King Crimson ~ Enclosures of the word kind

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Jon Green:
Considering that your work on the first four King Crimson albums turn out to be an even more singular achievement than anyone might have imagined, I wonder why it is you have been so reticent to discuss the grand edifice you constructed all those years ago?

Peter Sinfield:
"1) Small light large bushel?
2) Patience is a virtual?
3) Lack of university education is a blessing but AH the LACK of discipline!!!
4) When is a channel not a channel¿ Look I cannot proceed with this ritual if someone steals my rattle!!
4) I refer you to umm TH White and the Merlin trilogy. . .

Your web site is truly an amazing and beautiful work - where do you find the time?
I am still coming to terms with the implications of your implications.
Some of your assumptions are umm er, assumptions . . . .I think! And some are remarkable insights into my guides and influences -
Much is extraordinary --- well we all know that."

Jon Swinghammer wrote::
Is there anything to what Jon Green is saying about your lyrics?

Peter Sinfield:
"I am amused/amazed & bemused to say there is! However although he unwittingly flatters my knowledge regarding Fred2 and ignores the er, Courts of Arthur, Alexander, Borge, Rameses, Victoria, Augustus, Louis, JFK, Elizabeth1, Charlemagne, Saladin, Assorted Mings, Xerxes, A Foundation Here and A Worm Rider There Etc Etc. . .ie any ruler who presided over an intense period of learning, yearning and burning and apparently benificial progress (HA) towards the elevation of mankind - Since Fred2 is a such a suitable archytype for said societal rumblings (allegoricaly speaking) -It would be churlish of me to quibble!!! -
He has also on many occasions, to my astonishment, rumbled my more obscure, though pointed and mischievous references to the gnostic, mystic and slapstick!"

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The Beginnings of King Crimson

Jon Green:
Peter, judging from your response to Jon Swinghammer, you consciously conceived the Crimson King as a composite of several historical figures.

Peter Sinfield:
"Ok - It was that ... and a game of archetypes, symbols, and purposefully 'vulgar' colours. [The Magus/Gormenghast/Lord Of the Rings/The Prince/The Hidden Persuaders(V.Packard), some Heinlein...etc etc ]

It may amuse /confuse you to know that I wrote the whole song words and v. dodgy "Dylanesque" tune many months before I became with involved GG&F who became . . . .KC ( Tr LA) when with myself on umm, in the most naive way guitar and eek vocals, trying to form my own band "Creation" (yes yes I know!).. Ian MacD's famous remark after he auditioned for my enthusiastic ensemble was...

"Look your band are hopeless but you write some really interesting words ...do fancy trying to write some songs?"

SINCE HE COULD PLAY ANYTHING WITH STRINGS, LEVERS OR KEYS AND I thought I had found Motzart my answer was after er, (1 microsecond) YES!!! –

Dear, forever grail-searching, Ian. He took In the Court of the Crimson King and forged it into what you now hear in all its glory. That was a LITTLE time after, one chilly autumn evening, he invited me to meet a musical trio he and Judy Dyble were about to join GG&F. As Giles Giles and Fripp played on and talked I smiled and shook my head and grinned as they played again. I was entranced, as the saying goes, I truly thought I'd died and gone to heaven."

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Robert Fripp

Jon Green:
I am still wondering about Frederick II's accidental presence in the title song. There are simply too many coincidences here.

Peter Sinfield:
"I agree. . . ."

Jon Green:
Robert Fripp provided occult evidence leading right back to Frederick.

Peter Sinfield:
"Did he indeed? Since both The Court of the Crimson King and Epitaph (which started life as a two verse poem written in iambic tetrametres) were written before I met him . . . .there was it would appear something, interesting , and synchronic that way coming. . . .
When we met he was the Fripp of Giles, Giles & Him... You have heard their album? Robert to my knowlege, and here I may be in error, did not begin his studies sufic and esoteric until the mid seventies. Not to say that having opened a window later in the day he was not at once aware that unconsciously he had always been aware, of a 'certain twist of light' which is normal. As I recall he seldom questioned my "obscurantist" wordlings - and now I come to think about it. . .why not? There was a silent respect, a raised eyebrow, a knowing twitch of the lip- well at least until Islands there was – but that is another tale!"

