Video hit Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Emerson, Lake and Palmer - C'est La Vie (Live At Olympic Stadium, Montreal, 1977)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are a sporadically active English progressive rock supergroup.

They found success in the 1970s and have sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson (keyboards), Greg Lake (bass guitar, vocals, guitar) and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion).

They are one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive rock bands.

Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, both exploring options outside of their existing bands, met at Fillmore West in San Francisco and on working together, found their styles to be compatible and complementary. Keith described the first meeting (during a soundcheck) in an interview in 1972: "Greg was moving a bass line and I played the piano in back and Zap! It was there."

They had actually shared the same venues in 1969 – Emerson in The Nice and Lake in King Crimson, first at the 9th Jazz and Blues Pop Festival in Plumpton, England, and at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, England.

Wanting to launch a keyboard/bass/drum band, Emerson and Lake sought a drummer. They initially approached drummer Mitch Mitchell, who was at a loose end following the breakup of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Hendrix's departure to the Band of Gypsies. Mitchell subsequently suggested a jam session with himself, Lake, Emerson and Hendrix. Although this session never took place, it led to press rumours of a planned-but-abandoned supergroup named HELP (Hendrix-Emerson-Lake-Palmer) which survived for over forty years until Lake finally debunked them in 2012.

Meanwhile, Robert Stigwood (manager of Cream) had suggested Carl Palmer, formerly of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and at that time a member of Atomic Rooster. Palmer was initially reluctant to leave Atomic Rooster (a band he had just helped form) but was persuaded by the "magic" he felt when playing with Emerson and Lake.

The name Emerson, Lake and Palmer came about for two reasons: to remove the focus on Emerson as the most famous of the three (and thereby recognise all three) and to ensure that they were not called the "new Nice".

The lyrics:

C'est la vie

Have your leaves all turned to brown

Will you scatter them around you

C'est la vie.

Do you love

And then how am I to know

If you don't let your love show for me

C'est la vie.

(Chorus) Oh, oh, c'est la vie.

Oh, oh, c'est la vie.

Who knows, who cares for me...

C'est la vie.

In the night

Do you light a lover's fire

Do the ashes of desire for you remain.

Like the sea

There's a love too deep to show

Took a storm before my love flowed for you

C'est la vie

(Chorus) Oh, oh, c'est la vie.

Oh, oh, c'est la vie.

Who knows, who cares for me...

C'est la vie.

Like a song

Out of tune and out of time

All I needed was a rhyme for you

C'est la vie.

Do you give

Do you live from day to day

Is there no song I can play for you

C'est la vie.

(Chorus) Oh, oh, c'est la vie.

Oh, oh, c'est la vie.

Who knows, who cares for me...

C'est la vie.