Питер Си́нфилд: Поэт, автор текстов и герой прогрессивного рока

English poet and songwriter

Peter John Sinfield (born 27 December 1943) is an English poet and songwriter. He is best known as a co founder and former lyricist of King Crimson. Their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King is considered one of the first and most influential progressive rock albums ever released. Sinfield's lyrics are known for their surreal imagery, often involving common fantasy concepts, nature, or the sea. They often also deal with emotional concepts and, sometimes, storyline concepts. Later in his career, he adapted his songwriting to better suit pop music, and wrote a number of successful songs for artists such as Celine Dion, Cher, Cliff Richard, Leo Sayer, Five Star, and Bucks Fizz. In 2005, Sinfield was referred to as a "prog rock hero" in Q magazine for his lyrical work and influence in the music industry.

Sinfield was born at Fulham, London, to mixed English Irish ancestry and a bohemian activist mother Deidre (also known as Joey or Daphne). He seldom had contact with his father Ian. Up until the age of eight, he was raised largely by his mother's German housekeeper Maria Wallenda, a high wire walker from the circus act the Flying Wallendas, after which he was sent to Danes Hill School in Oxshott. It was there that Sinfield discovered a love of words and their uses and meanings, with the guidance of his tutor John Mawson. He came to devour books of all kinds, especially poetry. He later attended Ranelagh Grammar School in Bracknell, Berkshire. He left school at sixteen and worked briefly as a travel agent, believing that this would "allow him to see the world". Sinfield then went on to work for a computer company for six years, travelling around Europe when he could and hanging around with friends from the Chelsea School of Art. To compete with his art school friends, Sinfield began learning to play the guitar, One of the members, Ian McDonald, convinced Sinfield to switch from singer/guitarist to lyricist. Sinfield also came up with the name King Crimson. Sinfield loved working with the band and, in addition to writing the phantasmagorical lyrics that came to be part of King Crimson's trademark, he also ran the group's light show at their concerts, and offered advice on artwork, album design, and other details of the band's releases. Sinfield's performance role in the band was limited to occasionally playing EMS VCS 3 synthesizer. In 1978 he also narrated Robert Sheckley's In a Land of Clear Colours, an audio sci fi story released the following year on a limited edition of 1000 vinyl records. The backing music for the story was provided by Brian Eno, with whom Sinfield had previously worked while producing Roxy Music. By the time he returned to London in 1980, with his new Spanish wife (a model and runner up for Miss Spain), he discovered that progressive rock music was no longer in demand, and that punk had emerged in the UK. Sinfield also wrote the lyrics, in 1978–1980, for the English versions of Alla fiera dell'est (Highdown Fair) and La pulce d'acqua (Fables and Fantasies), by Italian singer songwriter Angelo Branduardi and, in 1981–1983, for "It's Your Dream" (Nikka Costa), "My First Love", "I Believe in Fairy Tales", and "Trick or Treat" (Fairy Tales), by the American child singer Nikka Costa.

Upon his return to London in 1980, his publisher introduced him to Andy Hill, a composer and fellow songwriter. He and Sinfield collaborated on such hits as "The Land of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz, and became one of the biggest selling hits of the decade. While re educating himself to adapt to the pop music industry with the help of Hill, he returned to Spain, where he was already established in the communities within Ibiza and Barcelona, and as his career progressed, moved into a house in Majorca. At this time, he appeared on Spanish television programme Musical Express, where he was interviewed and performed a set with Boz Burrell, Tim Hinkley, Michael Giles, Bobby Tench, Mel Collins, and Gary Brooker. In the United Kingdom, he continued to release hits with Hill, including "I Hear Talk" by Bucks Fizz and "Have You Ever Been in Love" by Leo Sayer (which they wrote with John Danter). He also co wrote Five Star's "Rain or Shine" with Billy Livsey. After divorcing his wife and leaving Majorca, he returned to the UK around 1990 to a flat in Holland Park and continued to write lyrics for popular music. In 1993, he re released his solo album as Stillusion. In the same year, he and Hill released "Think Twice" by Celine Dion, which went on to become a massive hit and won an Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically". Sinfield and Hill had also won an Ivor Novello a decade previously for the Leo Sayer track, "Have You Ever Been in Love".

There had been rumours of a second solo album, and Sinfield worked on it for a couple of years with vibraphone player and programmer Poli Palmer, formerly of Family. It was always a challenging project, made more so by Sinfield's quadruple bypass operation in 2005. After a period of convalescence, Sinfield attempted to restart the project, but it failed to take off. During this time Sinfield wrote an increasing number of haiku. After his appearance at the Genoa Poetry Festival at the Ducal Palace in June 2010, he has turned his creative energies more towards poetry. Sinfield is still active as a writer and appeared in the 2009 BBC documentary Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements.

Sinfield now lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. He is still active within the songwriting community and is a member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors committee. He underwent heart surgery in 2005, from which he is now fully recovered.

Sinfield had a fairly unusual and colourful upbringing, being an only child (bar his adopted brother, Dennis) of a bisexual mother who ran a hair salon and one of the first burger bars in London in the 1950s. He grew up in a bohemian household, and claims to have vivid memories of extravagant and wonderful Christmases, later inspiring the lyrics for his hit "I Believe in Father Christmas", which recalled a lost and naive faith in Father Christmas. Sinfield claimed that A Poet's Notebook by Edith Sitwell had an important influence on his writing, as well as the works of Arthur Rimbaud,