Jon Green:
The lyrics of the song, The Court of the Crimson King, conform, not just to any despot, but to specific events in the life of Frederick II, and they cannot be applied to the life of any other person without leaving gaping holes and creating contradictions.

Peter Sinfield:
"The poet Robert Browning was once asked to elucidate on some of his work.... His reply was " When that was written only God and Robert Browning knew what I was attemping to say ....now only God knows."

Jon Green:
The life of Frederick certainly resonates with the youth of the era under consideration, (the late 60's/early 70's). Like the "flower children" he rebelled against the older generation and eschewed convention. In turning against the traditional values of his father figure (the Pope) an epic struggle ensued, a struggle not without parallel to that which occurred between God and Satan (a common theme taken up by members of the 19th century symbolist movement, one of whom was Rimbaud, a major influence on Peter Sinfield). Frederick's life was really the drama of the adolescent aspiring for autonomy on a grand scale and this is the very aspect of Frederick (the Crimson King) that most interested me as a teenager. Foremost among Frederick's resemblances to your creation was his particular rebellion against religious authority.

Peter Sinfield:
"VERY VERY VERY TRUE !!!!"

Jon Green:
This is primarily what enabled me, those many years ago, to recognize him for who he came to be, the Crimson King.

Peter Sinfield:
"Indeed see : History of God: by erm, Karen Young?"

Jon Green:
Can all of this just be coincidence? Did you intend for the lyrics of In the Court of the Crimson King to have no particular meaning beyond evoking moods images and impressions suggestive of an archetypal ruler, "any ruler"?

Peter Sinfield:
"The song is not about "any ruler".... it is about.... Darwinian Corruption (in1968) I could NOT write it now for I know much less on the other hand I am totally empowered by the lessness (eek) I know not ...One hand claps...."

Jon Green:
Are the three lullabies just a coincidence?

Peter Sinfield:
"NO..."Three" is never a coincidence."

Jon Green:
The purple piper?

Peter Sinfield:
"HE IS ...MUSIC >>>>>> He is G. B. Shaw's famous aphorism about music and those who populate some ring or other in the Mother of All Saunas that Dante went on and on and on and on about."

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Ginni Barris

Jon Green:
The only verifiable clue as to the exact historical setting of any of your work is found on the back cover illustration of Lizard, the clash of Mongols and Teutonic knights at Liegnitz in the year 1241, under the reign of Frederick II. I don't understand how I flatter your knowledge of Frederick when Lizard is clearly about an important chapter in Frederick's life, a moment in the thirteenth century that had to be carefully researched in order for you to render your lovingly detailed verses.

Peter Sinfield:
"You say that . . ..but Ginni's paintings after I had given her such words that were to hand and a description of my overall desire that she produce something illuminated' akin to the Book of Kells were HERS . . .of course I chose her to do the cover because I knew absolutely that she would. . . . . . and she did!!!
If I knew where she was I would ask her why the Teutonic Knights are clashing with the Mongols. At the time I looked at it all in wonder for it seemed she had captured more magicke than you could shake a wand at! Magicke is as strong as those who believe it said Merlin!"

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Black Worm Seed

Jon Green:
"It turns out that "black worm seed" is a very specific reference to Islam.
Lizard.html#BlackSeed

Peter Sinfield:
"Indeed. Well it is now. When written, my knowlege of Islam being less extensive than it is now after reading Karen Armstrong's wonderful book "The History Of God" etc. etc , it was more of um, a word game to scrawl & illume the word 'insidious' - the 'feeling' of it but of course KNOT using it. Kiosk...Kiosk, what a delicious word (from the Turkish kioshk it appears and among its meanings 'bandstand' - it says in my at hand shorter Ox Dic, better and better) ...His ki... (rattles? key......flash of permitted entry).. osk. . . ( built in shadow... behind officiall-esque curt, cramped, crabby issuer of 'tickets' and tempting sweetmeats)... black worm.. (see Dune? hear the slime in bl... the echo 'ack' rattlin again ... the subliminal 'curse' sound of 'worm'.... to the final hiss in seed.. (seething with corruption ...) [Whilst writing this; around about 'Turkish' I lit a small green stick of Japanese incence ...as I do... and now most spookily two crows have flown and perched, cawing and cawing most horridly in the holly tree outside my window!.... now they have flown off... but I swear the yellow teeth of Laburnham tree nearbye are grinning. The light is impending ... the first roses challenge the gloom like flaring beacons.. . ;-) ]"

