From The Beginning Emerson Lake & Palmer

From the Beginning Emerson Lake and Palmer

ELP's formula for successful albums seemed to be a concept covering several songs - a beautiful acoustic number by Greg Lake, and one comedy song per album. For Trilogy, "From the Beginning" was Greg Lake's beautiful acoustic number that showed his acoustic guitar skills were right up there with his bass talents.

A heartfelt song of devotion, Lake claims that the inspiration for the song has left his memory. Says Lake: "Very often lyrics simply come about simply because of the way one feels at a moment in time. There is no earth moving moment of divine inspiration or grand plan and I'm sure that was the case with this song. Although very young at the time I sometimes had moments of reflection and maybe also perhaps a feeling that I could be a better person, I think this was just one of those."

The band is often described as "prog rock," but Carl Palmer feels that's too simplistic. "We were a band that played lots of different genres of music, from jazz to classical adaptations to folk music to rock, and even some blues here and there," he said in his Songfacts interview. "We were quite varied in what we did, so it's really hard to pick out one particular area, because it all made up ELP. There wasn't a blueprint before: We were one of a kind. We were keyboard driven, the singer had a choirboy voice, didn't really use a lot of guitar. We played classical adaptations. There wasn't a lot of jazz in it or blues. A little bit of rock in a sort of symphonic way."

There were 63 roadies on their 1977 tour, including a karate instructor for Palmer and their own doctor. It was also rumored they had a "carpet roadie," whose job was to transport and sweep the Persian rug Lake stood on during the concerts. They also used a 70 piece orchestra.

Lake was previously in King Crimson, Emerson was in The Nice. They met in 1969 when both bands played a show at The Fillmore West in San Francisco.

Before forming Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Keith Emerson and Greg Lake were considering Mitch Mitchell as their drummer, and with the suggestion of Mitchell adding Jimi Hendrix to their lineup. But they later settled on drummer Carl Palmer to form ELP. Shortly afterwards, British tabloids began publishing rumors that Hendrix, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer had formed to become HELP But before the band was able to collaborate with Hendrix, he had passed away.

Palmer formed another supergroup in 1981: Asia. This one had four members, but was also very keyboard oriented with Geoff Downes of Yes.

There might have been things I missed
But don't be unkind
It don't mean I'm blind
Perhaps there's a thing or two
I think of lying in bed
I shouldn't have said
But there it is

You see, it's all clear
You were meant to be here
From the beginning

Maybe I might have changed
And not been so cruel
Not been such a fool
Whatever was done is done
I just can't recall
It doesn't matter at all

You see, it's all clear
You were meant to be here
From the beginning
Writer/s: GREGORY LAKE