Epitaph

Epitaph
by Paykar
17-May-2011
 

My first insertion of a Progressive Rock composition is Epitaph by King Crimson.  The band is considered to be the foundation of Progressive Rock ( although they were inspired by orchestral sound of the Moody Blues - I will have an examle of their contribution at a later time). The song travels to the past, looks at the present and to the future as Greg Lake sings of a universal confusion stemming from the decay of  time honored wisdom, to the  imminent fear of  nuclear demise ( a topic that was  prominent in political discourse till mid 80's).  The song ends in the future ; "but I fear tomorrow I'll be crying".

Epitaph is from In the Court of Crimson King album, it was released in 1969.

I chose this particular video because it has the best recording of the song by the original vocalist.

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
When 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
When 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.

 

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Paykar

Sossan Khanoom

by Paykar on

I will have more entries from King Crimson, and the Moody Blues in the future. Their earlier works are characterized by 'beautiful' poetry and symphony like orchestrations. 

But as we go further (in the blogs) the lyrics will get more sophisticated  in terms of recurrent obscure religious, cultural references, and the storylines. The arrangements will become edgier and more dense conveying a sense of tension, and nonconformity, thereby reflecting the attributes of the Subculture(s) of the time.

 


Soosan Khanoom

Beautiful Poetry

by Soosan Khanoom on

" 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
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools. "

I have not listened to this song before  ...what a powerful lyrics...  it is truly poetic 

Thanks for posting it  


Paykar

...

by Paykar on

There are various definitions of Progressive Rock, from a marketing category to socio-politically progressive content. In these blogs, I am only concerned with a sub - genre of Rock music in which the constraints of regular rock and roll songs (i.e. under 3.5 minutes and primarily for entertainment) have been pushed out by the artists, and art for the sake of  takes center stage, rendering it less accessible  musically; and the esoteric lyrics appealed to a more sophisticated audience at the expense of a wider one.

In this genre, musicians compose  long complex music usually around a central storyline( concept album). It emerged from psychedelic rock of latter par of the 60's and effectively was pushed out by punk rock, although weight  of staging highly expensive concerts was also a factor. By 1977 it was no more. Its postmodern evolution ,for the most part, discarded the very long songs but retained the centrality of the storyline ( e.g., The Wall).