Classic Songs: The Prophet's Song

 

 

It's been some time since I've done one of these, so I feel like it's high time to deep dive into another of my favorite songs. Previously, I've covered the likes of Kansas' "Dust in the Wind", Metallica's  "Unforgiven", and Blue Oyster Cult's "I Love The Night". All three are ballads, in their own fashion, but each are very different songs. For its own part, the song I'm here to talk about today, I'm not even 100% certain that it's my favorite Queen song. At the very least, it has stiff competition from songs I knew and loved for much longer, such as "Seven Seas of Rhye" and "Save Me". But the band Queen is tied very closely to my early childhood. 

 

 

Peak 80s Technology

 

 

The earliest artists I remember liking as a VERY small child, were 80s pop stars the likes of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, specifically songs like "Bad" and "Part Time Lover". I was also obsessed with Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy" at one point, as well as The Beach Boys' "I Get Around", which was about the rockin'-est song I'd ever heard when I was little. Around age 4 or 5, I used to listen to my grandmother's Walter Murphy record, which I played a ton on my little Fisher Price Big Bird Phonograph, seen above. I was very specifically mesmerized by his hit song "A Fifth of Beethoven", which is an awesome disco reworking of Beethoven's infamous Fifth Symphony (you know, the one that goes da da da DUNNNNN). For some reason, there was even a period during my Kindergarten year where I REALLY liked George Straits' "All My Exes Live in Texas", even though I had no idea what he was talking about (and I'm pretty sure I thought for years that it was actually by Randy Travis).  

 

 

Childhood terror, and wonder.

 

The back cover art.

It was in that same Kindergarten year, around 1987, that I also started borrowing some of my mother's records as well. I was raised by my grandmother, her own mother, but my mother lived with us on and off again throughout my childhood, until about 1990, at which point she lived with us permanently until my grandmother died from cancer in autumn 1995. The record I listened to the most, was her copy of Queen's "News of the World" album. Their 1977 mega-hit, thrilled me with the songs "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", but almost more than that, I would just stare and marvel at the album artwork shown above. It is a painting by science fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas, who agreed to alter the original work, to show the four band members being held (and dropped) "dead", by this giant intelligent robot. The inference of the painting, which I'm sure I didn't fully understand at 5/6 years old, is that this giant robot invaded a Queen concert, and grabbed the band with its enormous, harsh metal hands, unintentionally crushing and killing them. One of the cool things about vinyl records, is that they often came packaged with two "folds", one to hold the record, and one that often held a lyrics sheet. And the inner unfolding "gate", often held additional artwork, such as was the case with "News of the World". The inner artwork was just as mesmerizing to me as the front and back covers, as it showed the robot reaching in through the crashed dome ceiling of the concert venue, trying to grab more fleeing concert-goers. 

To little kid me, it was both terrifying and endlessly fascinating. I was horrified by the dead people, and the blood dripping from the robot's fingers. But I also wondered who the dead men were, or the people fleeing in the gate artwork. I also wondered about the robot itself, why it was giant, who built it, why it grabbed the people, and I'm sure on some level I even registered how the painting gave this machine a confused, mournful expression, incapable of truly grasping what it had just done. It was certainly a weird and interesting choice by the band for album art, and it is also certainly one of the most iconic and memorable album covers in popular music history. It was also the only true example of such full blown, elaborate "rock album art" that Queen themselves ever used. 

 

 

The ominous inner gate art.

A bit later in my young life, once I had my own cassette tape player, and eventually my own Walkman player, I would borrow some of my mother's tapes as well. The two I remember borrowing the most, were Alan Parson's Project's "Stereotomy" (great obscure album, by the way), and some kind of Queen Greatest Hits collection. That collection rocked, because not only did it have the two hits I loved already in Rock You and Champions, but it had such new treasures as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Another One Bites The Dust", "Killer Queen", "Bicycle Race", "Somebody to Love", and "Seven Seas of Rhye", among others. Even though I didn't own that Queen tape myself, I surely listened to it a LOT, almost as much as I listened to the few tapes I actually owned myself. Those included such eclectic gems as a collection of California Raisins songs, a collection of Alvin & the Chipmunks songs, two ZZ Top albums ("Afterburner" and the lesser "Recycler"), and the last addition while my grandmother was still alive, Ace of Base's "The Sign". 

