CRITICAL CUT: Child In Time

A warm Hello from one this Perfect Stranger to all of you Perfect Strangers out there in the Rockers for Life ether. We’ll begin our Deep Purple journey with the song that had transformed how I’ve thought about Pop/Rock music up to that point. That song is the epic, Child in Time, one of the very first songs written in 1969, just as the “classic” MK2 lineup was coming together. About a year later, Child in Time along with six other newly penned compositions was released on the In Rock album, considered by some critics as the greatest hard rock album ever released. I was 13 the first time I heard it, and the first version I heard was not from In Rock, but from, what in my view is the best live rock album ever made, Made in Japan.

What you need to know is that until my late teens I lived on the other side of the “Iron Curtain,” in communist Poland. Western music was very hard to come by. Records that you could buy were only from Polish or other Eastern European artists, and most of these were not in the genre of rock and roll, and definitely not heavy rock. If you wanted to get records from Wester artists, you had to buy them on the “black market,” which was very expensive. So to hear English or American bands, most young people borrowed those records from their friends who were lucky to have them, and made copies, either on a cassette or reel to reel tape; my family didn’t own anything that could play either one.

Picture the setting: your humble Perfect Stranger as a thirteen year old at his first “dance” at a summer camp. The music that was played included some decent Polish pop, rock and blues, and Hungarian rock (the only Easter-block country that had put out decent rock music) as Hungary, although still communist, was more open to Western ideas.

Among this cornucopia of Easter-European music, one of the camp counselors starts playing a reel-to-reel tape of what I found out later was Side 1 of Made in Japan. First is Highway Star; never in my life have I heard anything that fast!

See the blind man, he’s shooting at the world. Bullets flying, ohhh taking toll.

When the song ends, we hear applause, and then a slow melody played on a Hammond organ comes through the speakers. At the same time someone turns on the black light. Its dark hue fills the room and all light colored, especially white clothing turns deep-purple. After a minute of the slow melody, a male voice creeps in, soft and gentle: “Sweet child in time you’ll see the line, Line that’s drawn between the Good and the Bad.” The combination of the slow Hammond melody and the voice is chilling. Much later, I learn that the singer’s name is Ian Gillan. As the second verse starts, the singer’s voice increases in volume and fills with emotion: “See the blind man, he’s shooting at the world, the bullets flying, mmm they’re taking toll.” After a couple more emotion-filled verses, the voice turns to a soft cooing that after each subsequent passage gets louder and louder, making what started off as a soft cry, into a roaring lament. WOW, I’ve never heard anything like it in any musical genre. As I recall many of us stopped dancing. To this day, I get chills when I hear that!

Then, the song takes another turn: loud and heavy drums and electric guitar start playing a riff that to my ears sounds a bit like Ravel’s “Bolero,” except faster! Then the drum pattern changes from a march to up-tempo locomotive and the guitar, which for now was in the background, becomes the lead instrument. For the next three minutes we hear, the guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore run up and down the neck of his guitar, his fingers flying on the fretboard faster and faster; it almost sounds like chaos but there’s also melody there. The sounds emanating from the instrument range from otherworldly demonic noises to an ambulance siren, and then we hear a melody that increases in speed that soon is joined by the Hammond organ. The organist, Jon Lord and the drummer, Ian Paice appear to be trying to catch up to the Ritchie’s guitar histrionics; keeping this musical cacophony all together is solid bass playing from Roger Glover, who’s making sure that this doesn’t end up as a train wreck. As the frenzy increases, all of the sudden, the music STOPS!

I’m drenched in sweat (yeah we were gyrating and dancing ever faster trying to catch up to the music). Just as I think the song is over (it appears by their applause that some in the audience on the record felt the same), I hear the return of the Hammond organ melody that began the song. The same verses and screams comeback too, but everything seem to sound louder with extra energy. And instead of the march of the Bolero, the drums kick up a sound closer to a gallop of horses. The guitar picks up the rhythm and starts playing a steady riff, then the Hammond kicks in, galloping faster and faster, Ian Gillan raps some unintelligible words and then starts screaming. Now the five musicians sound closer a modern symphonic orchestra or a jazz band playing Be Bop than rock group. And just as you think the whole band is about to careen off a musical cliff, after about 12 minutes, a crash of cymbals and a soft fading Hammond end this incredible musical journey. Some have called it, Art Rock.

There you have it fellow Perfect Strangers, my review of, what for a LONG TIME was, my favorite song, and how I came to hear it for the very first time. For those who are curious, I did not hear the studio version of Child in Time from the phenomenal In Rock album until about two years later after my family and I immigrated to the United States.

I’d love to hear when it was that you first heard Child in Time, and what were your first impressions, or what the first Deep Purple song you heard was, and where were you when you heard it. Also, please let me know your favorite Deep Purple tunes, and what makes them important to you. I hope and trust that shortly, we will no longer be Perfect Strangers and instead, will become Perfect Friends.