This Day in Music History: King Crimson/Beat and Van Halen/For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (06/18)

Beat is the ninth studio album by the British rock band King Crimson, released on this day in 1982.

The album focused on the 25th anniversary of the publication of the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac. The album makes several references to the writings of the Beat Generation.

"Neal and Jack and Me" is the track most obviously inspired by Beat writers. The 'Jack' of the title is Beat writer Jack Kerouac, while 'Neal' is Kerouac's best friend Neal Cassady. Besides On the Road, the lyrics make references in French to other significant Kerouac works; Les Souterrains, Des Visions du Cody and Sartori a Paris.

"Heartbeat" is also the name of a book written by Neal Cassady's wife Carolyn about her experiences with the Beats.

"Sartori in Tangier" derives its title from Satori in Paris and the city of Tangier in Morocco, where a number of Beat writers resided and which they often used as a setting for their writing. Writer Paul Bowles was associated with the Beats, and his novel The Sheltering Sky, which provided the title for a track on King Crimson's previous studio album, Discipline, is partly set in Tangier. 

"Neurotica" shares its title with Neurotica, a Beat-era magazine.

"The Howler" refers to the Beat poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg, which Fripp suggested to Belew as inspiration for the lyrics.

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Also released on this day, in 1991, is For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (also known as F.U.C.K.), the ninth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and maintained the position for three weeks.

The album's title came from lead singer Sammy Hagar, who wanted to push the issue of censorship with naming Van Halen's album with a vulgarity, stating, "That's when censorship was a big issue. I wanted to name the album just F*ck." Hagar eventually backed away from the outright vulgarity after he was told by his friend that the word was an acronym for the phrase "for unlawful carnal knowledge" (though this is incorrect).

The album had two hit singles with "Top of the World" (#27), and "Right Now" (#55).