TALON'S TAKE
'39Written by: Brian May
Musicians:
Brian May - lead and backing vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Freddie Mercury - backing vocals
John Deacon - double bass
Roger Taylor - bass drum, tambourine, backing vocals
- Quick interesting note that if you lists songs album by album...this is the (drum roll) 39th track. Freaky!
- Brian's tribute to the skiffle bands of the day. He often later ruminated that while they all have regrets on songs that never became singles (and thus are not really part of public consciousness), this was one of his biggest regrets. He wished this song could have gotten out there more.
- The only rock and roll song I know about Einstein's Theory of Relativity...which explains the lyrics. The protagonist goes off in a spaceship and due to the theory and his faster than light travel when he returns it's been a year while on Earth it's been nearly a generation.
- Another interesting point brought up because of this song. When played live, Freddie would take lead vocals even though Brian sings it on the album. When asked Brian always gave an answer like well, what's Fred going to do? He's the vocalist. BUT at the same time, Roger is singing I'm In Love With My Car amongst other solo lines here and there while even during Brian's one line solo in
Keep Yourself Alive Freddie usually sang that. My own speculation and opinion is that at the time, Brian wasn't comfortable doing lead vocals at all live. There were quotes before and during his first solo tour that he was petrified of being the front man. He got there slowly. He always talked to the audience but really didn't sing lead live until Queen's 1986 tour when he did a verse of
Hello Mary Lou, Goodbye Heart. So this was performed with Freddie at vocals until the end of the 70s, with Brian occasionally adding in the riff around the
Love Of My Life time of the concert but it was generally retired. Supposedly George Michael asked Queen to perform it at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Afterwards Brian used to use the song as an intro to his solo tune, the country influenced
Let Your Heart Rule Your Head. In 2005 with QPR, almost as a lark, Brian threw part of the song in as a warm up to
Love Of My Life. It was so well received that Brian just did a solo acoustic version during that show. In 2008 they did an awesome live version that started with Brian and Roger and then added the rest of the band midway through. My favorite version of the song to be honest and of course they kept the song for the QAL tour with just a bit less of a production than the 2008 QPR tour.
QUOTES:
- "’’39’ is a science fiction story about someone who goes away and leaves his family and because of the time-dilation effect, where the people have aged a lot more than he has when he returns, he’s aged a year and they’ve aged a hundred years. I felt that about my home at the time having been away and seen this vastly different world of rock music which was totally different from the way I was brought up.” – Brian May – 1975
- "It’s a science fiction story. It’s the story about someone who goes away and leaves his family and because of the time dilation effect, when you go away, the people on earth have aged a lot more than he has when he comes home. He’s aged a year and they’ve aged 100 years so, instead of coming back to his wife, he comes back to his daughter and he can see his wife in his daughter, a strange story. I think, also, I had in mind a story of Herman Hesse which I think is called ‘The River’. A man leaves his hometown and has lots of travels and then comes back and observes his hometown from the other side of the river. He sees it in a different light having been away and experienced all those different things. He sees it in a very illuminating way, cause I felt a little bit like that about my home at the time as well having been away and seen this vastly different world of rock music. Totally different from the way I was brought up and I had those feelings about home.
So usually the song, I think people generally usually won’t admit it, but I think when most people write songs there are more than one level to them. They’ll be about one thing on the surface but underneath they’re probably, even unconsciously, trying to say something about their own life, their own experience. I know in my own stuff there is something like that." - Brian May -1983 - Radio One
"It's something that we have... people can't believe it, they can't believe it's us. It's something Brian May wanted to do and it's very, very unlike Queen really. I think it's going to the B-side for You're My Best Friend. It's something Brian wanted to do and that's nice."
- Freddie Mercury - May 1976 - Record Mirror
ALTERNATIVE RELEASED VERSIONS:
CLASSIC ALBUMS VERSIONFOR VIDEO SEE THE DOCUMENTARY LATER ON IN THE POST
- Basically this is how Brian did it during the QPR tour. Just Brian in the studio with an acoustic guitar.
