Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - Gates Of Babylon
Rainbow's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975 and featured the minor hit "Man on the Silver Mountain". This first line-up never performed live. Blackmore and Dio did promotional work for the album.
Rainbow's music was partly inspired by classical music since Blackmore started playing cello to help him construct interesting chord progressions, and Dio wrote lyrics about medieval themes. Dio possessed a versatile vocal range capable of singing both hard rock and lighter ballads. Although Dio never played a musical instrument on any Rainbow album, he is credited with writing and arranging the music with Blackmore, in addition to writing all the lyrics himself.
Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded, due to Gary Driscoll's R&B style of drumming and the funky bass playing of Craig Gruber. Micky Lee Soule quit due to Blackmore's decisions, and Blackmore recruited Cozy Powell, Jeff Beck's drummer, bassist Jimmy Bain, and American keyboard player Tony Carey.
This line-up went on to record the next album Rising. This line-up also commenced the first world tour for the band, with the first US dates in late 1975. Album art was designed by famed fantasy artist Ken Kelly, who had drawn Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian.
By the time of the European dates in the summer of 1976, Rainbow's reputation as a blistering live act was already established. Blackmore subsequently decided that Bain was substandard and fired him in January 1977. The same fate befell Tony Carey shortly after. Blackmore, however, had difficulty finding replacements he liked. On keyboards, after auditioning several high profile artists, including Vanilla Fudge's Mark Stein, Procol Harum's Matthew Fisher and ex-Curved Air and Roxy Music man Eddie Jobson, Blackmore finally selected Canadian David Stone, from the little-known band Symphonic Slam. For a bass player, Blackmore originally chose Mark Clarke, formerly of Jon Hiseman's Colosseum, Uriah Heep and Tempest, but once in the studio for the next album, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Blackmore disliked Clarke's fingerstyle method of playing so much that he fired Clarke on the spot and played bass himself on all but four songs: the album's title track, "Gates of Babylon", "Kill the King", and "Sensitive to Light". Former Widowmaker bassist, Australian Bob Daisley was hired to record these tracks, completing the band's next line-up.
By the time of the European dates in the summer of 1976, Rainbow's reputation as a blistering live act was already established. Blackmore subsequently decided that Bain was substandard and fired him in January 1977. The same fate befell Tony Carey shortly after. Blackmore, however, had difficulty finding replacements he liked. On keyboards, after auditioning several high profile artists, including Vanilla Fudge's Mark Stein, Procol Harum's Matthew Fisher and ex-Curved Air and Roxy Music man Eddie Jobson, Blackmore finally selected Canadian David Stone, from the little-known band Symphonic Slam. For a bass player, Blackmore originally chose Mark Clarke, formerly of Jon Hiseman's Colosseum, Uriah Heep and Tempest, but once in the studio for the next album, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Blackmore disliked Clarke's fingerstyle method of playing so much that he fired Clarke on the spot and played bass himself on all but four songs: the album's title track, "Gates of Babylon", "Kill the King", and "Sensitive to Light". Former Widowmaker bassist, Australian Bob Daisley was hired to record these tracks, completing the band's next line-up.
After the release and extensive world tour in 1977–78, Blackmore decided that he wanted to take the band in a new commercial direction away from the "sword and sorcery" theme.
Dio did not agree with this change and left Rainbow.
The lyrics:
Look away from the sea
I can take you anywhere
Spend a vision with me
A chase with the wind
Move closer to me
I can make you anyone
I think you're ready to see
The gates to babylon
The power of what has been before
Rises to trap you within
A magic carpet ride a genie maybe more
A city of heavenly sin
Sleep with the devil and then you must pay
Sleep with the devil, the devil will take you away
Oh gates of babylon
You can see but you're blind
Someone turned the sun around
But you can see in your mind
The gates of babylon
You're riding the endless caravan
Bonded and sold as a slave
A saber dance removing all the veils
Getting as good as you gave
A saber dance removing all the veils
Getting as good as you gave
Sleep with the devil and then you must pay
Sleep with the devil, the devil will take you away
Look away from the sea
I can take you anywhere
Spend a vision with me
A chase with the wind
Move closer to me
I can make you anyone
I think you're ready to see
The gates of babylon
The power of what has been before
Rises to trap you within
A magic carpet ride a genie maybe more
A city of heavenly sin
Sleep with the devil and then you must pay
Sleep with the devil, the devil will take you away
Black gates of babylon
The devil is me
And I'm holding the key
To the gates of sweet hell
Babylon
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