The article in PROG magazine reminded me of my signed copy of the above-named book. Richard Williams, writing in Melody Maker, said of it: “The words bite icily with typical Sinfield obscurantist precision.” One of Pete’s poems reads as follows:
Upon the orange sands of Mars
Beneath a scarlet sky
The crystals sit and contemplate
The universal why
Travel in their saucer ships
Across the universe
But everywhere is much the same
Except on earth it’s worse.
This made me think of a little-known fact about Pete Sinfield. Here is an excerpt from my book: ROBERT SHECKLEY: AN APPRECIATION (Amazon Books):
“Probably the most intriguing of all (of Robert Sheckley’s projects) was the multi-media project with musician and composer Brian Eno and poet and lyricist Pete Sinfield. When Sheckley was living in Ibiza he became a drinking buddy with Galeria art gallery owner Martin Watson Todd and Pete Sinfield. Sinfield said, and I quote, “I met Bob Sheckley in Ibiza where I spent much of my time getting drunk and thinking about doing something more constructive.” Sheckley said, “I didn’t know who Brian Eno was at first. I’d never heard of his music, but he was somebody I could talk to.” What ensued was an unlikely collaboration called “In A Land of Clear Colors”, a limited edition 1970 box slip-cased volume measuring 12¾” square with 46 pages and illustrations, plus an LP on which was Sinfield’s edited narration of Sheckley’s story with around 20 minutes of ambient background music by Brian Eno.” (A CD edition was released on Voiceprint in 1993 with an 8-page booklet).
Sadly, Peter Sinfield died on 14th November, 2024, aged 80. He became known firstly as King Crimson’s roadie, also handling the light shows and acting as the live sound engineer. Inspired by Donovan’s classic song ‘Catch the Wind’ (Instead, the ‘talked to the wind’), he realised he couldn’t make it as a singer-songwriter and instead settled upon being a lyricist. Pete’s relationship with Bob Fripp was fractious and Fripp phoned to terminate the relationship after the 1971 LP “Islands”. Pete went on to produce Roxy Music’s first LP in 1972 and, encouraged by Greg Lake, released one of his own “Still” in 1973. Lake sang on the title track and the song ‘Envelopes of Yesterday’ was an autobiographical account of Pete’s time with King Crimson. He co-wrote ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’, which went on become a #2 hit, with Greg Lake, and also produced Italian prog giants PFM.
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