Emerson Lake & Palmer (album) - Songs

Songs

Take a Pebble by Greg Lake is a full band arrangement, with the primary sections being a jazz arrangement by keyboardist Keith Emerson, and the middle section being a folk guitar work by Lake with water-like percussion effects by Carl Palmer, plus a bit of clapping and whistling. The end returns to the jazz arrangement by Emerson, starting with a modal based improvisation on top of the primary ostinato.

"Lucky Man" is a folk rock ballad by Lake, and is similar to those he would produce on subsequent albums (e.g. "From the Beginning" and "C'est La Vie"). The album's single, it was originally recorded to fill leftover space at the end of the album at the request of the record company. It was written by Greg Lake for acoustic guitar when he was 12 years of age, and was not originally well received by Emerson or Palmer. At Lake's request, Emerson played a solo on his modular Moog synthesizer. In the October 1977 Dominic Milano interview of Keith Emerson in Keyboard Magazine (at that time called "Contemporary Keyboard Magazine"), and much later on the band's DVD Beyond the Beginning, Emerson said the solo was recorded in one take. The brief electric guitar interlude, on top of the multi-tracked overdubbed vocal and acoustic guitar parts, was overdubbed by Lake. In more recent live full band performances (with either ELP or with The Keith Emerson Band), Emerson generally plays a version of the interlude melody on Hammond organ, whereas on earlier live versions, Greg Lake would sing and perform the piece on acoustic guitar sans any Moog solo or drums (such as on Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen).

The second movement of Emerson's "The Three Fates" suite showcases his solo piano playing.

Palmer's solo spot "Tank" was composed with Emerson. The first section features Emerson on clavinet and piano, Lake on bass and Palmer on drums. The middle section is a drum solo. The final section features Emerson on clavinet and Moog synthesizer.

Although the composition of the first track, "The Barbarian", was attributed to the three band members, it is an arrangement for rock band of Béla Bartók’s 1911 piano piece, Allegro Barbaro. The third track, "Knife Edge", is based on the first movement of Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta (1926) with an instrumental middle section that includes an extended quotation from the Allemande of Johann Sebastian Bach's first French Suite in D minor, BWV 812, but played on an organ rather than clavichord or piano. None of these quotations are attributed on the original U.S.A. Atlantic Records vinyl release, nor on any later U.S.A. CD issues, but all except the Bach quote are clearly listed on the back cover of the British Manticore vinyl album release.

Although a quad mix of this album was never issued, 'Lucky Man' was included on the DVD-Audio 5.1 surround released by Rhino as #R9 75980 in 2000. See 2012 re-release notes for updated information on a new re-issue package that includes a CD+DVD-A discs.