For more on Pete Sinfield please visit his wonderful site at: http://www.songsouponsea.com.

He is the only child, if you don’t count his adopted, older brother Dennis, of his bisexual mother, Deidre. Better known to her bohemian circle of friends as Joey or Daphne. [Silence. A clear sky. The embryo relaxing, will soon be a child. ] By turns embarrassed & proud that his work appears upon over 100 million ‘pieces of product’. He sits late at night in his study, while a storm rages outside & the final game of The World Series plays out on a TV next to him attempting to write, without resorting to his infamous penchant for the vitriolic remark, an introduction to the following email- interview conducted, shortly after the anniversary of 09/11, with the perceptive, ‘political wing’ of Krimson News. . .

Thela - If King Crimson contacted you tomorrow to write lyrics for a new album, beyond the likelihood of such an event, what would your reaction be?

Peter Sinfield - PIGS FLY IN BLUE MOON SKY - (Fripp explains need for a rasher writer?)… Er, deep shock I guess. Followed by a nervous request to hear the actual MuZik.

T - What if The 21st Century Schizoid Band contacted you about writing some new material?

PS - The ‘band’ is a kaleidoscope of spirals. I’m already workin’ on stuff for/with 3 of its super-lovas. Here to amuse (?) is a snatched sketch of a possible fragment. . .
One in dire straits for two, and three gets worse
Before you count your fingers should be five
Sixes, sevens better watch that eight ball curse
Nine makes ten, believe we’re still alive.
Maybe so. . . Take up your heart and blow
However thin the ice or red the snow. . .

T - How was Robert Fripp to work with? What was the dynamic of your working relationship?

PS - Very professional. We overlapped comfortably. Contrary to the myth surrounding our latter day bickering, we were a considerate combination of vision and precision.

T - What in your opinion is your most enduring contribution to Rock lyrics in a historical context?

PS - I set a standard for pretension that by comparison others pass or fail to meet

T - The term “Progressive Rock”, you were there in the beginning and made a great contribution to the sound of the is genre of music staring in the late sixties/early seventies, today there seems to be some stigma attached to the term “Progressive Rock”. What is, in your opinion “Progressive Rock”, “Art Rock”, or whatever you may call it.

PS - Hmm.
PR = A sort of loud jazz-folk music often over-egged with classical twiddly-bits.

T - Do you think the stigma attached to this genre by the media and some artists fair?

PS - Do you have trouble making decisions? Well, yes and no. (So easier to damn it all then.)
Personally I have a similar problem with most hip hop, two step, trance & garage etc.

T - Why do you think this genre receives so much flak?

PS - On the one hand its seldom funky and on the other hand it generally ain’t Bach. (+ Carpets?)

T - There has been much debate concerning not so much the, “why” the name King Crimson, but what was the conversation during the period the band adopted the name? Was the selection an afterthought…”hmmm, that sounds good”, or was there much debate and thought put into the decision?

PS - In a panic situation there was little time for debating alternatives so I got away with it.

T - Any credence to the opinion of some with regard to a literal interpretation of “King Crimson” being a direct reference to Satan or any connection to the occult in any way?

PS - No. Once and for all - No! It was a banner of arms stolen from history, fantasy and SF.

T - In your own words, what sets the art of lyric writing a part from creating poetry or other artistic forms of writing?

PS - A perverse desire to partial cage the emotional within the intellectual to, when it works, enable an audience to have their cake and eat it. Stubs of little, smoking candles and all.

T - Must lyrics always follow the creation of the music or have you ever or could you ever write the lyric first and let the music follow?

PS - The music to TCOTCK was written to a lyric taken from a complete song I’d written in 1967. Epitaph was made from two verses of what would otherwise have remained a mediocre poem. Gary Brooker’s first solo album “No More Fear Of Flying” contains five songs that, rather as Bernie Taupin (lucky bastard) does for Elton John, were written after I gave nine typed lyrics to GB from which he chose five and then wrote the music er, upon. Some songs have started with just a title (obviously. . . this often becomes the hook line in the middle, or at the end of a chorus) and have proceeded outwards in both directions via verses & bridges.

