We Will Rock You - Muziek

Frogtoon Muziek - Nummerinformatie: We Will Rock You

Queen - Greatest Hits

"We Will Rock You" Is A Song Written By Brian May And Recorded And Performed By Queen As The Opening Track On Their 1977 Album News Of The World. The Album Version Consists Of A Stamping-Clapping Beat And A Power Chorus Being Somewhat Of An Anthem. The Stamping Effects Were Created By The Band Overdubbing The Sounds Of Themselves Stomping And Clapping Many Times And Adding Delay Effects To Create A Sound Like Many People Were Participating. According To The We Will Rock You Songfacts Brian May Said That His Degree In Astrophysics Helped In The Recording Of The Crucial 'stomp-Stomp-Clap!" Rhythm Of The Song. Other Than The Last 30 Seconds Containing A Guitar Solo The Song Is Generally Set In Acapella Form Using Clapping As A Rhythmic Beat. As The Double A-Side With "We Are The Champions" "We Will Rock You" Reached Number 4 On The U.S. Billboard Singles Chart Becoming Their Second Hit In The U.S. On The 45 Of The Song's Original Vinyl Record Release The Song Was Actually The Flip Side Of "We Are The Champions" In Britain However The American Record Company Requested To Put The Two Songs Together As A "double A-Side" Because American Radio Stations Were Playing Them Back To Back. This Is A Reason Why The Songs Are Often Paired On The Radio And At Sporting Events Where They Are Frequently Played. The Songs Are Also Paired Back To Back On The Album And They Are Still Played Together To This Day On American Classic Rock Radio Stations. Queen Also Performed The Song In Another Arrangement Known As The "fast Version" Which Featured A Faster Tempo And A Full Guitar Bass And Drums Backing Track Throughout. The Band Would Often Open Their Live Sets In The Late 1970s And Early 1980s With This Version As Captured On Their 1979 Live Killers Double Album On Queen Rock Montreal 2007 And On The Queen On Fire - Live At The Bowl Album Released In 2004.
The "stomp Stomp Clap" Sounds Were Later Reused In The Queen Paul Rodgers Song "Still Burnin'" A Composition Which Was Also Written By May. "We Will Rock You " As Recalled By May In A 2002 Interview With Guitar World Magazine "was A Response To A Particular Phase In Queen's Career When The Audience Was Becoming A Bigger Part Of The Show Than We Were. They Would Sing All The Songs. And In A Place Like Birmingham They'd Be So Vociferous That We'd Have To Stop The Show And Let Them Sing To Us. So Both Freddie And I Thought It Would Be An Interesting Experiment To Write A Song With Audience Participation Specifically In Mind. My Feeling Was That Everyone Can Stamp And Clap And Sing A Simple Motif So We Will Rock You Was Based On That. "We Recorded It At Basing Street Wessex Which Is An Old Converted Church That Has A Natural Good Sound To It. There Are No Drums On The Track. It's Just Us Clapping And Stamping On Boards Overdubbed Many Times Over With Many Primitive Delay Machines. A Bit Of Singing A Bit Of Guitar Playing And That's It. The Amazing Thing Is To Go To Football Soccer Matches Or Sports Events In General And Hear People Do It. It's Very Gratifying To Find That It Has Become Part Of Folklore Sort Of. I'll Die Happy Because Of That." In A Recent Interview With Terry Gross Host Of "Fresh Air" Conducted On August 3rd 2010 May Was Asked To Elaborate On Writing The Song. Terry Gross " So What Inspired That Song? I Mean It's Been Played At So Many Sports Stadiums Over The Decades. What Were You Thinking About When You Wrote It? Were You Thinking Of It As A Sports Anthem?" Brian May No Not Really. I Was Thinking Of It More As A Rock Anthem I Suppose And A Means Of Uniting An Audience Or Taking Advantage You Know Enjoying The Fact That An Audience Is United. And I Didn't Realize That It Would Transfer To Sports Games And This Is Quite An Amazing Thing. It's Wonderful For Me To See What "We Will Rock You" Has Done. You Know "We Will Rock You" And "We Are The Champions " Of Course Have Kind Of Transcended The Normal Framework Of Where Music Is Listened To And Appreciated. They've