Peter Sinfield, whose dream was to make an artistic contribution that would “enlighten, provoke or stir,” was the lyrical mastermind behind some of King Crimson’s best-loved works. The poet had a significant influence on the world of progressive music, applying his skills to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Roxy Music and PFM before branching out into the world of pop. Although he had retired due to ill health, his death on November 2024, at the age of 80, came as a shock to those who knew him.
What image comes into your mind when you think about King Crimson? Chances are it’ll be the screaming face gazing out from the cover of the group’s 1969 debut album. That it’s there at all comes down to Peter Sinfield, who, when the group were casting about for cover ideas, said he knew someone who might be able to do something.
“I used to hang around with all these painters and artists from Chelsea Art School,” Sinfield told me in one of the many long telephone calls we exchanged as I was writing the band’s biography. “I’d known Barry Godber for a couple of years; he’d been to a few rehearsals and spent a bit of time with us.I told him to see what he could come up with. I probably said that the one thing the cover had to do was stand out in record shops.”
Godber managed to achieve that and more. When printed on the LP’s gatefold sleeve, his inspired work channelled the raw paranoia and Cold War dread of the times; and in doing so, stuck a doom-laden chord in the consciousness of the public. As a result, Sinfield – who had also come up with the band’s name, and was at that point the group’s roadie, live sound engineer, light show operator and lyricist – became the group’s de facto art director.
“Peter had a lovely saying he referred to throughout his life,” recalls Stephanie Ruben, who was his girlfriend in 1969, married him a few years later and, despite their eventual divorce, remained a lifelong friend who saw him on the day he passed away. “He’d say, ‘There are kings and makers of kings. And I’m a maker of kings.’ That’s actually a lovely place to be. He didn’t mind not being a face, not being upfront but more in the background.”
He used to self-deprecatingly describe himself as Crimson’s pet hippie, by which he meant someone who was profoundly more connected to the esoteric milieu of London’s underground scene – certainly more so than West Country lads,Michael Giles, Robert Fripp, Greg Lake and Ian McDonald, the latter only just a year out of buying himself out of the army.
Sinfield had a nose for what was hip and knew lots of groovy people at groovy parties. Evidence can be glimpsed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Ken Russell’s 1965 BBC documentary movie The Debussy Film, where Sinfield dances to pop music while Claude Debussy (played by Oliver Reed) searches among the revellers for his muse.
At that point, Sinfield fancied himself as a bit of a singer-songwriter. Admiring Donovan’s Catch The Wind, which was riding high in the singles chart, he thought: how hard can it be? Where Donovan would catch the wind, Sinfield figured he would talk to the wind instead. Recognising his guitar playing was a bit iffy and his singing wasn’t great, he agreed with McDonald when they met in 1968 that Peter should concentrate on writing the words and leave writing the tunes to him.
In an early press interview, Sinfield admitted to being something of a hustler. Perhaps it was meant tongue-in-cheek, but there was some element of truth in it. When King Crimson imploded at the end of 1969 and, he lost his natural writing partner McDonald, Sinfield decided to throw in his lot with Fripp, and went from riding in the back of the van with the roadies to co-ownership of the group. To many fans, the Fripp and Sinfield partnership felt like some progressive rock equivalent of Lennon and McCartney; and while it undoubtedly produced some remarkable material, it was in essence a collaboration born out of necessity.
By 1970 and the recording of King Crimson’s Lizard, Fripp noted Sinfield’s increasing hostility toward him. For his part, Sinfield thought Fripp wasn’t taking his work seriously enough. Stephanie Ruben says Sinfield would sometimes work through the night on a particular lyric, only for Fripp to give the words a perfunctory examination. After the recording of 1971’s Islands, Fripp telephoned Sinfield to say it was over.
“I don’t think Peter ever got over being fired from King Crimson,” says Jakko Jakszyk, who cites Sinfield as responsible for launching him on a trajectory that would see him join the band in 2014. “I think Robert was increasingly uncomfortable with some of the lyrical material and he was uncomfortable with Pete’s attempts to influence or direct the music. But after Crimson, Peter went on to bigger, more financially successful things. He may not have gone there had he not been fired.”
Still was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life… Afterwards, it wasn’t too hard to step away from being the solo artist
Peter Sinfield
One such opportunity came when he was asked to produce Roxy Music’s 1972 self-titled debut. Some in the group would later express their dissatisfaction at his work – but whatever it might have lacked in the way of audio finesse, Sinfield intuitively zeroed in on capturing Roxy’s raw, experimental edge. This aspect would be lost as their career took off. Sinfield would often say his proudest achievement with Roxy Music was their single Virginia Plain, frequently claiming the credit for spotting its hit single potential.
