Child in Time

"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.

History and characteristics

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 (disambiguation)

"Child in Time" is a song by Deep Purple.

Child in Time may also refer to:

See also

Child in Time (album)

Child in Time is the debut album by British jazz-rock fusion band Ian Gillan Band, released in 1976. The album took its title from the Deep Purple song "Child in Time", a version of which appears on side two of the LP. The album reached No. 36 on Swedish charts and No. 55 in UK.

This was Ian Gillan's first release after leaving Deep Purple, and also features his former Deep Purple colleague Roger Glover. Before Ian returned full-time to the rock music industry, he made one brief, but significant, live appearance on the performance of Roger Glover's "The Butterfly Ball", on 16 October 1975 at Royal Albert Hall, London. Ian sang "Sitting in a Dream". A film of the event was originally shown in UK cinemas in 1977. Later released on video, it was quickly deleted.

Although Ian Gillan Band went on to produce material more suited to their jazz-rock label, this first album has much more of a harder rhythm and blues style.

Production

Although not credited with playing on the album, Dave Wintour (bass player), Andy Steele (drummer) and Bernie Holland (guitarist), are listed among the songs' composers. In fact, Gillan had been recording demo tapes with non-Deep Purple material as early as 1972, and some of the Child in Time material was taken from the period September 1972 to April 1974. Parts of these early sessions can be heard on the Ian Gillan CD "cherkazoo and other stories" released in 1992 and on the DVD bonus tracks from "Live at the Rainbow 1977".