Pictures of a City

This is only my opinion and should not be taken as the actual meaning of the song, you should interpret it on your own. That being said, I love King Crimson and have listened to this song many times and I consider myself a deep philosophical thinker and a poet. I also have lived in a large society for a large part of my life but have also experienced living in small villages. But here are some thoughts I having right now.

The first part is just describing what a city is, you have a concrete jungle, and the buildings are like giant faces cased in steel. You have cars driving around at night with loud flashing lights and slamming on brakes. You have lights everywhere telling you what to do. Red, stop, green go. All very man made and unnatural. This song pairs with "Cat food", I think they both are commenting on modern society, but this album was made in the 70s and I think it still describes our world today. Which is proof of the truth in the lyrics.

I would say the second verse is about all the sinning in the city, chasing beautiful but unnatural women that shave every inch of their body and put chemicals on themselves to make themselves more attractive... there's lying. hiding smiles, sins that are sugar coated, (tinseled), drugs, parties, gambling, feeling all the dopamine, you can't help but smile. Now you are at a casino throwing away your money, addiction and disease plague the mind and it cuts to an instrumental where the city is sleeping, there are still sounds but it isn't as alarming. The silence doesn't last for long though and then the third verse hits with a thundering crash and a culmination of great progression of part of the song concludes.

Now the city dweller is deaf, dumb, blind, thirsty, hungry, incoherent, on the outside you wear this dreamlike flesh, but its concrete, its artifical just like the city, and like the city, on the underside, deep within, it is a nasty place. Your soul has lost its way, it is like being in hell.

what i find amazing is, once you get past the ITCOTCK album, the comments on king crimson songs fall to practically nil. once you get past the obvious misspelling of city, the lyrics of the song seem to suggest a drunken dancehall patrons after hours car chase of his dream girl dance partner from earlier in the evening resulting in her death behind the wheel. more to the point, musically, i think this song points to the work fripp,wetton,bruford, and co. would do with larks tongues, starless, and red. to me these three are essential crimson recordings. oh, back to the song at hand; good song. its off the in the wake of poseidon album. also worth a listen.

Great song, although perhaps a little too similar to Schizoid Man from the first album. In fact the wholoe first side of In The Wake Of Posiedon sounds like an extension of the first album... Second side is much better in my opinion.

Sinfield was an incredible poet. The intricacy of those lyrics, and the powerful images he suggests...it's like a dream world. Brilliant.

I agree with what Cecil said about similarity, though it's a lot different in that the tempo is sped way up.

It's about time somebody commented on this song.