little girl came running out screaming looking for help after having her clothes and some of skin burned off. This is very literally innocence being raped by napalm fire.

So King Crimson managed to be both deep and political. Good work.

“21st Century Schizoid Man” is a great song, but if for some reason you don’t believe me, believe Ozzy Osbourne, he did a cover of it on his 2005 cover album appropriately titled “Under Cover.”

Now if you are not someone who listens to progressive rock or Ozzy, but you do listen to the top 40 you are probably still familiar with this song in some manner, also you might be my bizarro. Recently self proclaimed lyrical genius Kayne West released the song “21st Century” and you already know where this is going. Kayne has sampled the most radio friendly song by an incredible radio unfriendly band. Still I got to give the man credit for having good taste, or for digging deep for a song to sample no one else would have heard of, but alas Kayne me and many others remember progressive rock bands from the late sixties and seventies. 

Kanye West - 21st Century

There is no point in being mad anymore this is like the billionth time someone has done this. I am just glad that this might encourage people to look up the original. So if you found this blog post because you were google’ing something like “song sampled by Kayne in 21st Century” you have come to the right place, now go listen to King Crimson “21st Century Schizoid Man.” Do it!

Until later this month keep on rocking in the free world.

- Colin Kelly