1969 song by King Crimson
"21st Century Schizoid Man" is a song by the progressive rock band King Crimson, released in 1969 as the opening track on their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King. Often regarded as the group's signature song, it has been described by Rolling Stone as "a seven-and-a-half-minute statement of purpose: rock power, jazz spontaneity, and classical precision harnessed in the service of a common aim."
Lyrical content
The lyrics of "21st Century Schizoid Man" were written by Peter Sinfield and consist chiefly of disconnected phrases which present a series of images in a fixed pattern. The first line of each verse consists of two short phrases, while the second line is a single, more specific image, and the third is a longer phrase or a full sentence. The fourth and last line of each verse is the song's title.[1]
The song criticizes the Vietnam War with the lyrics "Politicians' funeral pyre/Innocence raped with napalm fire" and "death seed", which according to Sinfield refers to a "harvest of bad things" created by the use of Agent Orange. The line "Cat's foot, iron claw" refers to the French fable "The Monkey and the Cat".[1]
Before a live performance of the song on 15 December 1969 (later included on the live album Epitaph), guitarist Robert Fripp sarcastically remarked that the song was dedicated to then-Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew, "an American political personality whom we all know and love dearly."[2][3]
Musical structure
"21st Century Schizoid Man" is notable for its heavily distorted vocals, sung by Greg Lake, and its instrumental middle section, called "Mirrors". Most of the song is in either 4/4 or 6/4 time, while the abstract chaotic outro, which was inspired by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, has no discernible meter.[1] The song has been described as heavy metal,[4][5] jazz-rock and progressive rock,[6] and is considered to be an influence on the later development of progressive metal and industrial music.[7][8]
Fripp's dissonant and almost atonal guitar solo on the song was rated number 82 in Guitar World's list of the "Top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos" in 2008.[9][10] Louder Sound ranked the solo at No. 56 in its "100 greatest guitar solos in rock" poll in 2018.[11] As he explained to Guitar Player magazine in 1974: "It's all picked down-up. The basis of the picking technique is to strike down on the on-beat and up on the off-beat. Then one must learn to reverse that. I'll generally use a downstroke on the down-beat except where I wish to accent a phrase in a particular way or create a certain kind of tension by confusing accents, in which case I might begin a run on the upstroke."[12]
Reception and legacy
In 2006, Pitchfork ranked "21st Century Schizoid Man" at number 104 on its list of "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s", with Joe Tangari calling it a "seven-minute hellstorm of gonzo guitar, shifting meters, and nasty sax".[13]
