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Showing posts with the label Emerson Lake and Palmer

A Deceptive Humanist Christmas Song

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen The late Greg Lake, most notably of the progressive rock bands King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer had a "Christmas" song that wasn't. The lyrics were written by Peter Sinfield. There are conflicting accounts and misconceptions about "I Believe in Father Christmas", that it is a Christmas song, it was never intended to be such ("...about a loss of innocence and childhood belief"), Vietnam war protest, it's an atheist song, it's not atheist but rather "humanist" (as if there's a difference), and so on. I'll allow that it has excellent music and thought-provoking lyrics. Sinfield wrote lyrics for ELP and King Crimson, and Lake wrote many lyrics himself, including all of those on ELP's Tarkus album . One of these was " The Only Way (Hymn) ", a mocking anti-theistic and anti-Christian song , including the lyrics, "Don't need the word now that you've heard. Don't be