"The first stage is attained when a man's ordinary feeling and thinking is raised to a higher level, where knowledge of the Spirit is attained. Such a man received the name of `Raven.' It is the `Ravens' who inform the Initiates in the temples what is happening in the world outside. When medieval poetic wisdom desired to depict in the person of a great Ruler an Initiate who amid the treasures of wisdom contained in the Earth must await the great moment when newly revealed depths of Christianity rejuvenate mankind -- this poetic wisdom of the Middle Ages created the figure of Frederick Barbarossa, ravens were his heralds. The Old Testament, too, speaks of the ravens in the story of Elijah."

Rudolf Steiner
The Festivals and Their Meaning
Christmas Festival:
A Token of the Victory of the Sun

Jon Green:
Is there something to my suspicion of a mystical process at work here?

Peter Sinfield:
"I venture to reply in the positive......"

Jon Green:
Who or what are you channelling?

Peter Sinfield:
*Otoko onna to sono kage odoru."

Men, women,
And their shadows
Dancing.
(Zen Haiku... by Santoka Taneda trans John Stevens)

Jon Green:
Could he-she -it pass on to you information about the life of a man dead for 750 years?

Peter wrote:
"Why not?"

Andrew Keeling:
I also have to ask how much was the occult an influence on King Crimson Mk I?

Peter Sinfield:

"An interesting question.

On me personaly? There was some influence. My Grandfather 'Beak', a member of "The Men Of Trees", together with my , wooden-legged, great aunt, the author Mabel Lethbridge, were both on the fringe of Notting Hill bohemian circles which quite probably included various members of "The Golden Dawn."

I lived for a while with the Welsh family of the sister of one of my mother's receptionists in Bracknell New Town. I recall that they were not only Jehovah W's but also gathered regularly round the lettered board and glass. There was quite a to do one time when, instead of just tapping etc., one of the - - - - "Is there anybody theres" it was whispered, appeared beckoning, blue lit, outside the french windows.

Then there was Maria Wallenda (the high wire walker) who was part of our household for some years. Circus folk are often on the darkling side of superstitious? Also I must mention the wise & influential Richard Gardner who once informed me with a wry look in his eye that, "I had a knowledge of the truth".

It would be peculiar if there was not thus some cumulative effect on my forming. Finaly I mention during my first job, as a trainee travel agent, I worked in an office in St Martin's Lane less than 50 yds from a very famous esoteric bookshop called Watsons. I spent many happy dinner hours browsing in Watsons. After reading the above it's seems, that more than most chaps, I was somewhat 'exposed' to the occult.

That said - It does not directly answer your question. . . or on the other hand, perhaps it does %\v ?"

Andrw Keeling:

Or was the occult part of the zeitgeist of the time?

Peter Sinfield:

"This is not an 'or'; for in certain 'hip' circles, to which I was close. Exploring, with the use of substances various, Castaneda, The Tibetan Book Of The Dead and The Doors of Perception etc., it definitely was."

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The Dream The Illusion

Jon Green:
Does the instrumental passage of Moonchild serve a shamanistic function similar to the instrumental passage in the Doors' The End?

Peter Sinfield:
"You know it is the most peculiar (Zenish?) piece of music.... spontaneously recorded
(without Greg Lake).
Allowing for the fact we were a bit short of material for the album (like 10 mins) - We all wanted to DO something that represented the often most amusing/entertaining/perverse part of our live show (which was 'songwise' 20 minutes short of a full set!). . . . I can say 'all' because I was able, and I think the others would agree, able to 'play' too - to push and pull with my lights. . .There would be a gap (we had lots of wonderful (John Cage) gaps)..and I would go blue , blue, rrrrr ed , b b b b lue- and Ian or someone would respond to the colour sequence with a musical phrase...!
IT makes me smile now as I tell you about it...it was a very, very wonderful feeling."