Become Part Of Public Life Which I Feel Wonderful About. It's Fantastic To Me If I Go To A You Know A Football Game Or A Soccer Game Or Basketball Or Whatever Or Any Place All Around The World And There It Is. And I Think "My God. Most People Don't Even Realize That I Wrote It. Most People Don't Realize That It Was Written". " Gross That's Right. May It's Sort Of Become … Gross Laughs That’s Right. May …one Of Those Things That People Think Was Always There. You Know It Sort Of Goes Back Into Pre-History. So In A Way That's The Best Compliment You Could Have For A Song. Gross Well I Think You Know That's If People Don't Even Realize It Was Written It's In Part Because It Almost Sounds Like An Old-School Cheerleader Cheer You Know Because... May Yeah. It's Become Part Of The Fabric Of Life. Gross ... Of That Stomp-Stomp-Clap Thing And Because It's A Chant. May Yeah That's Right. Well The Stomp-Stomp-Clap Thing Yeah People Think It Was Always There But Actually It Wasn't. And I Don't Know How It Got Into My Head. All I Can Tell You Is We Played A Gig Sort Of The Middle Of Our Career In A Place Called Bingley Hall Near Birmingham. Now Birmingham Is The Sort Of Home Of Heavy Metal As You Probably Know. You Know Sabbath And Slade And People Come From There. And It Was A Great Night. People Were Just The Audience Were Just Responding Hugely And They Were Singing Along With Everything We Did. Now In The Beginning We Didn't Relate To That. We Were The Kind Of Band Who Liked To Be Listened To And Taken Seriously And All That Stuff You Know. So People Singing Along Wasn't Part Of Our Agenda. Having Said That And Then Having Experienced This Wave Of Participation Of The Audience Particularly In That Gig In Birmingham We Almost To A Man Sort Of Reassessed Our Situation. I Remember Talking To Freddie About It And Saying “Look You Know Obviously We Can No Longer Fight This. This Has To Become Something Which Is Part Of Our Show And We Have To Embrace It The Fact That People Want To Participate. And Really Everything Becomes A Two-Way Process Now.” And We Sort Of Looked At Each Other And Went “Hmm How Interesting”. And He Went Away That Night And To The Best Of My Knowledge Wrote "We Are The Champions" With That In Mind. I Went Away And Woke Up The Next Morning With This... Vocalises 'stomp-Stomp-Clap' ... In My Mind Somehow Because I Was Thinking To Myself "What Could You Give An Audience That They Could Do While They're Standing There And They're All Crushed Together? They Can Stamp And They Can Clap And They Can Sing Some Kind Of Chant." So For Some Reason It Just Came Straight Into My Head The "We Will Rock You." And To Me It Was Kind Of A Uniting Thing. It Was An Expression Of Strength. And The Words Came Out Very Quickly. In Fact Everything Came Out Very Quickly And I Think That's A Good Sign When You're Writing A Song. It Should Happen Quickly Very Often And That Means The Flow Is A Good One. And The Words Are Something Completely Different. If You Ask Me What I Was Thinking Of In The Words Of The Verses It's Something Different. It's Although It's Related. Gross About The Boy Who's Told He's No Good? May Yeah It's About The Development Of A Boy Into A Man And His Dreams And How He Sees Himself And How He Views His Power In The World. It's A Kind It's Sort Of A Contemplative Song Really Although It's A Big Chant With Fist In The Air. It's About Balancing Your Power With Acceptance I Think. Gross So How Did You Record The Stomp-Stomp-Clap So It Would Sound Grand And Reverberating As Opposed To Three People Four People Stomping Their Feet And Clapping? May Well I'm A Physicist You See. LAUGHING So I Had This Idea If We Did It Enough Times And We Didn't Use Any Reverb Or Anything That I Could Build A Sound Which Would Work. We Were Very Lucky. We Were Working In An Old Disused Church In North London And It Already Had A Nice Sound Not An Echoey Sound But A Nice Big Crisp Sound To It. And There Were Some Old Boards Lying Around. I Don't Know What They Were But They Just Seemed Ideal To Stamp On. So We Kind Of Piled Them Up