Deep Purple – Child In Time

About The Song

“Child in Time” is a song by English rock band Deep Purple, taken from their fourth studio album, Deep Purple in Rock, released in 1970.
Ian Gillan said that the organ riff in “Child in Time” is based on It’s a Beautiful Day’s 1969 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). The song started with organist Jon Lord playing “Bombay Calling”, which the band then re-arranged and changed the structure. Gillan had never heard the original song, and created lyrics about the Cold War to fit the music, later saying it “reflected the mood of the moment”. The band then worked out instrumental lines to accompany this.
Gillan is quoted as saying that the song was created “using the Cold War as the theme”, adding “the words came easily because we were all aware of the nuclear threat looming over us at what was probably the height of the Cold War.”
With themes of war and inhumanity, the song is regarded as a heavy metal anthem and an example of art rock.