Jon Green:
Does side two of the album represent something of a seance?

Peter Sinfield:
"Mayhap - I proffer the suggestion that it was more of a meditation...whatever
the finger on the glass.....having writ boogies on....n'est pas?"

Jon Green:
"The shaman who desires a song does not fix his or her mind on particular words nor sing a known tune. In dreams, or other dreamlike states, the songs come through the barrier that separates the human being from the spirit world...perhaps it is the mind of the shaman that is now ready to receive the sacred sounds that come from within or without and are rendered into a poetic chant. These poetries, arising at a moment of divine inspiration in the crucible of the soul, are often felt to be medicine."

From "Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives" by Joan Halifax

Peter Sinfield:
"I COULDN'T have put IT BETTER myself. . . . .well actualy I am not sure I could
have put it at all ...BUT I LIKE IT ... The RATTLES of Simple MEN ;-)"

"I am as beguiled as you appear to be as to the why's and wherefores of the ebb, flow and source of my umm 'power'.
Oh there is no doubt NOW that I have some strange, odd and I hope beneficial GIFT – people many times visit my apartment and are in someway bewitched (I have a friend who calls it "my bubble world" ) - naturally as soon as I try to *consciously* use it for instance to persuade some fair maiden to . . .ahem ahem or smile benignly over a large pile of chips and a busted flush it mostly flies straight out the window. . .as it should.
OK its just a VOCATION!"

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Moonchild

"Moonchild . . .as I recall.. and with my battered sieve of a memory, its not easy; was written after I had met and fallen in love with Stephanie the second of my "longtime" loves. Ah little Steph, barefoot jewish princessette in her white victorian night dresses ironing her henna'd hair.
Twas the summer of 1969 and Ian and I, bemused and amazed, fledgling rock stars both, and our beautiful (but sharp with it) new loves were living in a flea ridden apartment in Earls Court in London...he had the beautiful Charlotte (see McDonald & Giles album cover) and I had Stephanie. It was MAGIC!"

Speaking with my producer hat on. You have no idea how difficult it was to bemuse GL to sing with such apparent frailty. In fact how difficult it is to get any decent singer to underplay their voice and emotions. . . Loads of echo often helps to at least 'float it' . Singers do love to SING & its hard to blame them! I understand though disagree with your point that an 'amateur' can give a song a child like quality 'charm' - though initialy true; when it then comes to er, the required, large, breathful crescendo, they will often lack the control, width and talent .. eek. There is a record called Still by someone called "Me" that illustrates this rather well ;-) . You must hear the demo of "Think Twice" sometime, which was sung by a chap ...(yes a male type chap called Jon Snow/Savannah) which I love. It is soft, sweet, warm, emotional and fragile. When I heard Chris Neil's shiny, in-yer-face, o'top production of Celine singing it I was appalled!. However, with time, I've learnt to bear in mind what I call "The Speilberg Factor" or sometimes the "Ken Russel Effect"... which broadly states that the man or woman in the metaphorical street is so desensitized that you have to hit them over the head with the metaphorical artistic hammer.
Well - Yes of course there are thousands of exceptions in film, theatre, jazz, classical & yea 'popular' music like Nick Drake and even your happily recently rediscovered Arthur Lee/Love... "I once knew a man, been everywhere in the world, gave me a smalll brown leather book, said it would serve me well." Ahhhh.

Andrew Keeling:

Because I'm reading Crowley's novel Moonchild at the moment. Was this an influence (not on the M62 Song) but on...

