These are words with a D this time.

What follows is a personal story in which my own musical horizons are broadened. I hope you'll indulge me.

There used to be a not-half-bad sketch comedy show called Fridays that came out around when SNL was starting to peak for the first time. I remember watching it one night when the musical guest was some group named King Crimson.

I'd never heard of them before, and when they started into a song called "Elephant Talk," I had no idea what was going on. I had never heard this kind of music before, or seen instruments played this way. Why was that one guy strumming the strings on the headstock and twiddling the little knobs on that box? How was he making his guitar sound like an elephant? And what in the world is that thing that the bald guy is playing? Were these people insane or something?

At first, I thought I didn't like it. But I was very, very wrong. It stuck with me for some time, and a while later, when my record club sent me a copy of Discipline (the album on which this appears) by mistake, I ripped it open and listened to it about a hundred million times.

Thanks to the internet, and YouTube, I can watch that performance again, and think back to that time when everything I thought I knew about music started to change.

In fact, my loyal Parts Unknown readers can watch it, too, and maybe even find their horizons broadened as well: King Crimson - Elephant Talk



Learn more: King Crimson's official website | Elephant Talk, a now-defunct but still info-packed KC newsletter | Wikipedia: King Crimson
Other great King Crimson performances on YouTube: Dinosaur - Three of a Perfect Pair - Frame By Frame - Matte Kudasai