King Crimson - Thela Hun Ginjeet
Well
First of all
I couldn't even see his face.
I couldn't see his face.
He was holding a gun in his hand.
Umm... I was thinking...
This is a dangerous place..
This is a dangerous place..
I said
I'm nervous as hell from this stuff. I thought those guys were going to kill me for sure. They ganged up on me like that. I couldn't believe it. Look, I'm still shakin'. Weird. There out in the streets like that. It's a dangerous place. It's a dangerous place.
So
Suddenly
These two guys appear in front of me.
They stopped.
Real aggressive.
Start at me
You know.
What's that?
What's that on that tape?
What do you got there? "
I said
Huh?
They said
What are you talking into that for?
I said
It's just a tape, you know
Well play it for me
I said "oh
No"
I put it off as long as I could.
And finally they turned it on
You know
They grabbed it from me.
Took it away from me.
Turned it on.
And it said
He held a gun in his hand. This is a dangerous place.
They said
What dangerous place?
What gun?
You're a policeman!
And the deeper I talked
The worse I got into it.
I talked
I told him... I said
Look man, I'm not talkin'....
It went on forever.
Anyway
I finally unbuttoned my shirt
And said
Look, look... I'm in this band, you know, I'm in this band you know, and we're makin' a recording, you know. It's about New York City, it's about crime in the streets...
The explanation was going nowhere
But
Finally
They just kinda let me go
I don't know why.
So I walk around the corner
And I'm like shakin' like a leaf
And I thought
This is a dangerous place
Who should appear
But two policeman.
Thela Hun Ginjeet is a song by King Crimson, released in 1981. Its tracks are from the album Discipline (1981). The song name is an anagram of "heat in the jungle", which is a reference to crime in the city. (The term "heat" is often used in American slang to refer to the police.) While most of the instruments are in 4/4 time, Robert Fripp's electric guitar plays in 7/8 time during part of the song, creating an unusual effect. In the middle of the song, voice recordings are heard. Adrian Belew talks about his experience with members of London street gangs and the police, trying to get voice recordings for the song (Adrian Belew's blog entry about this event). During their tour for the Discipline and Beat albums, Belew would tell the story while the song was being performed. During the Beat tour at least, the story-telling was somewhat improvised. In later live performances - as evidenced by the performance on Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal - the storytelling is dropped, leaving only the sung lyrics. However, for reasons unknown, the storytelling re-appeared on the Double Trio tours (cf. VROOOM VROOOM) but it was in the form of a backing tape identical to the album version. * Robert Fripp - guitar * Adrian Belew - guitar, vocals * Tony Levin - bass guitar, Chapman stick, vocals * Bill Bruford - drums