Emerson, Lake & Palmer conflicted between Emerson's interest in complex, classically-influenced music and Lake's more straightforward rock tastes. Lake complained that Emerson chose to play in keys that were not a good fit for his voice. During the making of the band's second album Tarkus, Lake initially rejected the title track, but was persuaded to record it following a band meeting with management, which ended in the addition of an original Lake tune, "Battlefield", into the suite. Lake's track "From the Beginning", released on Trilogy in 1972, had no particular source of inspiration; "I just felt an inspiration to do it, and it flowed through me in a natural way. My hands fell upon these very unusual chords ... It was kind of a gift". It was released as a single, and reached number 39 in the US.
In 1974, Emerson, Lake & Palmer took a break in activity. Lake used this time to focus on his family life, travel, and write and release music. By then the band were tax exiles and relocated to Switzerland, France, Canada and the Bahamas as they were restricted to two months' stay in England a year. In March 1977, the band released Works Volume 1, a double album featuring one side dedicated to each member. Lake wrote five acoustic songs with lyrical assistance from Sinfield, with a conscious effort not to record "just ballads" and attempt a wider variety of musical styles. He then incorporated orchestral overdubs to the songs. One of them, "C'est la Vie", was released as a single. Lake called the album the "beginning of the end" of the band, as he no longer produced their future albums, neither of which were a "really innovative record".
The band split in 1979 following the unsuccessful album Love Beach, an album the group were contractually obliged to record. The group reformed for a number of years in the mid-1990s before permanently disbanding except for a one-off gig in 2010 at London's High Voltage Festival.
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