Epitaph

Epitaph is the third track on the debut, credited to Fripp, McDonald, Lake and Giles with lyrics by Sinfield. It leans heavily on the Mellotron, and its dystopian lyric is presented as a protest against the Cold War. On the album it carries two sub-titles, March for No Reason and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. McDonald recorded two separate Mellotron parts and kept shifting their levels against each other in the mix, which he said gave the sustained chords a sense of motion that would otherwise sound rather flat. The backing track was recorded in a day.

In 1976 it was released as a single with 21st Century Schizoid Man on the B-side, as a companion to the compilation A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson. The title was borrowed for Epitaph, a 1997 live album of the original band's 1969 recordings, and for the record label Epitaph. Emerson, Lake & Palmer quoted a passage from it after the Battlefield section of Tarkus in live shows. The 2019 anniversary box included a mostly a cappella version, which Pitchfork's Ryan Reed said underscored the range of Lake's voice and called "one of prog's canonical performances".