In the second part of our in-depth look at King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” we look at how the iconic song has evolved onstage during the past 50 years, and how it's influenced everyone from Yes to Kanye West
cover, which brought to mind his own musical past.
“So he started chopping it and getting the sample to fit exactly right,” the producer adds. “And every time he would hit it, it was just this magic that was happening.”S1 recalls West working through countless variations on the “Power” lyrics before arriving at the final version. But he’s confident that West’s lyrical reference to the 21st century was a direct result of the sample.
“My memory is that we found out about it within a couple days and it was already up around a million views on YouTube,” King Crimson manager David Singleton tellsSingleton says he never found out how the leak occurred, and doesn’t recall exactly how the track came to the band’s attention — he thinks a fan might have e-mailed them a tip — but he does remember the emotions that immediately followed.
“Kanye was intending to play ‘Power’ live on BET, however the licensing hadn’t been passed,” Fripp says. “So it fell down to, Robert called Kanye in the middle of rehearsals for the BET on the Friday to speak to him, and what I said to Kanye was, ‘Whichever terms were agreed, even if they are nominally disadvantageous to King Crimson, I’ll make it happen.
Of all the co-authors of “Schizoid Man,” it’s the late Greg Lake who seemed most taken with West’s sampling of the song. Looking back on that moment in September 2019, less than two weeks before he would catch Crimson again in Philadelphia, he stresses just how powerful it was to be in that room.“This was something people never thought they’d see again: King Crimson playing ‘Schizoid Man,'” he continues. “This was the thing everybody wanted, who was a fan of that band and stayed that way and maybe had come in at some point along the ride.
“It’s always the classic song,” he says. “We don’t play it every night, but we do it pretty often, and it goes down a storm every time.” The current band gives “Schizoid Man” a flavor of the original, with distortion added to Jakko Jakszyk’s voice to approximate the album version. But at Radio City, once the instrumental section kicked in, exploration took over.
“I think that song has more relevance now because it’s about Donald Trump,” Gallanter explained. “That’s the feeling I get when they play it. It’s about the scumbag who’s at the top, who’s schizoid, who lies all the time. And all the horrible images in there. I mean, [King Crimson] were scary when I first heard them; now, they fit with what’s going on, so it’s more pertinent.
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