OFFICIALLY RELEASED LIVE VERSIONS
LIVE KILLERS VERSION[
LIVE KILLERS - Q3 POSTED- AUDIO only.
QPR - RETURN OF THE CHAMPIONS VERSION- Brian had started adding it full time by this point of the '05 tour and the fans ate it up! It was kind of similar to the pre-
Love Of My Life songs done by Brian at Hammersmith with QAL.
- This is the whole gig but cued to the proper time
QPR - LIVE IN UKRAINE VERSION- ESSENTIAL listening. It's a dramatic rendition and a ton of fun even if Roger has given up on the high backing vocals at this point and lets Spike Edney's keyboard accordion take it.
UNRELEASED VERSION:
LIVE AT EARLS COURT - 1977EARLS COURT 1977- PLEASE note that the band released the audio of this as a bonus track to the 2011 Island Deluxe reissuing of
A Night At The Opera. This fan synched it with the average quality of the video from the PREVIOUS night so if there are any glitches it is due to the fact that the performances are from different nights.
QAL - KIEV - 6/30/12- Stripped back to less "dramatic" performance - just Brian and Roger on the stage. The full band still backs them just from the back. Still a good and fun performance from the duo!
ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS:
QUEEN + GEORGE MICHAEL - FREDDIE MERCURY TRIBUTE - 1992FREDDIE TRIBUTE- Done at George's request as George used to busk it on the underground when he was young. A nice although truncated version.
QUEEN + FOO FIGHTERS - LONDON - 2007- A great and fun version. Brian and Roger fronting the rest of the Foos who are HUGE Queen fans and good friends with the band. And it's always nice to see Brian (and Roger) guest with a band and do a Queen song that ISN'T
We Will Rock You or
Tie Your Mother Down.
DOCUMENTARY:
THE MAKING OF A NIGHT AT THE OPERACLASSIC ALBUMS VERSION- Great little insight but more importantly Brian and his acoustic in the studio.
PERSONAL NOTES:
- One of my wife's favs as well as my daughter's. This is always a winner in the Talon car
I love the strum, slap happy upbeat tune with great harmonies. Beautiful track and PERFECT for Brian's voice. In fact this is one of the few times I can say that I think Brian actually sings this one better than Freddie as his wispy quality just fits like a glove....
CHANCES:
'39.....50% -- They dropped it during the last US tour as it wasn't as well known in America. I'm hoping they decide to keep it this time around as I love it myself!
SUPPLEMENTAL:
Hijack My HeartWritten by: Roger Taylor
Musicians:
Roger Taylor - lead vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards, guitar (?), bass guitar (?)
Freddie Mercury - keyboards
Brian May - guitars
John Deacon - bass guitar (?)
**Note - this is one of those it's hard to tell. As you know by now Roger did a lot of his songs on his own and he was always wanting to play more guitar/bass. **
- The B-Side of
The Invisible Man in the UK and
Scandal in the US.
- Roger sings lead on this one.
UNRELEASED VERSION
DEMO-ESSENTIAL
- A very interesting demo. It has more percussion that unfortunately does drown out the vocals but also has more prominent guitar and an awesome piano outro.
PERSONAL NOTES:
- Not going to set the world on fire but it is a fun song that is good to drive along to in the summer. I wish the piano outro had been kept!
CHANCES:
Hijack My Heart......1%--As always there is a miniscule chance Roger could take it out for his set but too many other tracks to choose from makes me say not bloody likely....
Movers coming this morning for the big stuff, but I'm not sure where it's all going since our new bedroom set is smack dab where our table is going....Why? Because the wife wanted to twice shampoo the new carpet. So between our bedroom having a wet carpet, and the 3 kids rooms having paint, I'm not sure where I'm directing everything to go.
I love the strum, slap happy upbeat tune with great harmonies. Beautiful track and PERFECT for Brian's voice. In fact this is one of the few times I can say that I think Brian actually sings this one better than Freddie as his wispy quality just fits like a glove....