#6: C’est La Vie ~ Greg Lake

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: September 1977
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #91
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #14
YouTube: “C’est La Vie”
Lyrics: “C’est La Vie”

Greg Lake was born in 1947 in Parkstone, Dorset, England. Lake started to play guitar in 1959 when he was twelve. In 1963-64 Lake was a dockworker in Poole, England. At the age of 17 he decided to become a full-time musician. Greg Lake was a member of Unit 4 (not to be confused with Unit 4 +2), the Time Checks and The Shame. Then, he formed King Crimson with childhood buddy, Robert Fripp, in the winter of 1968. King Crimson made their breakthrough as an opening act for the Rolling Stones at a concert in Hyde Park for over 500,000 concert goers in July 1969.

In 1969 The Nice were on tour with King Crimson. They played at San Francisco’s Fillmore West auditorium. The Nice’s Keith Emerson told King Crimson member Greg Lake that The Nice had reached its musical potential. Emerson wanted to form a new band, and Lake expressed interest. Emerson quit The Nice in 1970 and Greg Lake joined him, together in search for a third musician. The third musician ended up being Carl Palmer, the former drummer for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and with Atomic Rooster.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer released a single in 1970 titled “Lucky Man”. Lake wrote the song when he was 14 in 1959-60. The band released the albums Tarkus, and Pictures At An Exhibition and Trilogy in quick succession. This resulted in four albums being released by the band in just over 19 months. From Trilogy came the 1972 single “From The Beginning“.

In 1975, Greg Lake had a #2 hit single in the Uk titled “I Believe in Father Christmas”.

In 1977 Emerson Lake and Palmer had their only Top 40 hit on the UK singles chart. “Fanfare for the Common Man” climbed to #2, but it wasn’t a hit across the Atlantic. In August 1977 the band performed at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal before 78,000 fans.

That summer, Greg Lake released the single “C’est La Vie”.

“C’est La Vie” was one of the songs Greg Lake performed at the live concert Emerson, Lake & Palmer, performed at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal on August 26, 1977. Lake cowrote the song with Peter Sinfield (born in 1943 in London, England). He learned to play guitar in his youth. He wrote poetry beginning in the mid 1960s and made a living on market stalls selling handmade kites, lampshades, paintings and customised clothing. Sinfield spent a number of years drifting around Morocco and Spain before returning to England. In 1967, he formed the Creation, a band he said he envisioned as a cross between Donovan and the Who. One of the members, Ian McDonald, convinced Sinfield to switch from singer/guitarist to lyricist. Subsequently, Sinfield became the lyricist for King Crimson. Sinfield wrote a number of tracks from assorted Emerson, Lake & Palmer albums. He also wrote songs recorded by Cher, Roxy Music, Bucks Fizz, Moon Martin, Leo Sayer, ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog, Celine Dion, and others.

“C’est La Vie” is a song depicting a sense of resignation, or lack of will on the part of a romantic partner to show their love. The lyrics ask: “Have your leaves all turned brown? Will you scatter them around you? Do you love? And then how am I to know, if you don’t let your love show? Who knows? Who cares? C’est la vie.”

The French translation of c’est la vie into English is “that’s life” (c’est = that’s, la vie = life). This expression is usually employed when facing some difficulty that you just have to accept. There are a number of suitable English translations for c’est la vie. These include “that’s how it is”, “that’s the way it is”, “that’s just how it is”, “it is what it is”, “oh well”, “such is life” and “that’s life.” If you have a job and your employer doesn’t give you the promotion that you were confident you were going to get, a confident might say to you “c’est la vie” since, although disappointing, it’s something that a lot of people go through and can relate to.

Hunter Van Ry at the French Expressions website, states, “Though you can use c’est la vie in conversation with French speakers, it’s actually used more often in English. It’s not exactly clear as to why exactly this is, but some guesses for this are English speakers’ desire to sound classy (as French is stereotypically) and the fact that the French themselves have many more other ways to express the same idea than just c’est la vie.”

“C’est La Vie” reached #1 in Montreal, #13 in Ottawa, and charted in the Top 30 in South Bend (IN).

In 1979 Carl Palmer left the band and formed a new one named PM. And in 1981 he joined the supergroup Asia. In 1985 Keith Emerson and Greg Lake added Cozy Powell to become Emerson, Lake and Powell. The trio released one self-titled album in 1986.

In 2001 Greg Lake was drafted by Ringo Starr into his All-Starr Band to go on tour. In 2010 Emerson Lake and Palmer had another reunion tour.

In 2016, Keith Emerson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A coroner concluded Keith Emerson died of suicide, prompted by struggles with heart disease and alcoholic related depression.
Ironically, Greg Lake’s longtime bandmate had died in alignment with the final verse from their first single:

A bullet had found him,
his blood ran as he cried.
No money could save him,
so he laid down and he died.

In 2016, nine months after Emerson’s suicide, Greg Lake also died, in his case of pancreatic cancer. He was 69 years old and was said to have endured a long and stubborn battle with cancer.

The lone surviving member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Carl Palmer released a statement. “It is with great sadness that I must now say goodbye to my friend and fellow band-mate, Greg Lake. Greg’s soaring voice and skill as a musician will be remembered by all who knew his music and recordings he made with ELP and King Crimson. I have fond memories of those great years we had in the 1970s and many memorable shows we performed together. Having lost Keith this year as well, has made this particularly hard for all of us. As Greg sang at the end of Pictures At An Exhibition, ‘Death is life.’ His music can now live forever in the hearts of all who loved him.”

July 21, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
Stef Lach, “Greg Lake: Music world pays tribute to prog icon,” Louder Sound, December 8, 2016.
Keith Emerson, Pictures of an Exhibitionist: From the Nice to Emerson Lake and Palmer – The True Story of the Man Who Changed the Sound of Rock, (John Blake, 2004).
Randy Lewis, “Greg Lake — Founding Member of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer — Dies at 69,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2016.
Polly Marshall, The God Of Hellfire: The Crazy Life And Times Of Arthur Brown, (SAF Pub, 2006).
Daniel Kreps, “Keith Emerson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer Keyboardist, Dead at 71,” Rolling Stone, March 11, 2016.
Hunter Van Ry, “C’est la vie,” French Expressions.

CKGM 980-AM Montreal Top Ten | September 22, 1977