Understanding Moonchild

many people hate the track "Moonchild" from "In the Court of the Crimson King"; they call it "boring" or "pointless noodling". it is, however, anything but that. the long instrumental part is an attempt at expressing the lyrics with instrumental means alone. you can actually find every line of the lyrics in the instrumental section. not necessarily in the sequence they appear though, except for the last; this is the logic of dreams.

I will give two examples for that; they may encourage you to go looking, or rather listening,  for the rest. it is actually a lot of fun when you look at "Moonchild" from this angle and try to spot the lines.

the line "dropping circle stones on a sun dial" is expressed from 6:10 to 7:10, with stones of different size.

the line "playing hide and seek with the ghosts of dawn" can be found from 9:48 to 10:20. you can almost hear the Moonchild cry out "come and catch me" in that sequence.

I could give more examples, but go and try to figure it out for yourself now.

here a link to that track on YouTube:



Edited by BaldJean - March 07 2014 at 20:18

To the OP: I don't hear any of it. Some musical interpretations just don't work for me.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - March 07 2014 at 20:51

Have never thought about it that way though in any case I don't relate to the uproar over the second half of Moonchild.  When I listen to it next time.

Wafflesyrup wrote: I've never understood the debate. I love that track start to finish.

Dayvenkirq wrote: dr prog wrote: I only rate 2 songs on the album. I rate 4 songs on Poseidon and 3 on lizard. So the debut is the weakest How does the strength of an album depend on the things that you have no mathematically reflected opinion on? And what does it have to do with the idea of this thread?

Only the fact that you've somehow never noticed that dr prog is a troll

Its actually a very long time since I listened to the whole album. I tend to think of it as a bit of a relic anyway. A very important relic nonetheless. However the next time I listen to it I promise not to skip anything.

They should get you to write the 33½ book about In the Court..., Jean.

BaldJean wrote: Dean wrote: I suspect that apophenia (" the human tendency to seek patterns in random information") is at play here. I don't think so, Dean. Cert1fied was of the same opinion (though) I did not know this). Friede agrees with me too. and in some moments of the track it is in my opinion quite obvious, as for example the major chord at the end which signifies the smile of the sunchild. since the title track starts almost attaca after "Moonchild" I also like to think the newly risen sun shines on the court of the crimson king which now slowly awakens

Dean wrote: BaldJean wrote: Dean wrote: I suspect that apophenia (" the human tendency to seek patterns in random information") is at play here. I don't think so, Dean. Cert1fied was of the same opinion (though) I did not know this). Friede agrees with me too. and in some moments of the track it is in my opinion quite obvious, as for example the major chord at the end which signifies the smile of the sunchild. since the title track starts almost attaca after "Moonchild" I also like to think the newly risen sun shines on the court of the crimson king which now slowly awakens It doesn't  matter how many people agree with you, we all can recognise familiar features in random patterns and we it is very likely we will all see something similar. When that pattern is an emotion such as a smile then you are invoking artistic licence in your interpretation that is unique to your personal interpretation  (yes, I know major cords are happy chords but the "smile" line in the lyric is a rather forlorn line).  Yes, I know music is capable of creating an image, pastoral setting in the Rite of Spring is not only self-evident (due to very easily recognised motifs) it was written to be like that. With free-form instrumental improvisation (and this section is called "The Illusion" after all, not "The Dream") it is inevitable that those improvisations would develop themes from within the vocal section, that is the nature of improvisation is it not? Weather that is a deliberate attempt to express those lyrics in sound only Robert Fripp can answer, but until such a pronouncement is made, I'm keeping an open mind to all theories, including any that can just as easily be attributed to apophenia. Remember that once you have been made aware of a apophenia pattern in random information it is impossible to un-see it.

I know all this very well, Dean. the problem is you can not distinguish apophenia from purposeful sound picturing unless you know about the purpose of the artist.

would you call the thunderstorm in the fourth  movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony apophenia? I hardly think so; we both know that this is meant to be a thunderstorm. yet probably everyone who listens to it for the first tme without knowing anything about it would probably have the same associations, don't you agree?


Edited by BaldJean - March 08 2014 at 09:13

octopus-4 wrote: I'll take a look next time I listen.

I thought about my words there. It sounded better than "I'll take a listen next time I listen."