In the court of the Crimson King (1969) by King Crimson

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
Polititians' 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.

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
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.

Moonchild

Call her moonchild
Dancing in the shallows of a river
Lonely 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 thenight-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.

Sailling on the windin a milk white gown
Dropping circle stones on a sun dial
Playing hide and seekwith the ghosts of dawn
Waiting for a smile from a sun child.

We perform some tracks of this classic masterpiece of progressive rock because we believe that they perform a strong antithesis between a mind-collapsing alienated unnatural socio-political environment “civilized” humans always create and the ideal calmness and free-playing (as performed by the free-playing of the instruments in the song) of pure nature.

The 21st century schizoid man is a heavy song, a strong accusation of the status of devastating wars with reference to Viet Nam, of the suffocating mind-collapsing environments that humans create and of the never-satisfying consuming substitutes he tries to fill his internal “turbulent void”

The melancholic Epitaph is a lament for all this situation. Of the worshiping of war (Upon the instruments of death, the sunlight brightly gleams: a strong imposing metaphor) and of the insecure Future that is obvious despite the optimistic technocratic science that promises a “Brave new world”. The line: “When knowledge is a deadly friend if no one sets the rules” refers to the threat of nuclear warfare, but comes today to remind us the –mindless (the fate of mankind is in the hands of fools) and of unknown risk- enormous human and environmental experiment of the release of GMO so “we fear tomorrow we’ll be crying” because it has been always obvious that ecosystem and society has limits that have been always ignored and now have been surpassed : The seams of the apparently eternal rigid wall, as the first lines of the song point as metaphor.

The song Moonchild, is in great contrast with the above songs. It’s a vision of escaping this nightmarous situation and of returning to nature in an ideal dreamy situation in search of piece of mind, free playing and roaming free, as performed by the long random playing of the instruments which reminds the calming nature sounds of birds, water, etc

you can hear this songs in youtube

21st schizoid man

Epitaph

an instrumental performance of Moonchild