Emerson, Lake & Palmer : Bitches Crystal

Somehow, Emerson, Lake & Palmer became the poster boys for overwrought, overthought, overblown, craptastic progressive rock; a title which, by all rights and means, ought to go to The Moody Blues, or maybe Marillion. The problem is, all these prog guys were really great musicians. And sometimes great musicians get all wrapped up in the technique and think that the music is about their musicianship and they forget that music needs to be about the music first. Plus, when you're that egotistical, even if you have the chops, it ticks people off. Except for Yngwie Malmsteen fans, who can only be explained by some sort of mass hypnosis.

Regardless, even though some of ELP's stuff could get a little tedious, if you dig a little into their LPs, especially their early stuff, you can find some amazing rock. This is no surprise in that Greg Lake was a founding member of King Crimson, Keith Emerson came from the Nice, and Carl Palmer was with... er, Atomic Rooster.

The tune begins with a little piano noodling, then dives right into the rock. Once it gets going, the song is terminally busy, notes are everywhere. The bass drives the rock, while Carl is just all over the drums, banging away like he's determined to hit as many of his drums as possible in a four minute period without losing the beat. Meanwhile, Keith beats his electric piano up until it's bruised, with not one but two awesome solos, and Greg angrily howls the vocals over the top.

And the lyrics. They're full of evil powers and witches, tortured spirits and ritual killings, all sorts of dark, fanciful images. But when you break it down ... I still don't know what they're talking about. Who's the bitch? Who's the 'you'? I'm just not sure, which I guess just makes it good poetry, so throw whatever meaning on it you like. It still rocks.

"Bitches Crystal" is on ELP's second outing, 1971's Tarkus, which is conceptually about the military-industrial complex. Hence the motorized armadillo on the cover, I suppose.

---