Urged to do so by Greg Lake, whose ELP-owned Manticore label also bankrolled the venture, in 1973 he began recording a solo album, Still. While bands might come and go, the fact that he was still Peter Sinfield seemed to have been one of the subtexts of the project. Released in May of that year, there was definitely a part of him wanting to prove that the ineffable qualities people admired about King Crimson didn’t just reside with Robert Fripp.
Boasting guest appearances from Crimson alumni including Boz Burrell, Ian Wallace, John Wetton, Robin Miller, Keith Tippett, Lake and Mel Collins (the record’s musical director), Still is consistently underrated. Underpinned by pastoral, heartfelt high points such as The Song Of The Sea Goat, Under The Sky, his account of life in Crimson via Envelopes Of Yesterday and Greg Lake’s anthemic vocal on the title track, the album took a lot out of him.
“Working on Still was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life,” he once said. “I can’t stress how difficult recording the album was. And although there was some joy in it, overwhelmingly everything was hard work. There comes a point where you think, ‘Thank God that’s finished!’ Afterwards, it wasn’t too hard to step away from being the solo artist.”
With Cher, Céline Dion, Bucks Fizz and Cliff Richard, his words – once derided as pretentious by his critics – entered the mass market
He could be dangerously capricious. Still’s original cover was salmon pink. One day, he gleefully told this writer that he decided that he’d like it to be blue. That impulsive decision required the withdrawal of the pink edition and the issuing of another version, just as expensively embossed as the first. He would later lament the fact that Still didn’t sell enough to recoup the cost.
While his production work with Manticore continued with Italians PFM and singer-songwriter Keith Christmas, his time became increasingly occupied with ELP. The early Crimson connection with Lake paid off handsomely in the huge solo hit I Believe In Father Christmas, which he co-wrote. It reached No.2 in the UK charts at Christmas 1975 and has become a staple of every seasonal radio playlist ever since.
Sinfield fully embraced the possibilities of writing for a broader audience when he partnered with Andy Hill in the 1980s. With artists such as Cher, Céline Dion, Bucks Fizz, Cliff Richard and other mainstream acts covering their material, Sinfield’s words – once derided as pretentious by his critics in the rock press of the 1970s – had entered the mass market.
In 1993, his solo album was reissued as Stillusion, in a different running order and featuring two tracks from an abandoned 70s follow-up album. (For many years, when asked what he was up to, he’d say he was working on another solo release with help from Family’s Poli Palmer, although it never materialised.)
He wouldn’t have changed lyrics for Céline or Cher or anybody. But he did it for Robert Fripp
Stephanie Ruben
Recalling Sinfield’s role as a kingmaker, Jakszyk says: “It was Peter’s idea to put together a band of ex-Crimson members. Talking to Mike Giles and Ian McDonald, he suggested me as someone who could play the guitar parts. I remember the first rehearsal was meant to be with John Wetton, but he didn’t make it and Peter Giles turned up instead. So that became The 21st Century Schizoid Band. It was all at Pete Sinfield’s inception. That’s how I got involved in the whole thing – and ultimately from there into King Crimson.”
When Crimson did reconfigure in 2014, Fripp asked Sinfield to update the lyrics for 21st Century Schizoid Man. “We laughed,” Ruben recalls, “saying, ‘What a cheek!’ You know, like asking Beethoven to change part of a symphony. But, of course, he did it happily. He wouldn’t have done that for anybody else, not Céline or Cher or anybody. But he did it for Robert.”
Crimson revisiting some of the pieces that Sinfield co-wrote gave him an enormous boost. “They played and sang his songs and that was like a gift,” says Ruben. “They could spit and crack out those words out of their mouths and they did it gloriously. That’s all he ever wanted.”
Sinfield could be confrontational and a contrarian, says Ruben, but it was his way of keeping others at bay. “Peter didn’t always make it easy for people. A wordsmith can be quite spiky. There’s always a part of the artist who doesn’t believe in their work. Peter didn’t really understand how loved his work had become over the years.
He might have hoped for it, but he never expected that so many took his work to heart
Stephanie Ruben
“He would have been utterly moved by all this outpouring of love and respect for it after he died. He might have hoped for it, but he never expected that so many took his work to heart; that these people heard something, learned something or just liked something of his.”
Dogged by various serious medical conditions in his later years, he tried to avoid being defined by them. “He was so brave. good-humoured and sharp-witted throughout the last 10 years of the most appalling illnesses,” Ruben says. “He always used to say that one should leave something behind – not necessarily with your name on it, but a contribution to the planet, however tiny that might be. A contribution that might enlighten, provoke or stir.”