And Started Stamping. And They Sounded Great Anyway. But Being A Physicist I Thought "Well Supposing There Were A Thousand People Doing This What Would Be Happening?" And I Thought "Well You Would Be Hearing Them Stamping. You Would Also Be Hearing A Little Bit Of An Effect Which Is Due To The Distance That They Are From You." So I Put Lots Of Individual Repeats On Them Not An Echo But A Single Repeat And At Varying Distances. And The Distances Were All Prime Numbers. Now Much Later On People Designed A Machine To Do This And I Think It Was Called Prime Time Or Something But That's What We Did. As We Recorded Each Track We Put A Delay Of A Certain Length On It And None Of The Delays Were Sort Of Harmonically Related. So What You Get Is There's No Echo On It Whatsoever But The Claps Sound As Though They're Spread Around The Stereo But They're Also Kind Of Spread As Regards Distance From You. So You Just Feel Like You're In The Middle Of A Large Number Of People Stamping On Boards And Clapping … Gross That's Amazing. May … And Also Singing. TS Now Here's Another Really Interesting Thing To Me About "We Will Rock You." It's The Most Famous Song That You've Written. It's A Largely A Cappella Song. You Come In For Your Guitar Solo At The Very End. So Until Like The Very Very End Like You're Not Even Playing On It And It's Just Kind Of Amazing That You As The Guitarist Would Write A Song That You're Barely Featured On. May Well I'm Featured Stamping And Clapping. Gross Well Yes. May And I'm Featured Singing So... Gross And You're Very Good At That. LAUGHING May Thank You Yeah. Well We're All Featured Yeah. Yeah Well You See Songs Aren't About Guitars To Me. Songs Are About Truthfully A Song Is About A Singer In My Opinion And If The Singer Gets The Idea Across Then You're Almost Home And Dry. You Know You Can Make The Most Beautiful Piece Of Production And I Love Production. You Know Production Is A Big Part Of My Life. But I'm Always Aware That If You Don't Have The Right Singer And He Doesn't Have The Right Feeling That You're Wasting Your Time. So A Song Is A Song To Me And It Doesn't Matter What Song. It Could Be A Piano Accordion On It. You Know If It's The Right Song And The Right Singer And You Feel Passion That's What It's About. The Guitars Yeah I Didn't Want Us To Be Standard. I Didn't Want It To Be Like Oh Here's A Guitar Solo And Then We Sing Another Verse. I Wanted It To Be Something Stark And Different. So It Was Very Deliberate That I Left The Guitar Solo To The End Just Because That Was A Final Statement And A Different Statement Taking It Off In A Completely Different Direction. It Changes Key Into That Piece Too You Know So It's A Whole Different Kettle Of Fish. It Was Not A Standard Pop Song. From Here The Host Played The Remainder Of The Song Gross So That's The End Of "We Will Rock You " Written By My Guest Guitarist And Singer And Songwriter Brian May Who Was One Of The Founding Members Of Queen. So ... May I Should Can I Comment On The End Of That? Gross Yeah Please. LAUGHING May Interesting That You Play The End Of The Song. You Can Hear The Guitar Waiting In The Wings. That Was You Can Hear This Little Feedback Note. And So The Guitar Is Present Although It's Not Taking Center Stage All Through The Last Choruses And Then Finally It Bursts Upon The Scene. And You Notice Freddie Goes “All Right” Which Means He's Kind Of Handing Over To The Guitar And We're In A Different Universe Once The Guitar Starts And That Was The Intention. And It's Very Sort Of Informal. And You May Notice - There's A Lot Of Things To Notice. You May Notice That The Last Piece The Very Last Little Riffs Are Repeated And They're Not Just Repeated By Me Playing Them Again. They're Repeated By Cutting The Tape And Splicing It On Again And Again. So And That's Deliberate Too. It's A Way Of Getting A Sort Of A Thing That Makes You Sit Up Towards The End. And Then It Stops. There Is Nothing After It Which I Really Enjoy. Laughs There's No Big Ending. It Just Stops And Leaves You In Mid-Air Thinking “Well What Happened There?”