From The Beginning Emerson, Lake and Palmer Trilogy

Studio album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Released July 1972
Recorded January 1972
Genre Progressive rock
Length Trilogy

Studio album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Released July 1972
Recorded January 1972
Genre Progressive rock
Length 42:23
Label Rhino Records
Producer Greg Lake

Trilogy is the third studio album by British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, originally released in 1972. The interior of the original gatefold sleeve features a photomontage showing multiple images of the band in Epping Forest carpeted with autumn leaves.

The band had already released two very carefully performed studio albums, Emerson, Lake and Palmer 1970 and Tarkus 1971, the former being dominated by virtuoso keyboards and drumming; the latter being as bombastic as it was ambitious. Trilogy, their third studio album, increased ELP's worldwide popularity, and included "Hoedown", which was one of their most popular songs when performing live.

The song "Endless Enigma Part One" opens with the sound of a beating heart, an effect created by the bass drum pedal of Palmer's Ludwig Octoplus kit. Notably, this effect was invented by Carl Palmer long before it was ever used on Jethro Tull's A Passion Play or Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.

The opening drum solo on the track "The Sheriff" features a slight time-mistake, followed by drummer Carl Palmer responding with the word "shit" which can be heard when listening carefully.

"Abaddon's Bolero" sounds like a martialized Bolero in 4. A single melody containing multiple modulations within itself is repeated over and over in ever more thickly layered arrangements, starting from a quiet flute-like sound over a single drum, and building up to an ear-shattering wall of sound. This aspect may well be a nod to the similar effect in Maurice Ravel's famous Bolero.

The album reached #5 on the Billboard 200. "From the Beginning" reached #39 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lyrics: there might have been things i missed
but don't be unkind
it don't mean i'm blind
perhaps there's a thing or two

i think of lying in bed
i shouldn't have said
but there it is

you see it's all clear
you were meant to be here
from the beginning

maybe i might have changed
and not been so cruel
not been such a fool
whatever was done is done
i just can't recall
it doesn't matter at all

you see it's all clear
you were meant to be here
from the beginning