I had a very odd, eclectic taste in music as a kid, anyway, partly shaped by what my mother or grandmother had available of their own for me to listen to, but also constrained by what was actually available for me to experience on radio or VH1/MTV, or whatever I was (or wasn't) allowed to listen to. For example, I may have already recounted in a previous article how, upon first buying me my own tape player around age 7, my grandmother took me to the recently opened Walmart in town, and let me pick out a tape to play on it. For whatever reason, I randomly chose Alice Cooper's "Trash", which contained the hit song "Poison". It's odd that she didn't seem to have any previous knowledge of Alice Cooper or his reputation among fearful, pearl-clutching conservative parents. But upon me playing the album in the car, she very shortly took me back to Walmart, to pick out a different record. I was attracted to ZZ Top's "Afterburner" because it had cool cover art of a car flying in space, and she even asked some random young man if that album was "okay for kids", and he said yeah. Funny thing is, while I didn't pick up on any of it at a young age, that album had songs that were lyrically "just as bad" as Cooper's, with such masterpieces as "Sleeping Bag" and "Woke Up With Wood". 

I'm sure if I had been able to experience more heavy metal and such as a child, I would have loved it. I did actually have a brief phase when I first got my Walkman, where I would listen to a local rock and metal station I had discovered, but while I enjoyed some of what I heard, I don't remember any of it REALLY grabbing me, and I eventually shifted to mostly listening to some "Oldies" station, and later a Christian music station. I liked various rock, pop, even rap songs I was able to hear on VH1 or MTV, though my MTV viewing mostly got done between the ages of 10-13, on the sly so I didn't get caught, once I had my own TV in my own room. The majority of what I listened to on my own, though, was my few tapes, oldies and the Christian station, during my pre-teen years. But thanks to my mother, I was exposed to Queen very early in life, and they became an ingrained part of my makeup and consciousness. It's funny, because I clearly remember her mentioning Metallica as a band she liked when I was little, but my grandmother did not want me listening to "music like that" (if she even really knew what Metallica was). My mother had MANY faults and issues, and I didn't always get along with her very well, as a kid or a teen, but outside of her once playing a Meatloaf tape SO often that I destroyed it as an angry, spiteful teen, to her credit she liked some pretty cool bands, and thanks to her, I at least knew some Queen music growing up.   

A classic album, displaying Queen's classic band "emblem".

Unlike the three previous bands whose songs I've covered in this sub-series, Kansas, Metallica and Blue Oyster Cult, who outside of hearing the awesome song "Godzilla" in TNT's Monstervision, and perhaps hearing "Don't Fear the Reaper" in passing at some point, I didn't truly discover and get into until my teens, Queen's music was a part of my life from a much younger age. However, the song I'm here today to talk about, I am fairly certain I didn't actually discover until I was into my 20s. That's due to the fact that I wasn't really able, thanks to the internet, to finally do a deeper dive into Queen's entire catalogue, until then. But regardless of when in life I discovered it, from the very first time I heard "The Prophet's Song", I was hooked. 

This song is similar in tone, heavy use of fantasy style imagery, and just being an epic 1970s prog rock masterpiece, as one of my favorite Kansas songs, "The Pinnacle". another of my favorite songs that I'll have to give its own article someday. Written by Brian May, who is not only my favorite guitarist of all time, but also one of my favorite songwriters, it is arguably the most epic song Queen ever crafted. Yes, even moreso than Bohemian Rhapsody (from the same album). Their early albums featured a wide range of diverse musical sounds, but they definitely dipped their toes into elaborate "prog rock",  most especially with several songs based on Freddie Mercury's own original fantasy ideas. But for this song, Brian May had a dream of a great flood washing everything away, and that served as the main inspiration. Lyrically, it is at least loosely based on the biblical tale of Noah and his Ark, but it is also very dark, and equally features bombastic, fantasy-tinged themes. 

 

 

One of many haunting works by the great Gustav Dore.

 

 

The song is actually one of a handful of Queen's forays into the "heavy metal" sound, as well, and certainly outside of Black Sabbath, features one of the earliest examples of partial "drop tuning", as May down-tuned his E2 string to D2, apparently to give the song a "moodier" aesthetic. It also happens to be the longest song (with lyrics) that Queen ever wrote, clocking in at nearly eight and a half minutes. It begins (and ends) with a haunting windscape sound, and gentle acoustic guitars, accompanied by Mercury's mournful tones. But then it very quickly escalates into its more present "epic" sound. And then escalates further, to a fairly heavy, riff-driven chorus. You could even rightly say that the verses and choruses rise and fall, like the waves of a great flood. 

