The song starts as a soft ballad. On the original recording it begins with Keith Emerson holding down voicing on the piano keys (without having the hammers strike the notes) while strumming the grand piano strings with a plectrum, as Greg Lake enters on electric bass guitar, and Carl Palmer on subtle percussion. Emerson then switches to fast Eb-Minor and F-Minor ascending and descending hand-over-hand piano runs in the first 8 bars of the first "A" section when Lake first enters singing "Just take a pebble and cast it to the sea".