Peter Sinfield:

Ah ha. No, not a conscious influence. But now you have got me thinking what did influence the lyric which was, if I recall correctly, like a percentage of my work, written to the music. To a tune or some fragment of melody. I am sure Robert or Ian will remember more exactly; for they are less cursed with 'sievus randomitus of the brain' than I.
Given that it was written to the music = One has that beautiful opening phrase ... Da-da de dum/ da-de da-de da-dum da la de-dum ... It is wistful, yearning for a lost dream/love, it has been wounded yet searches beyond the pain.... ( With me so far?) OK now fast fwd to the bridge section. I wont de da again ;-) but Hark- 'point', 'turn', 'point' and other terms of ballet and choreography that I am not familiar with... I felt it is/was instantly (to me) erm, skippity, blue lit & 'swan-lakish'. (At this juncture I need to go and have a fresh look at the words to see that I am not spouting complete nonsense here.)

Moonchild

Call her moonchild
Dancing in the shallows of a river
Lovely moonchild
Dreaming in the shadow of the willow.

Talking to the trees of the cobweb strange
Sleeping on the steps of a fountain
Waving silver wands to the night-birds song
Waiting for the sun on the mountain.

She's a moonchild
Gathering the flowers in a garden.
Lovely moonchild
Drifting on the echoes of the hours.

Sailing on the wind in a milk white gown
Dropping circle stones on a sun dial
Playing hide and seek with the ghosts of dawn
Waiting for a smile from a sun child.

Well if I say it myself... that is a small delight. The internal rhymes from 'gathering' to 'garden' released by the languor of 'hours' to be then short echoed in 'gown'. Twisting from 'd' of dial to the 'dawn'... etc etc... But - Yes... you may still ask why 'Moonchild"..?

As you may know my ruling archetypes are the 'Harlequin', he of the vitriolic jokes and the public persona balanced, on the inside, by the persona Richard Gardner called the "Sad Blue Lady Of The Night." So that was the character I needed to represent in a word, my feminine side. Of course reflected in my loves and lovers... particularly by Stephanie at that time.

I had the powerful opening phrase, "Call her...." (one might say a cheap trick from many a novel or poem) but hey Austin, James et al., knew what they were doing to grab the listener leading them to turn from page to page. . . Hmm, now then, so what to call her/me ? a name, a season, a goddess, an abstraction, a childlike figure dancing (see ballet above) in the twilight... so what else, after much Grimm scouring, but a restless child of the moon... indeed our "Moonchild."

After that it was reasonably easy to paint a series of backdrops for the character to meander through. The alliteration and sensuality of the words essentialy amplifying the mysterious music

It occurs to me now, though I am sure it was instinctive at the time, my desire was for the images to be erm, sort of art nouveauish. All Rossetti, Durer, Tiffanyesque and serpentine tendrils. Though, of course, forever with a dim globe of hope glowing above any alabaster vase of foul smelling white lillies. . . . I hope that helps... ?

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The Crimson King

Andrew Keeling:
Is the name King Crimson really a synonym for Beelzebub?

Peter Sinfield:
"Despite the possibility that I may have flippantly (an 'r' is optional) have stated it to be so. . . it is not.

Granted that the NAME was taken from ITCOTCK in a moment of pressured panic. Not the least because it had the IMHO brazen impact of say, Led Zeppelin! The 'song' which you will recall I had written some time before (well, the words, and when you hear the Hyde Park tapes, the yet to be finalised - words). Before I became the 'fifth member' Is not really that Good v Evil - simplistic. It's not just about Faustian seduction.

It's more in the tradition of er, "Blowing in the Wind", to which it nods... in respect, about the admission of frustration & feelings engendered (and even perhaps perversely enjoyed?) regarding one's slight ability to do very much more than project a movie of man's (without the need of any overseeing beelzebub) inherent ongoing, DNA fed, poetic, cruelty unto man. In the HOPE that any increase of that awareness is worthwhile. It is perhaps ironic that in a few places the grandeur of the music of ITCOTCK confuses the issue... or not?

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Cadence and Cascade

Peter Sinfield:
"I, ahem, sung it live when on tour with PFM and it has been said that I should have sung it originally... You will be able to judge for yourself when my album of live detritus, experiments and faux pearls is released sometime later this year. Oh and the guitarist from "Cutting Crew' named his daughter Cadence.... after hearing it....
which is nice."

