"The Prophet's Song"
Song by Queen
from the album A Night at the Opera
PublishedQueen Music Ltd.
ReleasedNovember 21, 1975 (1975-11-21)
Recorded1975
StudioSarm East, London
Genre
Length8:21
LabelEMI
Songwriter(s)Brian May
Producer(s)

"The Prophet's Song" is a song by the British rock band Queen, written by their guitarist Brian May, originally released on their fourth studio album A Night at the Opera in 1975.

Background

"The Deluge", frontispiece to Gustave Doré's illustrated edition of the Bible; after having a dream about a flood, Brian May was inspired to write a song about it.

"The Prophet's Song" was composed by Brian May (working title "People of the Earth") and is the second longest Queen song, at 8 minutes and 21 seconds, exceeding Bohemian Rhapsody by 2 minutes and 22 seconds. On the show In the Studio with Redbeard, which spotlighted A Night at the Opera, he explained that he wrote the song after a dream he had about a great flood while he was recovering from being ill while recording Sheer Heart Attack, using the dream as his source for some of the lyrics. Portions of the song were recorded but abandoned during sessions for Queen II.[2]

May spent several days putting it together, and it includes a vocal canon sung by Freddie Mercury. The vocal, and later instrumental canon was produced by early tape delay devices. It is a heavy and dark number with a strong progressive rock influence and challenging lead vocals. At over eight minutes in length, it is also Queen's longest song with vocals, though the untitled instrumental track from Queen's last studio album, Made in Heaven, is about 14 minutes longer. May also tuned the guitar's lowest E2 string down to a D2 note for a moodier sound.[3]

May plays a non-standard Queen instrument, a toy koto, during the introduction and closing "wind" sections of the song. Producer Roy Thomas Baker recalled in a documentary[4] of the making of the song that the wind effect was created by recording the sound of an air-conditioning unit through a phaser.[3]

As detailed by May in a documentary about the album, the speed-up effect that happens in the middle of the guitar solo was achieved by starting a reel-to-reel player with the tape on it, as the original tape player was stopped.

The lyric refers to the Book of Genesis, explicitly in examples such as "return like the white dove" (a reference to the story of Noah's Ark), and cryptically in examples such as a vision of a "moonlit stair" comparable to Jacob's Ladder.

The ending of the song overlaps with the following song, Mercury's "Love Of My Life".

Reception

AllMusic has called the song "mystical prog rock",[5] citing it as an epic as fascinating as "Bohemian Rhapsody" and one of Queen's finest studio achievements.[6] Rolling Stone also praised it, naming it as the record's "best track", noting that "May's powerful guitar perfectly complements the rich, multitracked harmonies of lead singer Freddie Mercury."[7] Ultimate Classic Rock has also called the song "epic and mystical art rock".[8]

Personnel

Information is taken from the album’s Liner Notes[9] and the Queen Songs website[10]

References

  1. ↑ "The 50 best Queen songs of all time". Classic Rock Magazine. 20 November 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  2. ↑ Georg Purvis. “Queen: Complete Works.' Titan Books. ISBN 9781789090499
  3. 1 2 Making Of The Prophets Song, archived from the original on 21 December 2021, retrieved 30 January 2020
  4. ↑ Longfellow, Matthew (20 March 2006). "Queen: The Making of A Night at the Opera". Making of The Prophet's Song. Eagle Rock Entertainment. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  5. ↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "A Night at the Opera". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  6. ↑ Guarisco, Donald A. "The Prophet's Song". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  7. ↑ "A Night At The Opera". Rolling Stone. 8 April 1976.
  8. ↑ Rivadavia, Eduardo (21 November 2015). "Revisiting Queen's Masterpiece, 'A Night at the Opera'". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  9. ↑ A Night at the Opera (Media notes). EMI Records. 1975. EMTC 103.
  10. ↑ "A Night at the Opera :: Queen Songs". Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
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