The Power and the Glory

The Power and the Glory is the sixth album by the British progressive rock group Gentle Giant, released in 1974. Contrary to popular belief, the title of the album and its many lyrical themes were not inspired by author Graham Greene's novel of the same name, although Derek Shulman was aware of Greene's novel. Guitarist Gary Green has cited this album as his favourite by the band. A loose concept was hatched for the album prior to recording. "At the time, the Watergate scandal was happening," recalls Derek. "The Cold War issues were coming to a head. The concept for the album was based on the corruption of power and how people on the bottom are affected by the people on top. Money and power will win no matter what and the people that are hoping for the best won’t usually get the best. The label we were on at that time, WWA, was an imprint of Vertigo. Vertigo was a fully owned company of Phonogram which is Polygram which is now Universal which will probably be GE in a week which is going to be the government soon enough. So there’s the corruption of power right there! The power and the glory! Again! Still to this day!" The cover art, depicting a King of Spades, is taken from the 1926-1933 "Prinz-Karte-402" deck painted by Austrian Artist Hans Printz (1865-1925) and produced by the German playing card company Bernhard Dondorf Gm.b.H. The second verse from "Proclamation" was sampled in Travis Scott's "Hyaena" from his album Utopia.