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Tight pants on
A classical composer follows the footsteps of the opera singer and gives Child in Time a spin. Came for a guitar solo, left with the jaw dropped from vocals. And the drumming. And the organ. And let’s not forget da fundament.
Thanks to Jim Collins for the heads up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I’m not trying to nit pick but he says the words to Child in Time were about Vietnam, they were actually about the Cold War. Tensions between the US and Russia.
April 30th, 2022 at 20:49I’ve asked Ian to bring this song back on tour, now that Putin has renewed the not-so Cold War. I doubt he will
May 1st, 2022 at 05:19Can you find anyone on this planet that can sing this song like Ian Gillan?!
May 1st, 2022 at 07:12“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” ,”Stairway To Heaven”,”Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Child in Time”….better than sex 🙂
May 1st, 2022 at 09:57@3 Exactly like a young Gillan? No but VERY close indeed! We have seen the tribute band Perfect Strangers several times and there was one particular time the lead singer of the US band Head East was on vocals and he NAILED IT!
May 1st, 2022 at 10:12@George Martin Correct, although technically it was the Soviet Union, not Russia. Gillan: “I started singing and the words came easily because we were all aware of the nuclear threat which hovered over us at this time which was probably when the ‘cold war’ was at its hottest.”
May 1st, 2022 at 11:00@6
May 1st, 2022 at 18:42Yes your right, it was technically the Soviet Union, not Russia. It was so long ago now my memory isn’t what it once was.
I have seen Doug do reaction videos. He liked the 1st Rush song he hear so much that he promised to do more and he did several. So I’ve been wait for him to do Deep Purple and when he promised to do more, I believe him. We’ll see a few more.
May 2nd, 2022 at 00:44It’s so cool to see someone who obviously knows music (and especially from another musical genre) hear Purple for the first time and immediately recognize their virtuosity. Of course, it helps that this is from Made in Japan, which is still THE live rock album and showcases DP at their absolute best. This guy quickly recognized the quality of Ian’s voice, but the look on his face when Ian ventures into the stratosphere is priceless. Just love it when a discerning musician recognizes just how amazingly good MKII was in those days. I’ve listened to MIJ for 50 years, and it still astonishes me. I know I’m preaching to the choir on this site, but this is a band for the ages.
May 2nd, 2022 at 00:46@1, 6. Technically both of you and Doug are correct. The Vietnam War was part of the overall Cold War confrontation. It’s widely considered to be proxy war in the conflict between the superpowers.
May 2nd, 2022 at 00:52#2 JSG, I’d love to hear DP do this one, but last I heard, Big Ian was no longer able to sing it.
May 2nd, 2022 at 03:38@George Martin. I was probably rude to even correct you on it, it’s so trivial. I give Ian Gillan high marks for singing about such things. He always has addressed political and societal problems or wrongdoings. Like the song “Drop the Gun” on the Whoosh album. Big Ian, as you know, would stop singing sometimes at concerts to yell at the security guards or others who were fighting in the crowd. The man doesn’t cotton to senseless violence. In 1998, I was watching Deep Purple at Pine Knob Music Theater (a legendary, large outdoor amphitheater) in Clarkston, MI (between Detroit and Flint). Gillan started bopping the bald bouncer on the head during Black Night for needlessly roughhousing a fan. That is so classy. I reminded Ian about that backstage in 2007 at that same venue. “Oh, is this the place where that happened?” he asked me. He remembered because he got a silly fine over it.
May 2nd, 2022 at 08:54always knew how great they where/are always nice when people that know music show great appreciationTHE BEST
May 2nd, 2022 at 11:12Last I heard, Vietnam was one of the many theaters where the cold war turned hot, it was what we call in German a “Stellvertreterkrieg” (proxy war), with the US supporting South Vietnam and the Soviet Union and China supporting the North. It was of course, also a post-colonial war about independence, the US slipping into the failed role of France in preserving its floundering ‘Indochine’ colonial Far-East empire.
When Big Ian wrote the lyrics to Child in Time, Vietnam was a constant media and political subject on everyone’s mind, not least because it was the first major war with great media and social awareness attention that saw the US – the liberator of the Western and Pacific World in WW II – in a conflict that could not just be conveniently perceived as a battle of good vs. evil. Vietnam raised ugly questions and caused real disenchantment with the role of not just the US, but the West as a whole in the world.
I can’t believe that all that wasn’t on Gillan’s mind when he penned the lyrics – it’s hard to fathom a Vietnam war outside the context of the Cold War conflict. Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader who died in 1969, was an admirer of the US Constitution and initially hoped for US support in his country’s struggle for independence. When that support was not forthcoming, he turned to the Soviet Union and Red China. And that is when the US – —>Domino Theory – decided that the erection of another (after Red China and North Korea) potential communist satellite state in Asia must be prevented at all costs, even if it meant sending B-52 bombers over Hanoi on Christmas 1972 (four years later the North had won).
I was only 10 years old at the time, but coming from a politically aware family and with a nine year older brother fully immersed at the time in counter-culture (plus coming home one day with that iconic Deep Purple In Rock cover in tow – the cover art impressed me long before I heard the first note), I have a very vivid recollection about Vietnam. It was constantly in the news.
May 2nd, 2022 at 11:23Hi, guys n gals- I’m Richard Rozario, an ardent lover of Hard Rock/ Heavy Metal/Prog metal. I’m in love with Deep Purple’s classic songs like Smoke on the water, Highway Star,Burn and Stormbringer. Can you please share the link to subscribe to this page,ie; The Highway Star.
May 2nd, 2022 at 12:20Thank You
Richard @15:
i’m not sure what do you mean by “subscribing to this page”
if you have an RSS reader, you can add https://www.thehighwaystar.com/feed/
hope this helps.
May 2nd, 2022 at 18:26I’ve been lobbying to Doug to take a look at the Concerto.
May 3rd, 2022 at 07:54While there is no doubt about the impact of MiJ, I believe there are better ‘performances’ as well as longer versions. The MiJ is almost the same length as the In Rock version as it had been ‘watered’ down? The Concerto version is spine tingling, with Stockholm not far behind. Discuss!
May 3rd, 2022 at 18:06@12, your comment reminded me of Gillan’s M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) from his solo career as a classic example of Ian’s thoughts about the Cold War.
May 4th, 2022 at 04:56To say that any group is at this level is laughable. deep purple surpasses everyone by far, hopefully one day sanity will do justice, because the record power is not up to the task
May 7th, 2022 at 12:12