Peter Sinfield

During this time Sinfield wrote an increasing number of haiku. After his appearance at the Genoa Poetry Festival at the Ducal Palace in June 2010, he has turned his creative energies more towards poetry.

Sinfield is still active as a writer and appeared in the 2009 BBC documentary Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements.

In 2005, Sinfield was referred to as a "prog rock hero" in Q magazine for his lyrical work and influence in the music industry.

There had been rumours of a second solo album, and Sinfield worked on it for a couple of years with vibraphone player and programmer Poli Palmer, formerly of Family. It was always a challenging project, made more so by Sinfield's quadruple bypass operation in 2005. After a period of convalescence, Sinfield attempted to restart the project, but it failed to take off.

Sinfield now lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. He is still active within the songwriting community and is a member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors committee. He underwent heart surgery in 2005, from which he is now fully recovered.

In the United Kingdom, he continued to release hits with Hill, including "I Hear Talk" by Bucks Fizz and "Have You Ever Been in Love" by Leo Sayer (which they wrote with John Danter). He also co-wrote Five Star's "Rain or Shine" with Billy Livsey. After divorcing his wife and leaving Majorca, he returned to the UK around 1990 to a flat in Holland Park and continued to write lyrics for popular music. In 1993, he re-released his solo album as Stillusion. In the same year, he and Hill released "Think Twice" by Celine Dion, which went on to become a massive hit and won an Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically". Sinfield and Hill had also won an Ivor Novello a decade previously for the Leo Sayer track, "Have You Ever Been in Love".

Upon his return to London in 1980, his publisher introduced him to Andy Hill, a composer and fellow songwriter. He and Sinfield collaborated on such hits as "The Land of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz, which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, and became one of the biggest-selling hits of the decade. While re-educating himself to adapt to the pop music industry with the help of Hill, he returned to Spain, where he was already established in the communities within Ibiza and Barcelona, and as his career progressed, moved into a house in Majorca. At this time, he appeared on Spanish television programme Musical Express, where he was interviewed and performed a set with Boz Burrell, Tim Hinkley, Michael Giles, Bobby Tench, Mel Collins, and Gary Brooker.

Sinfield also wrote the lyrics, in 1978–1980, for the English versions of Alla fiera dell'est (Highdown Fair) and La pulce d'acqua (Fables and Fantasies), by Italian singer-songwriter Angelo Branduardi and, in 1981–1983, for "It's Your Dream" (Nikka Costa), "My First Love", "I Believe in Fairy Tales", and "Trick or Treat" (Fairy Tales), by the American child singer Nikka Costa.

During this time, Sinfield lived with his first wife Stephanie in The Mill House, Surrey, which was loaned to him by ELP. His neighbour was Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, with whom he co-wrote five songs on Brooker's first solo album No More Fear of Flying. He also released a book containing his previous lyrics and poems titled Under the Sky (named after one of the lyrics from Still). In 1975, "I Believe in Father Christmas", a song co-written with Greg Lake was released.

In 1973, Sinfield formed a band provisionally called A Bowl of Soup and featuring Phil Jump on keyboards, Richard Brunton on guitar, Allan "Min" Mennie on drums, Steve Dolan on bass, and Sinfield himself on vocals, guitar, and synthesizer. A Bowl of Soup were booked to record an album at Command Studios. This album, Still, was ultimately credited as a Pete Sinfield solo album, and in addition to the five members of A Bowl of Soup it featured input from numerous former (Greg Lake, Mel Collins, Ian Wallace), and future (John Wetton) Crimson alumni. While working on Still, he was approached by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who needed a lyricist of Sinfield's calibre. Sinfield put it more bluntly: "Greg [Lake] called me. 'I need help with the lyrics.' And, boy, did he need help." Still was originally released on ELP's own Manticore label in 1973, but Sinfield found himself subsumed into Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Already having a fear of the stage which he had little time to overcome due to writing demands, his solo career was put on hold and he worked with ELP for the next few years.

Fripp became involved with other projects (most notably the Centipede orchestra), which left Sinfield with much of the responsibility for the final version and design of the album, including the uniquely ornate jacket. The relationship between Sinfield and Fripp became increasingly strained as the band progressed. On their fourth album, Islands, Sinfield began exploring new lyrical territory, with more sexual imagery juxtaposed with the languidly surreal title track. On 1 January 1972, following a tour of the United States, Fripp told Sinfield he could no longer work with him and asked him to leave the group.

In 1972, Sinfield remained associated with E.G. Records, which represented King Crimson and Roxy Music, and it was while Sinfield was producing Roxy Music's debut album and their hit single "Virginia Plain" that he first decided to try his own hand at recording a solo album. In 1973 he wrote English lyrics for the Italian group Premiata Forneria Marconi (also known as PFM) and produced their first album for ELP's Manticore Records, titled, Photos of Ghosts as well as The World Became the World.

During the late 1970s, he continued to move in communities around Spain. In 1978, following the success of his previous lyrics for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Sinfield was asked by ELP to produce lyrics for their album Love Beach, now regarded by many (including Sinfield himself) to be the weakest of all ELP's albums. In 1978 he also narrated Robert Sheckley's In a Land of Clear Colours, an audio sci-fi story released the following year on a limited edition of 1000 vinyl records. The backing music for the story was provided by Brian Eno, with whom Sinfield had previously worked while producing Roxy Music. By the time he returned to London in 1980, with his new Spanish wife (a model and runner-up for Miss Spain), he discovered that progressive rock music was no longer in demand, and that punk had emerged in the UK.

In 1968, Ian McDonald joined Giles, Giles and Fripp, a progressive pop trio consisting of Michael Giles, Peter Giles, and Robert Fripp, who were looking to do more with music than their three-man line-up could manage. McDonald let the others know that he was already working with someone who could write lyrics. In their primordial form, Giles, Giles & Fripp, augmented by McDonald and ex-Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble, recorded an early version of the McDonald-Sinfield song "I Talk to the Wind", which later became part of King Crimson's repertoire.

Sinfield then went on to work for a computer company for six years, travelling around Europe when he could and hanging around with friends from the Chelsea School of Art. To compete with his art school friends, Sinfield began learning to play the guitar, and write poetry in the mid 1960s, and made a living on market stalls selling handmade kites, lampshades, paintings and customised clothing. He spent a number of years drifting around Morocco and Spain before returning to England. Sometime in 1967, he formed The Creation, a band he said he envisioned as a cross between Donovan and The Who. One of the members, Ian McDonald, convinced Sinfield to switch from singer/guitarist to lyricist.

Sinfield had a fairly unusual and colourful upbringing, being an only child (bar his adopted brother, Dennis) of a bisexual mother who ran a hair salon and one of the first burger bars in London in the 1950s. He grew up in a bohemian household, and claims to have vivid memories of extravagant and wonderful Christmases, later inspiring the lyrics for his hit "I Believe in Father Christmas", which recalled a lost and naive faith in Father Christmas. Sinfield claimed that A Poet's Notebook by Edith Sitwell had an important influence on his writing, as well as the works of Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, William Blake, Kahlil Gibran, and Shakespeare.

Peter John Sinfield (born 27 December 1943) is an English poet and songwriter. He is best known as the co-founder and former lyricist of King Crimson, whose debut album In the Court of the Crimson King is considered one of the first and most influential progressive rock albums ever released.