Sid Smith:
Was there any discussion at the time of recording of you doing the vocals for this at the time ?

Peter Sinfield:
"Well... I would love to say that I mumbled .... " Hey! What about If I sing it Robert?"
"Sorry Peter what was that..."
"Er. Nothing Robert ... where were we...?"

Given my strange situation as member without portfolio plus my terror of performing I regret to say....cluck cluck... Who knows what if i had. . . Do what you do do well; was my rationale . .How would RF had reacted to me as singer real performer?"

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The Devil's Triangle

Xavier Agull�:
What's the meaning of "merday morn"? Morn must be an ancient or poetic form of morning,

Peter Sinfield:
"Yes... it is."

Xavier Agull�:
but merday...

Peter Sinfield:
"Ah indeed. Ahem I just invented it. It's a bit thors day a bit murder and a bit unknown sea of fate... and a little bit Tolkienesque... could have been Wormday or Fleurday.... or Swillday...... etc...etc...? It was the menace in the sound that was most important..."

Andrew Keeling:
Can you remember what the musical quotations are at the end of The Devil's Triangle?

Peter Sinfield:
"well I can now...because I just played the whole album for the first time in well I don't know (&if honest I skipped a bit here and there) maybe 20 years.. And I must say ... what an extraordinary record it is! A feast of eggs curatical. I can hear me, and of course Keith Tippett, Robert Fripp, Michael Giles et al (& especially the enginears (sic) all over it ... good bad naive and indifferent.
What japes... !!

I can hear examples of a J.S. Bach-like harpsichord piece, British 'swing', rock n'roll, country?, The Court of the Crimson King."

Andrew Keeling:
Why are these included?

Peter Sinfield:
"Tongue in cheek homage to genres and er, 'musical education' The Food, The Fad & The Snuggly....(an exercise I repeated in the middle section of Virginia Plain... don't you know.) Quoting is such FUN!"

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Cirkus

Peter Sinfield:
"It has perhaps more to do with the odd fact that Maria Wallenda, the German house keeper my dear bohemian mother employed to rule our 'unusual' household (and me between the ages of 4 & 8), was formerly a member of 'The Famous Flying Wallendas'. One of the worlds most brave high wire acts; aristocrats of the circus. I remember one time she took me to Bertram Mills circus and I was introduced to various animal trainers, acrobats, the stern, red-coated, black-top-hatted ring master and in particular I remember it well, her gentle, just an old friend,' 'Coco The Clown'. He glowed! I became by affection/infection honorary circus folk at a very imperishable age. Add that to my later fascination with fun fairs. The envy/admiration for the 'wild' greasy haired, black leather jacketed , "allo darlin" guys who ran the bumper cars as Buddy Holly belted out "Rave On" .Throw in "Those Who Are About To Die Salute You"; a couple of tomes by Robert Graves plus Vance Packard's timely revelations in his book "The Hidden Persuaders".... and you will get a "Megaphonium Fanfare"!

Even now I sleep in a bedroom where the bed, chest of drawers and wardrobe were 'painted' for me by my good friend; the fine artist Peter Unsworth. (younger brother of the esteemed novelist Barry)...On three sides I am surrounded by tumbling chess pieces, counters, melons and other fruit machine symbols, a terrier balancing a red ball on his nose and a clown-catcher forever swivelling to extract a punter's pennies. I say surrounded but actually its only three sides - for the wall that I awake to: that is in front of me is, of obvious necessity, left flat white and into its emptiness I dream."

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Chelsea Brigade

Peter Sinfield:
"It referred to David and John the E and G who had/have a passion for motor bikes... notably Harleys... And were Knightsbridge ex Harrovian 'hippies' and also Chelsea fans... Voila.

