Child In Time, Deep Purple

"Child In Time"

Deep Purple Live 1970
The finished Audio lists at 553kbs.

"If you've been bad
Lord I bet you have
And you've not been hit
Oh by flying lead

You'd better close your eyes
Ooohhhhhhh bow your head
Wait for the ricochet"

"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. 
Blackmore is normally associated with playing a Fender Stratocaster, however, he played a Gibson ES-335 on the studio version of the song.


Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical approach changed over the years. Originally formed as a progressive rock band, the band's sound shifted to hard rock in 1970. Deep Purple, together with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, have been referred to as the "unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-Seventies". They were listed in the 1975 Guinness Book of World Records as "the globe's loudest band" for a 1972 concert at London's Rainbow Theatre, and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide, including 8,5 million certified units in the US.
The band has gone through many line-up changes and an eight-year hiatus (1976–1984). The 1968–1976 line-ups are commonly labelled Mark I, II, III and IV.Their second and most commercially successful line-up featured Ian Gillan (vocals), Jon Lord (organ), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums), and Ritchie Blackmore (guitar). This line-up was active from 1969 to 1973, and was revived from 1984 to 1989, and again from 1992 to 1993The band began in earnest in March 1968 at Deeves Hall, a country house in South Mimms, Hertfordshire. The band would live, write and rehearse at Deeves Hall, which was fully kitted out with the latest Marshall amplification. After a brief tour of Denmark and Sweden in April, in which they were still billed as Roundabout,Blackmore suggested a new name: "Deep Purple", named after his grandmother's favourite song. The group had resolved to choose a name after everyone had posted one on a board in rehearsal. Second to Deep Purple was "Concrete God", which the band thought was too harsh to take on. One song (which later became "Highway Star") was performed at the first gig of the Fireball tour, having been written on the bus to a show in Portsmouth, in answer to a journalist's question: "How do you go about writing songs?" Three months later, in December 1971, the band travelled to Switzerland to record Machine Head. The album was due to be recorded at a casino in Montreux, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, but a fire during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention gig, caused by a man firing a flare gun into the ceiling, burned down the casino. This incident famously inspired the song "Smoke on the Water". The album was later recorded in a corridor at the nearby empty Grand Hotel.

Lyrics

"Child In Time"

Sweet child in time
You'll see the line
The line that's drawn between
Good and bad

See the blind man
Shooting at the world
Bullets flying 
Ohh taking toll

If you've been bad
Oh Lord I bet you have
And you've not been hit
Oh by flying lead

You'd better close your eyes
Ooohhhh bow your head
Wait for the ricochet

Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Ooo, ooo ooo
Ooo ooo ooo

Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Ooo, ooo ooo
Ooo ooo ooo

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh
Aah I wanna hear you sing

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh
Aaahhhh

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh

Sweet child in time
You'll see the line
The line that's drawn between
Good and bad

See the blind man
Shooting at the world
Bullets flying 
Mmmm taking toll

If you've been bad
Lord I bet you have
And you've not been hit
Oh by flying lead

You'd better close your eyes
Ooohhhhhhh bow your head
Wait for the ricochet

Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Ooo, ooo ooo
Ooo ooo ooo

Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Oooooo ooooooo ooooooo 
Ooo, ooo ooo
Ooo ooo ooo

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh
Aah I gotta hear you sing

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh
Aah

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh
Aah

Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh 
Aaaahh aaaahh aaaahh
Aahh, aahh aahh

Oh..God oh no..oh God no..oh..ah..no ah
AAh..oh..
Aawaah..ohh

here you have the chords:

Deep Purple - Child in Time

(Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice)

From "Deep Purple in Rock" (1970)

------------------------------------

Intro:

G G Am     G G Am     F F G     G G Am

1. verse

G G Am                     G G Am

       Sweet Child in time

                     F F G

 you'll see the line

                   G G Am

The line that's drawn between

               G G Am

The good and the bad

                        G G Am

See the blind man

                        F F G

 Shooting at the world

                     G G Am

Bullets flying

               G G Am

 taking toll

                   G G Am

If you've been bad,

                   F F G

Lord I bet you have

                        G G Am

And you've not been hit

                 G G Am

by flying lead

                             G G Am

You'd better close your eyes

                   F F G

and bow your head

G G Am

       Wait for the ricochet

G G Am / G G Am / F F G / G G Am

(Same chord sequence repeated three times

with the infamous screams over)

(INSTRUMENTAL)

2. verse (as first)

Sweet child in time you'll see the line

The line that's drawn between the good and the bad

See the blind man shooting at the world

Bullets flying taking toll

If you've been bad, Lord I bet you have

And you've not been hit by flying lead

You'd better close your eyes and bow your head

(And) wait for the ricochet

G G Am / G G Am / F F G / G G Am

(Same chord sequence repeated (four times?) with the infamous screams over)

(INSTRUMENTAL - "FINALE")

(Screams and ad lib)

Originally posted by Walt Dabell, walt@diusys.cms.udel.edu.

Corrections and additons by Trond J. Stroem (t.j.strom@ub.uio.no)

=====================================================

Deep Purple biography
The archetypal hard rock band, hugely influential, and still alive and well after almost 40 years, DEEP PURPLE were formed in Hertford (England) in 1968. Their earliest line-up (known as Mark I) featured guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice (who was to be the only constant member in all the numerous incarnations of the band), keyboardist Jon Lord, bassist Nick Simper and vocalist Rod Evans. Their first album, "Shades of Deep Purple", included a cover of JOE SOUTH's "Hush", which became a big hit in the USA. The following two efforts were definitely more progressive in tone, especially their third, self-titled album, which saw Lord's masterful, classically-influenced use of the B3 Hammond organ steal the limelight.

In 1969, Evans and Simper were fired, to be replaced by two former Episode Six members, bassist Roger Glover and legendary vocalist Ian Gillan, who had also starred in the lead role in the original version of Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice's "Jesus Christ Superstar". This line-up, which is widely known as DEEP PURPLE Mark II, gave the band international renown - even though their first album, Lord's pet project "Concerto for Group and Orchestra" (recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) was poorly received.

With Gillan and Glover on board, DEEP PURPLE recorded a series of extremely successful albums, which saw them blend the progressive stylings of their first three albums with an increasingly harder-edged approach, like 1970' ground-breaking "In Rock". Their sound featured lengthy, dazzling duels between Lord's Hammond and Blackmore's Stratocaster, punctuated by Gillan's sky-high screams - nowhere better embodied than in their stunning, 1972 live album, "Made in Japan". In the same year, they released "Machine Head", one of the essential rock albums of all time, which featured the seminal riff of "Smoke on the Water" (inspired by a true episode happened during the recording of the album itself in Montreux, Switzerland), as well as other classics such as "Highway Star" and "Space Truckin'".

Unfortunately, ego clashes and differences in musical direction caused the departure of both Gillan and Glover, who were replaced by an already established musician (also possessed of awesome pipes), former TRAPEZE bassist and vocalist Glenn Hughes, and an unknown singer from North Yorkshire, David Coverdale, whose deep, bluesy voice was distinctly different from Gillan's high-pitched wail. The first Mark III album, ...read more

Deep Purple official website