Wednesday 18 November 2009

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer



I'm not sure just when or where this is, early seventies, I'd guess, this is the sort of gig I'd go to back then, groups generally did not have the vastly inflated egos of today's music biz folk, I'd say they were more "accessible".
The venue would be the local university's dining hall, with a small stage at one end. The band would arrive in a rusting old crewbus, and all their gear would be in a small box-van.

This is of course before these guys were playing vast auditoria, with mega-pyrotechnics, lights that could frighten other planets, and sound levels that would shake distant continents. I like to be close enough that I can see the person playing, not a speck on a stage a half-mile away.
Progressive rock, it was called, back then.
ELP were all accomplished musicians, trained in classical mode, before rock, so they often adapted other works; this one is from a longer piece, based on Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition"

The Sage:

I carry the dust of a journey
that cannot be shaken away
It lives deep within me
for I breathe it every day

You and I are yesterday's answers
the earth of the past come to flesh
Eroded by time's rivers
to the shapes we now possess

Come share of my breath and my substance
and mingle our streams and our times
In bright infinite moments
our reasons are lost -in our eyes.

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