Peter Sinfield - RIP

RIP, of course.

At the time, things were new and mostly about "art rock" and some of those bands thought that poetry was much more ideal for it, than just lyrics ... and you can go back to the Moody Blues.

The sad thing is that as the 1970's arrived, the rock press took over a lot of things, and the likes of Melody Maker and New Express ... were not exactly a nice bunch when it came to "Art Rock" ... they stuck with the big sellers and the big hits and stars, for a long while, to the point of it getting a bit ridiculous.

There were a lot of folks that were far out when it came to lyrics/poetry and some stood out and some didn't. I've enjoyed a few of them and always stood up for them, up to and including Bob Dylan. But at the time, there were a few folks out there that were valuable and important ... The Last Poets being one of them, sadly completely ignored, and they were not exactly vanilla stuff. And Gil Scott-Heron was also a valuable member of the club ... but the rock press ignored it, as did most fans, that, by that time, were already stuck on the "hits" and not quite the music. The film "Performance" has a small bit with The Last Poets and it is strong and incendiary. I would say it even makes a lot of rap these days sound bad.

I like these folks work and their words ... they were not exactly "vacuous" folks although the rock press was not happy being invaded by folks that were not musicians thru and thru.

To me, a lot of the work that Pete Sinfield wrote, were really special, and in the way that Greg Lake expressed them, even stronger and better ... you couldn't help feel it ... and ... for me, that added to the value of the music ... something that today is quite ignored, and not appreciated. I just dread to see the day that my friend Roy Harper goes to another celestial address ... some far out work ... and I think he is the one "poet" that I enjoy the most ... but I'll also leave a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan who was known to change his lyrics all the time ... specially in the early bootlegs ... and when THE MASKED MARAUDERS came out, it was almost like .... go Bob go ... and fun! 

But the time is long gone ...today the Internet will destroy any scene in music very quickly with so many folks being overly opinionated and always ready to put things down because it is not their favorite. 

One can only hope that we can get the lyricism and poetry on a lot of works out there ... AGAIN ... though the Internet has made sure that "words" are meaningless, and without that ... poetry will suffer badly, and lyrics even worse.