ESSAY|WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING|MUSIC|QUEEN
Queen and I
Anatomy of a song
Even by the standards of Queen’s outlandish material, The Prophet’s Song is a strange outing. Anyone familiar with the British rock band’s output will have listened to melodies such as The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, The Millionaire Waltz, and Bring Back That Leroy Brown. Boxed in? Queen never were.
The Prophet’s Song, however, is in a league of its own. The fact that it appears in the album that begat Queen’s first monster hit (Bohemian Rhapsody from A Night at the Opera) might be the reason why it’s less known. Queen did perform it live but the track was gradually overtaken by better-received songs.
Clocking in at eight minutes and twenty seconds, The Prophet’s Song is Queen’s longest track. The creation, the result of May’s restless mind, continues Queen’s well-established tradition of eccentric themes and unconventional sources of inspiration (a good example is one of the verses in The March of the Black Queen, from Queen II. “I reign with my left hand/I rule with my right/I’m lord of all darkness I’m queen of the night” which I’m pretty sure comes from Magnificence’s “I reign in my robes/I rule as me list/I drive down these dastards/with a dint of my fist” from Magnificence, a Tudor-period masque).
Queen were never interested in making just one type of music. At least, not in their first seven albums, from their self-titled debut to 1978’s Jazz (which had very little or nothing to do with jazz, by the way). They were always an experimental band, along the same lines of Yes and Pink Floyd. Whilst denim-clad Status Quo and Uriah Heep dominated the charts with blues-driven hard rock, Queen (or at least Freddie) pranced about the stage in Zandra Rhodes-designed clobber. Both sonically and visually the band was light-years ahead of the pack.
Unsurprisingly, they caught the imagination of a thirteen-year-old hormonal Cuban adolescent in mid-80s Havana.
Why? How? Where? Let’s start with the where. That’s the easy part. At my first girlfriend’s. Her name was Marta (Martha for English speakers), and she lived in Colón (a neighbourhood in downtown Havana with a sad, red-light-district, pre-Revolution reputation). Marta’s father was a sailor who travelled a lot. In those days rock was still frowned upon in Cuba. Other than listener-friendly Air Supply and Foreigner ballads played on the radio, there weren’t many other options available.
On one of his trips Marta’s dad bought her daughter five LPs. Those five records were: Queen, Queen II, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, and The Game. She played them all to me one afternoon when we were alone. Then, she played them again. And again. For the next few hours I tried to block out the noise of the street dogs barking outside, the baby bawling its eyes out in the house next to us, and the old American car’s engine’s loud attempts to convince its owner that it had not given up the ghost yet.
By the time the needle stopped, I was in a different dimension. I can’t remember how I got home that evening. All I can recall is that by the time I made it back to mine (a twenty minute walk from my girlfriend’s) I was, too, asking Scaramouch, “Will you do the Fandango?”
The “how” now. How was it possible that a teenager, steeped in traditional Cuban music through a father who at the time was not just a top pianist but also leader of a famous orchestra, could fall head over heels for what Fidel Castro called “the enemy’s music”?
Because of the creative magic of Harold, Farrokh, Meddows Taylor, and Richard. Queen summoned me like a muezzin calling Muslims to prayers. In this “mosque” I found solace in different rock genres. From prog to metal, I discovered a rich musical and spiritual world that I still inhabit today.
Why? Because there was a vacuum in my life I wasn’t even aware of. Only when the floodgates opened did I realise that at this point in my life I didn’t mind drowning in rock music.
The Prophet’s Song opens with a toy koto. This is a miniature, traditional Japanese instrument. May liked the beautiful, evocative sound it made and decided to include it in the piece. At this point Queen were heavily influenced by Japanese culture (to the point that in their next album, A Day at the Races, they wrote a chorus in Japanese for the closing track, Teo Torriate [Let Us Cling Together]). The soft guitar chords that kick in next belie the change of atmosphere, rhythm and pace that is about to take place. According to Brian, the words came from a dream that he’d had. Nevertheless, there have long been theories as to the origin of the verses. Although not overtly religious, Queen were never afraid to use religious symbols or imagery in their lyrics. A good example is the song Jesus on their debut album (And then I saw Him in the crowd/A lot of people had gathered round Him/The beggars shouted the lepers called Him/The old man said nothing/He just stared about him/All going down to see the Lord Jesus/All going down to see the Lord Jesus/All going down). It’s not too far-fetched to think of May’s wise man as a holy man from one of the Abrahamic faiths.
Unusual for early Queen, Freddie takes over singing duties on The Prophet’s Song. By this point, in 1975, it was customary that Brian, Freddie, and Roger sang their own compositions, leaving Deacon’s to Freddie most of the time. Although the bassist joined in the choruses, he didn’t have the vocal power to carry a melody himself. My only guess is that Brian May’s mellow voice was at odds with the song’s rambunctious approach.
The Prophet’s Song, like many other Queen’s compositions, has various sections. Think Somebody to Love, or Innuendo. What made The Prophet’s Song special was the middle section, known as “Now I Know”. Here Brian introduced a delay machine that multiplied Freddie’s voice (May had already used it on the guitar before). The effect is otherworldly. Mercury’s voice is repeated and repeated again, creating different layers. In addition, if one were listening to the song on headphones, the first delay would come on the left, and the second on the right. The technology I had access to at the time of my first encounter with Queen was rather basic. It was an old battered mono cassette player that belonged to my cousin. It would be many years before I could appreciate the song fully.
Needless to say, A Night at the Opera had already been out for many years when it found me, aged thirteen (going fourteen) at my girlfriend’s. Because she had the LP, I was able to appreciate Freddie’s cover design (he’d also come up with the band’s logo) and delve into the lyrics with my basic knowledge of the English language.
In years to come, Queen burst out of my tape deck, giving a voice to my teenage angst. There used to be a programme on Cuban television around that time that specialised mainly in classical music. Occasionally, they would show pop and rock bands. Queen were one of the few groups that made the cut.
I was part of a generation of Cuban youngsters who’d been born during the Revolution’s middle years (1970s) and who were torn between loyalty to the government and the emerging — and inescapable — sound of western rock and pop. Many of us didn’t want to choose, but we were left with no options.
There were six of us in a one-bed flat when I was growing up. My father left when I was fourteen, but somehow his absence didn’t create extra space. The flat still felt small. Our balcony faced a wall. It belonged to the building next to ours. The only light we got was a strip of sunshine that my late grandmother chased zealously whenever she put any washing out.
Music took me travelling. My cousin, six years my senior, was into songs I considered naff. It might sound cliché, but rock’n’roll pulled me through. It pulled me through during my acne-free teenage years. It pulled me through during the years of the “special period”. It pulled me through during two bereavements, so close to each other that I considered topping myself. It pulled me through during the 1994 boatlift, when I saw friends and neighbours head for the States on makeshift vessels. And all along, Brian May’s wise man was by my side.
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