Child in Time
| "Child in Time" | |
|---|---|
Cover of the 1972 Belgium single
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| Song by Deep Purple from the album Deep Purple in Rock | |
| Released | June 1970 |
| Recorded | 1969–1970 at IBC Studios, London |
| Genre | |
| Length | 10:18 |
| Label |
Harvest (UK) Warner Bros. (US) |
| Writer(s) | Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice |
| Producer(s) | Deep Purple |
"Child in Time" is a song by the English rock band Deep Purple. A protest song against the Vietnam War, it is featured on the band's 1970 album Deep Purple in Rock and runs for over 10 minutes.
Ian Gillan has said that "Child in Time" is based on It's a Beautiful Day's psychedelic song "Bombay Calling". It's a Beautiful Day in return borrowed Purple's "Wring That Neck" and turned it into "Don and Dewey" on their second album Marrying Maiden (1970). As Ian Gillan put it in a 2002 interview, "There are two sides to that song - the musical side and the lyrical side. On the musical side, there used to be this song 'Bombay Calling' by a band called It's A Beautiful Day. It was fresh and original, when Jon was one day playing it on his keyboard. It sounded good, and we thought we'd play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base. But then, I had never heard the original 'Bombay Calling'. So we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines 'Sweet child in time, you'll see the line.' That's how the lyrical side came in. Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie had the guitar parts ready. The song basically reflected the mood of the moment, and that's why it became so popular."
"Child in Time" is an essentially simple composition, featuring an organ intro, three power chords, and a two-minute-long guitar solo. Lyrically dark, vocalist Ian Gillan utilizes his wide vocal range and goes from quiet singing to loud, high-pitched, banshee-esque screaming. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore comes in with a slow solo, which builds up to a fast-pace playing and then ends abruptly, with the whole song cycle starting over again sans guitar solo. The song was one of the last on which Blackmore recorded his parts using the Gibson ES-335 that had been his mainstay electric instrument in Deep Purple's early years prior to switching to . With themes of war and inhumanity, the song is regarded as a heavy metal anthem and an example of art rock.
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