King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King is the album that made me fall in love with Prog Rock. Greg Lake‘s powerful vocals on the track Epitaph have much to do with this.

Written around 1969, the lyrics (by Pete Sinfield) are almost prophetic:

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the screams

[…]

Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools

Greg Lake passed away this week, at 69.