My Top 1000 Songs #746: Epitaph

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

"Epitaph" was the other song (suite?) on King Crimson's 1969 debut masterpiece, In The Court Of The Crimson King, that totally floored me, a counterpart to the breathtaking title track that closed the LP. Like "Court," it's big and majestic and over-the-top and pretentious, everything that can make a lengthy prog track magnificent--or truly terrible and unlistenable--depending on the execution. And the execution here was amazing.

Peter Sinfield's lyrics, love 'em or hate 'em, totally go big here. "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." And the music, far more dependent on Greg Lake's swooning vocals and Ian McDonald's keyboards than Robert Fripp's guitar virtuosity, brings the portent to match. If you're a teenage boy in the late 70s, holed up in your room with a pair of headphones firmly in place and the gatefold sleeve on your lap, exploring the outer reaches of classic rock, this is one of those songs--like the album in its entirety--that clues you in on the possibilities of rock & roll going far beyond what you'd ever hear on the radio.