Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus - 1971

The album cover was designed by Scottish artist William Neal. The Armadillo-tank character started as a doodle while Neal was working for another album. He produced a gun belt made up of pianokeys; somekind of WWI armoury. Nobody liked this idea.

Later on Neal was asked to submit ideas for the new album of ELP. The former doodle came to live when Neal put tanks tracks on the little creature. Finally the armadillo needed a name, a science fiction kind of name, that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some mutilation of the species caused by radiation. It became 'Tarkus.
The name Tarkus is an amalgamation between 'Tartarus' (a place of punishment mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4) and 'carcass' (hence the name being written in bones on the album cover).
doodle | Tarkus | tube or spotify
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