 Now, the only flaw in what I would consider an otherwise perfect song, a masterpiece, is an interlude section that starts about three and a half minutes in, which entirely consists of multi-layered vocals, largely repeating the same few lines. On the one hand it gives a trippy, haunting, "calm within the storm" type of effect. But on the other hand, even as much as I adore this song, it admittedly just goes on far too long, for roughly two minutes and fifteen seconds or more. 

 

 

 

Brian May, and his infamous "Red Special" custom guitar.

 

 

The reason that Brian May is my overall favorite guitarist of all time, for one thing is because he's an excellent songwriter. Queen songs to his credit include "The Prophet's Song", "Killer Queen", "Keep Yourself Alive", "It's Late", "We Will Rock You", the bittersweet folk ballad "'39" and the amazing Highlander song "Who Wants to Live Forever".  But beyond that, he also has the smoothest, most soulful and beautiful guitar tone I've ever heard. Part of that is due to his famous "Red Special" custom guitar, which his father helped him make, and he played and recorded with almost exclusively. But it was also just his own unique playing style, the way he approached playing lead guitar, with smooth, drawn out notes, almost sounding like classical violin or cello. 

And in a genre of music rife with extraneous, posturing guitar solos that often have nothing at all to do with the rest of the music in their given song, just a guitarist engaging in what I call "musical masturbation", Brian May stood apart. His solos and lead work almost always fit well within the context of the rest of his songs, and they rarely ever sounded like a bunch of wanking noodling, but rather were often full of emotion, melody, and in an odd instrumental way, were almost thoughtful. In fact, one of my other favorite bands, the German metal band Blind Guardian, whose lead guitarist Andre Olbrich is another of my favorite guitarists, his own playing style and lead work was heavily inspired by Brian May and Queen. His solos also more often fit the context of a song, help telling its story instead of just showing off. And his guitar tone and lead work is also very smooth and symphonic. 

Overall, "The Prophet's Song" is in this man's estimation, one of the finest rock epics ever created. Few other songs truly capture such a sense of grandeur and possess such sweeping, awe inspiring mood and imagery. I can only imagine what it must have been like, to be able to hear bands like Queen, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, Kansas, and more, back in the 70s when this sound was new, and still forming. When literally no one had heard music like this before. But I will always be eternally grateful for the internet, for among its many faults and idiocies, it continues to serve as a repository for great old entertainment, that in many cases might otherwise eventually be forgotten. And I hope, in writing pieces like this, that I do my part in helping to inspire new generations to seek out and enjoy this music, because it is beautiful, incredible art, and deserves to be heard, forever. 

 

 

                                                    *************************

 

 

Here are the song's lyrics, and the song itself, so that you may experience its majesty for yourselves. 

Oh, people of the earth,
Listen to the warning, the seer he said,
"Beware the storm that gathers here".
Listen to the wise man.

 

I dreamed I saw on a moonlit stair,
Spreading his hand on the multitude there.
A man who cried for a love gone stale,
And ice-cold hearts of charity bare.

I watched as fear took the old man's gaze,
Hopes of the young in troubled graves.

 "I see no day, " I heard him say,
"So grey is the face of every mortal".

 

Oh, people of the earth,
Listen to the warning, the prophet he said,
"For soon the cold of night will fall, summoned by your own hand."

Ah, children of the land,
Quicken to the new life, take my hand.
Fly and find the new green bough,
Return like the white dove.

 

He told of death, as a bone white haze,
Taking the lost and the unloved babe.
Late too late, all the wretches run,
These kings of beasts, now counting their days.

From mother's love, is the son estranged,
Married his own, his precious gain.
The earth will shake, in two will break,
And death all round will be your dowry.

 

Ah, people of the earth,
Listen to the warning, the seer he said,
"For those who hear and mark my words, listen to the good plan."

And two by two, my human zoo,
They'll be running for to come out of the rain.
Flee for your life!
Who heed me not, let all your treasure make you. 

Fear for your life!
Deceive you not, the fires of hell will take you,
Should death await you.

God give you grace, to purge this place,
And peace all around, may be your fortune.
Ah, children of the land,
Love is still the answer, take my hand.
The vision fades, a voice I hear,
"Listen to the madman".

But still I fear,  and still I dare not.
Laugh at the madman...