21ST CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN

"'21st Century Schizoid Man'" is a song by progressive rock band King Crimson from their debut album ''In the Court of the Crimson King''. To date it is one of their best-known songs.

Contents

Credits

Lyrical content

Musical structure

Performances

Credits

★ Greg Lake - vocals, bass guitar

★ Ian McDonald - saxophone

★ Robert Fripp - guitars

★ Michael Giles - drums

★ Peter Sinfield - lyrics, keyboards

Lyrical content

The song's lyrics consists of a short poem with one or more metaphors in every line. Many believe that the lyrics are a prophecy, telling the listener how the world will be in the 21st Century^[1]
The song has strong ties into the Vietnam War as exemplified in the lyric "innocents raped with napalm fire" and "politicians' funeral pyre."
The final stanza of the song refers to excessive consumerism. The next to the last line of the song reads, "Nothing he's got he really needs."

Musical structure

Musically, the song is notable for its heavily distorted vocals sung by Greg Lake, a driving mechanical rhythm and piercingly loud saxophone and guitar, along with its instrumental middle section, called ''Mirrors''. Most of the song is in either 4/4 or 6/8 time signature, save for the percussive section in ''Mirrors'' which alternates between 1/4, 2/4 and 5/4.

Performances

Even after Greg Lake left King Crimson in 1970 to form Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the song was maintained in Crimson's live act. It appeared on three live albums from different versions of the band, first on ''Earthbound'' (1972), sung by Boz Burrell then on ''USA'' (1974), sung by John Wetton, then on ''VROOOM VROOOM'' (2001, recorded in 1996), sung by Adrian Belew.
The song has recently been covered by Ozzy Osbourne on his cover album ''Under Cover''. Flower Travellin' Band, Entombed, Voivod, Unrest, Rorschach and April Wine have also covered this song, as have Forbidden on their album ''Distortion''
Bad Religion made a homage to the song called "21st Century (Digital Boy)". In it they refer to the original song several times with lyrics such as "innocents raped with napalm fire" and "21st century schizoid boy".
Billy Sheehan's band Talas covered this song with Billy Sheehan covering quite a bit of sonic ground with his bass playing.
1. http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=14218