The Hymn of Rock

Written by the band in 1969, it is said by the band members themselves to have been inspired by a riff featured in a song by Purple contemporaries It's a Beautiful Day, called "Bombay Calling". The riff was played on violins and much faster in tempo.

"Child in Time" is an essentially simple composition, featuring an organ intro, three power chords, and a two minute long solo. Lyrically dark, vocalist Ian Gillan utilizes his full vocal range and goes from quiet singing to loud, high-pitched, banshee-esque screaming. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore comes in with a slow solo, which builds up to a fast-pace playing and then ends abruptly, with the whole song cycle starting over again. Blackmore is normally associated with playing a Fender Stratocaster, however, he played a Gibson ES-335 on the studio version of the song.

A staple of the Deep Purple live concerts in 1970–73 and later after their initial reunion tours of 1985 and 1987-88, the song has not been featured regularly at concerts since Gillan returned (for a second time) to the line up in 1993. Gillan cites many personal reasons for leaving the song out, but it is likely that, given his advancing years, the song is becoming increasingly difficult to perform without sampled vocal backings. Its last appearance in Deep Purple's live set was at Harrogate in 2002. In that performance, high-pitched guitar was used to cover up Gillan's now-limited vocal range during the "screaming" parts. A similar technique is used on current live performances of "Space Truckin'".

The live version from "Made in Japan" is considered to be even better than the original, with excellent vocal and instrumental improvisations. "Child in Time" was not a very coverred song due to the difficulty of playing it live. Yngwie Malmsteen covered this as probably the best non-Deep Purple version there is.

Ian Gillan said in an interview in 2002: "There are two sides to that song - the musical side and the lyrical side. On the musical side, there used to be this song 'Bombay Calling' by a band called It's A Beautiful Day. It was fresh and original, when Jon was one day playing it on his keyboard. It sounded good, and we thought we'd play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base. But then, I had never heard the original 'Bombay Calling'. So we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines 'Sweet child in time, you'll see the line.' That's how the lyrical side came in. Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie had the guitar parts ready. The song basically reflected the mood of the moment, and that's why it became so popular."