T - Who have been your greatest influences as a lyricist?

PS - Bob Dylan, Cole Porter, Mose Allison, Joni Mitchell, W.S. Gilbert, Anon (e.g. Greensleeves), Charles Trenet, the writers of hymns such as “For Those In Peril On The Sea”, W. Blake, Rimbaud, Durrell, Tennyson, E. A. Poe, K.Gibran, Yip Harwood, John Lennon, Vonnegut, Disney, Tolkien, Baudelaire, Monet, Turner, John Mawson (a teacher of English), Caesar (J), Marx (G!), Elizabeth David, Julia Child, Keith Reid, C. Berry, B. Holly, Vance Packard, Gore Vidal, Peake, A. Watts, Leiber & Stoller, Ibi Moran, Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter, Rachel Carson, W. D. Hills, Basho, Lao Tsu, W. Shakespeare, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Marvin Gaye, Donovan, Andy Hill, Greg Lake, Bank Managers (various), Coleridge, Spike Milligan, Jung, Coco The Clown, Churchill, A. Lee, A. Bierce, Capt. W. E. Johns, Dick, Stan Lee, George Ohsawa, B. Buffet, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Nick Drake, Robin Hood, Machiavelli and I have to admit Brewers Dict’y of P &F. . . The list goes on and on. The thing is, you see, what I mainly do for a living is to absorb, ferment, reflect upon, and in a ‘Jack Horner’ flash, or more usual after days of blood, sweat & tears I, er, posit an extracted distillation of all the above plus importantly the days ‘News’ into a point in time, half a heartbeat ahead of where I am, to where ‘WE’ might be. Its just not possible to say whether staring aghast at Picassos’ ‘Guernica’ was a greater influence on me than reading Peter Rabbit?

Or- Hearing the insanely, liberating anarchy of the Goon Show more important than riding fun fair dodgems listening to Eddie Cochran sing… “She ain’t good looking man, wow, she’s somethin’ else.”

T - What projects are you currently working on?

PS - See Q2, (authors note: lyrics for 21st Century Schizoid Band),… plus a cookery book, the website, my assorted phobias and other mad stuff.

T - What do you have lined up for future endeavors, or better yet what would you like to do in the future?

PS - a) Well, courtesy of my ‘lottery win’ with Celine Dion, whatever I feel needs be. b) To still care. There is a huge smile in hearing her sing the Krimsonesqe middle eight of ‘Call the Man.’ (25 mil’n)
“Needed in the chaos and confusion from the plains to city hall
Needed where the proud who walk the wire are set to fall. . .”
(sound familiar?)

T - What’s your personal favorite lyric you’ve ever written?

PS - If You’re Right
Can’t seem to feel your love
The way I think I felt your love before.
You say its me that’s changed
You say I don’t respect you anymore.
Well If you’re right
It doesn’t rain in England.
If you’re right
They don’t drink wine in France.
If you’re right
Picasso played piano and Fred Astaire
Could never really dance.
My eyes are close to tears
I can’t believe I hear the words you say. Oh, no.
You tell me there’s no point
To make it work when we’ve lost yesterday . . .
If you’re right
Then love’s a game for children,
Just a game of seaside touch and run.
And if you’re right
Then Shakespeare wrote a long lost play
Called ‘Romeo and Something or Someone.’
Don’t waste what’s left of love
Or look for ways to close and bar the door
There’s no need.
One time for memories
Just feel like you know it felt before and you’ll see. . .
That, if I’m right,
It’ll pour with rain in England.
If I’m right,
They’ll raise a glass in France.
And if I’m right
You’re wrong
And that’s just
Fine by me
Cos that means that our love’s
Still got a chance.
© A.Hill/P.Sinfield. Chrysalis Music Ltd/ EMI Virgin Music Ltd. 1981

T - What artists that you haven’t had a chance to work with would you most like to work with in the future?

PS - Me. A poem, a recipe, a pot, a story, a painting. Just ‘me’ would be fine. OR anyone else I can ‘love’.

T - What do you think of Adrian Belew as a lyricist?

