One Song - ‘39 [Queen]

Track 5 ‘Night at the Opera’

Written by Brian May

Released 1975

Queen was for the longest time In my early teens my go to music. I would always say that they were my favourite and the best song of all time is Bohemian Rhapsody. Times change and so do tastes, we hear and experience new and different things. After all of this time is Queen still the best?

I’m not sure I consider any song to be the best of all time any longer. Yes Queen are great but I haven't listened to them with any kind of obsession in years. But when I put a song on I love them. Now I love to listen to some of the lesser known stuff or things that are less played; ‘Las Palabras de Amor’ and ‘Spread your wings’ for example. The is a song that I heard for the first time maybe five years ago and it has stuck with me more than most.

In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers

In the days when lands were few

Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn

The sweetest sight ever seen.

‘39 is a strange title for a song and with the first listen is is odd. Not only the style but the fact that the singer is Brian May. The song is so atypical to the most well know Queen works no Freddy belting out the words no complex music and the folky style. But it works. It is very well preformed by all sides. And then the is its story to unpack.

I love the style and May’s voice is so under rated. It sells the story and the emotion through the lyrics. ‘Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me’. So many layers and preformed with empathy. Queen had no qualms about doing things differentially it is why they have something for everyone and this style may not have been repeated but I am glad they did it here. Wile it seems to sell the story in one direction it exist and another entirely.

In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue

The volunteers came home that day

And they bring good news of a world so newly born

Though their hearts so heavily weigh

The story is basic but with a deeper layer to understand, it is told strait forward and simply. But only makes sense when you understand that it is a science fiction story. The larger world is hinted at but it is a simple tail about some astronauts looking for a new world. They return after a year to find 100 years have passed at home (or is it longer?). It is both happy and sad, their job was successful but they lost time with their loved ones.

Time as we know it is relative, it is shaped by you and your surroundings. The speed at which you go through life is not constant in more ways than one, you have the time to spend with your loved ones if you so choose. Time is powerful but it bends and it is this bend that hits the hardest in the song. Like in Interstellar or Alien space travel is the great separator, taking time and displacing us from it.

For the earth is old and grey, little darling we'll away

But my love this cannot be

For so many years have gone though I'm older but a year

Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me.

The are perhaps deeper things at play here. Time can be lost, it happens all the time in sleep and in the rush of life but what can be bought with that lost time. Should we pity them? Praise them but yes they have lost in such a hard way. Queen had songs with messages of many kinds, some were face on like ‘Scandal’ but many are more than they seem. That is just one reason why they are still my favourite.

The themes of loss are clear but that loss is the cost to give hope to your descendants.

Save the world for them, not for us.

For my life

Still ahead

Pity Me.