Peter Sinfield, King Crimson’s Original Lyricist and Key Collaborator, Dead at 80

Peter Sinfield, King Crimson’s lyricist, live technical wizard, and roadie, died Thursday, Nov. 14. He was 80.

Sinfield’s death was confirmed by Discipline Global Mobile, the record label founded by King Crimson’s Robert Fripp. No cause of death was given, though the statement did mention that Sinfield “had been suffering form declining health for several years.” A rep for DGM did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

Sinfield played a significant role in the formation and early success of King Crimson, serving as lyricist and artistic director, while also providing all sorts of practical help. He found the band’s first practice space in a cafe basement in London and even came up with their name.

“I wanted something very arrogant, so that’s why I wanted the ‘King’ in it, royalty … because it was a very arrogant band,” Sinfield told Rolling Stone in 2019. “The music played was so varied and so clever, that I wanted the arrogance to be there ready and waiting in the name.” He added that “Crimson” was “just the color you would use if you were painting a lot of flames and violent pictures and strange, violent creatures.”

Sinfield first got involved with the pre-King Crimson group Giles, Giles and Fripp via his friendship with keys player Ian McDonald (he helped write the lyrics to two songs, “I Talk to the Wind” and “Under the Sky,” recorded in 1968). He stuck around as the group morphed into King Crimson and was deeply involved with the creation of their seminal debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King. Along with contributing lyrics to the album’s five tracks, Sinfield sourced the famed cover art from his friend, Barry Godber. 

In that Rolling Stone interview, Sinfield recalled the early King Crimson rehearsals and the band’s search for “something heavy.” The lead riff to “21st Century Schizoid Man” was “exactly what we were looking for,” he added, going on to explain how he drew on the chaos of the era and “violent pictures” of the Vietnam War for the lyrics. 

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Sinfield admitted he had “absolutely no idea” where the word “schizoid” came from, nor did he have “any knowledge of schizophrenia.” But he said the term “seemed like another word for a collective of mad people to me. And why ‘21st Century’? I don’t know; it just sounded better than ‘20th century.’ It had the right sound to it: a lot of people going insane…. It’s a prophecy; it’s very sort of prescient. And I was definitely putting it in the near future. The world was going in that direction.” 

Sinfield wrote lyrics, commissioned artwork for, and co-produced (with Fripp) King Crimson’s next three albums, 1970’s In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard and 1971’s Islands. He also joined the band on the road, serving as a roadie, lights operator, and sound engineer.

During this short span, however, King Crimson’s lineup and sound began to shift, and Sinfield’s personality and creative instincts began to clash with Fripp’s. As he told Uncut in 2014, Fripp worked in a “very strict, concrete, disciplined way,” while Sinfield acknowledged he wasn’t the “most disciplined of people.” Sinfield was also eager to incorporate a “softer, Ahmad Jamal/Miles Davis-y feel to the music,” while Fripp wanted something harder and heavier. 

“In that situation you start becoming disrespectful to your partner,” Sinfield said. “And this was what happened. I started cutting him off, and he quite rightly got tired of that, to the point where he said, ‘One of us has got to go, and I’m not leaving.’”

After King Crimson, Sinfield was tapped to guide the early days of another burgeoning act, Roxy Music, producing their first single, “Virginia Plain,” and self-titled debut album, both of which arrived in 1972. The following year, Sinfield released his first and only solo album, Still, while in 1974, he published a collection of poetry and lyrics, Under the Sky. 

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Sinfield also remained close with his fellow former King Crimson bandmate, Greg Lake, and the pair continued to collaborate as Lake went on to co-found Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. He contributed lyrics to four ELP albums during the Seventies (Brain Salad Surgery, Works Volume 1 and 2, and Love Beach), and produced and co-wrote for the Italian band, Premiata Forneria Marconi, who where signed to ELP’s label, Manticore Records. 

Over the next few decades, Sinfield continued to work as a lyricist for an array of artists, including Bucks Fizz, Leo Sayer, Cher, David Cross, and Celine Dion. In 2014, Sinfield reunited with King Crimson when Fripp invited him to contribute lyrics to an updated version of “21st Century Schizoid Man.”