PS - Truthfully, and you may project that it is odd, apart from his controversial (though’ not as satire?) ‘Dream’ song I’m not sufficiently acquainted with his work to comment upon it & even if I were. . .

T - You’ve always been up on current events and have shown an interest in politics; What is your political philosophy or philosophy in general?

PS - “People are not well made and ninety per cent of everything is rubbish. Whatever, while God is still away on his holidays, I am going to keep on spreading, such as I can, a smile and a scintilla of hope.”

T - What do you think about the looming confrontation between The United States and Iraq?

PS - You express well most of my thoughts about this oily axis of evil farce in your recent diary entries.
(Authors note: http://diaries.krimson-news.com/thela.shtml)

T - Your thoughts on 9/11 as we pass the one-year anniversary?

PS - I am still pretty happy that Dik Fraser, a very dear old friend, and former KC roadie, abandoned his production truck, stage and car to walk away from the twin towers a few minutes before they collapsed on top of them. I watched the ceremony for the NY victims’ families with tears in my eyes. New York is not America. Would that it were? History reminds us that colonial/imperial powers, when they are arrogantly over stretched become, it seems, unaware or dismissive of ‘envious’ barbarians gathering at the gates. [It’s ironic that ‘Islam’ which brought us algebra etc., was once such a power.] People who don’t learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them? We all hope this time that will not be true.

T - What are your thoughts on the 21st Century Schizoid Band?

PS - Many… One being that perhaps they should change their name to “Discipline”? (Only joking Michael!) The majority of the band is sweethearts and long time friends of mine & I’m thrilled that they ARE! (Those vexed with the ridiculous, hypothetical problem of how to see KC or the S’zoid Boys on the same night should buy tickets to both gigs. See the first half of one and then, changing T-shirts on the way,
dash across town to catch the second half of the other… Or perhaps the opposite way around. Voila!

T - In all, how do you think the Crimson songs from the first four albums hold up today?

PS - In all, the best of them are unique and timeless. In not all, they sound like the gulls of their time.

T - When you went to work for Manticore Records you worked with the Italian group Premiata Forneria Marconi writing lyrics in English, that the band sung phonetically, can you comment on the special challenges as a lyricist involved with working with PFM?

PS - Yeah… Try to remember that they are mostly going to be sung phonetically or you’ll get some interesting and slightly disturbing ‘live’ changes like, “trying to keep worm in an overcoat of memories.”

T - You made only one Solo album, “Still…”, what kept you from doing another, and do you ever see yourself doing another solo project?

PS - a) ELP. b) If my health and energy levels improve sufficiently it’s just possible.

T - Many King Crimson fans don’t know this but you’ve written for artist like Cher and Peter Cetera. What does working throughout so many genres lend to your craft?

PS - Just as well they don’t know it because it’s not true. Very few of my er, ‘pop’ songs were written for particular artists. (Bucks Fizz and Five Star being the exceptions). The songs were written, mainly with Andy Hill, for ‘us’. They were aimed at a market. But we wrote them, recorded the demos (mostly superior to their covers) and gave them to our publishers, or producers we knew, in the hope that they would be heard and sung by successful and/or superior singers. This means that they all had to be potential HIT songs. I mention in passing that writing songs for a band or for an album, with any level of whim or indulgence, is really not very difficult. However writing songs, containing a personal element, which have to pass half a dozen cloth-eared suits to make it onto an album or single is a deeply masochistic exercise. It is incredibly difficult! Yes - Occasionally it is worth while. As in the case of Cher’s version of “Heart Of Stone” which is more or less a rewrite of Epitaph. Catch the video sometime. I think it is amazing.

T - Career wise do you have any regrets?

PS - Apart from agreeing to do this interview you mean? Well, I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I not turned down the opportunity to produce the first Supertramp album. But all in all, career and life wise, I don’t live in the past but try to relish the present passing particular to tomorrow. So, apart from a few weddings and funerals that, if more polite and considerate, I really should’ve gone to, I say. “Hey, you there universe, me, I regret nothing.”
© Peter Sinfield. 2002.

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