...a bunch of fellows (including moi) that hung around the Kings Road in Chelsea in the late sixties shopping at places like 'Granny Takes A Trip' and 'The Chelsea Antique Market' (see pic PJS in Kaftan) drinking at 'The Potter' or The Six Bells... etc. Some of whom also supported Chelsea Football Club which confusingly is situated in Fulham Road. Note: Not Fulham Palace Road where I was conceived in Coalhill Mansions that is opposite Bishop's Park which houses Fulham Football Club (until recently an embarrassment)... and far more importantly also in Fulham Palace Road was the infamous George's Cafe. And 'twas in the basement of said eaterie that G G & F rehearsed and magicaly became King Crimson."

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Fripp Sinfield

Andrew Keeling:
Stephanie phoned me last evening. We talked about your's and Robert's compositional processes in King Crimson. Please rest assured I have always thought that you had, as Stephanie mentioned, a significant input in to the musical side and not just the lyrics. I've always felt that it was the kind of Lennon/McCartney thing where J.L may write a song, and then P.M. may write a song but they are both credited as co- writers. I suspect that a similar thing happened in KC? However, I was rather taken aback when Stephanie said that there was little in the way of pure collaboration between you and Robert?

Peter Sinfield:
"Pure? - - - Tainted? Flawed? Limited? She is a romantic... and a tad sentimental. Or as they say.. You had to be THERE in the ha ho cellar/basement to comprehend the long division and multiplication of the moment that led to the moment; given a set of abstract regulations governing a mostly mutual recognition of destination!!"

Andrew Keeling:
At least, this is what I thought she said. I may have been mistaken. So, a work like Islands, following my own ideas, might be: Formentera Lady (Sinfield); Sailor's Tale (Fripp); The Letters KC I because it was originally Drop In, but with new lyrics from you?); Ladies of the Road..(Sinfield); ..Prelude: Song of the Gulls (Fripp); Islands (Sinfield).

Peter Sinfield:
Umm... more or less. Newton and Blake well shaken to produce an emulsion...
vinegarette? Salad Days!!

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Envelopes of Yesterday

Peter Sinfield:
Envelopes of Yesterday - it is not as such 'mainly' about Robert Fripp. Though of course he does feature. Bear in mind (bare..?), if you will, the many reviews that accused me of being pretentious. (MOI!) Ah ha so then: journalists of the music biz ... who "could never wash away a printer's stain"; my ongoing knowing horror regarding (whorerer?) the advertising industry "suave pirates words of apricot.." and 'Chaldean' - its simply a reference to a 'convenient' movement of the whole basis of astrology by one month. Most amusing.. We're all a month out. Perhaps some more than others? I have a theory about conception but later, later. I could go on. But 'tis no fun to mess more with the mystic/mystique. Suffice to say that, given my over developed sense of injustice, the song waves a finger at just about every thing that had recently offended me. Not the least 'me' patheticaly waving said finger. Fripp? A minor mozzie!

Most of the bile I unloaded was towards - Yes EG, Yes The Music Biz ... and Yes; Well you name it, and if it had a whiff of injustice, you can be sure that I would be an early turret swiveller. (This has not changed much after 30 years. Though I admit I do it now from a somewhat more padded pavillion. Ah, the problems of the 'champagne socialist'. "Oh yeah Mr.. why don't you just give all your money away then? Indeed. Thing is I understand why Rimbaud gave up writing wild poetry and went off to Africa to be a slave trader. I understand why Dylan keeps on touring. I understand how, by sitting on a commitee for hour after tedious hour you can sometimes precipitate a small change in the 'rules' that mayhap initiate other small changes increasingly beneficial – mayhap. I do. Yes I also understand that the man who said "The pen is mightier than the sword" had never tried to keep a bear at bay with his biro.

Now where was I ...? Ah Yes. (Is this a more sober evening... some is some isn't. Hah!)

To call Robert a control freak is far, far too simplistic. As t'would be to call him a 'ruthless determined brat'. Not the least because he and I are equally, subtley, marbled and riven with similar swirls of artistically essential, though often if you are afraid to play the fool which as you know I am not, spat upon character traits. As he recently wrote to me... "Fundamentally, I believe we have more in common than the history that appears to separate us. It doesn't matter very much that we don't like each other. I'd rather use the common ground as a basis for future communication than the history."

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Peter Sinfield ~ Marginalia maketh the man

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