Talk:A Night at the Opera (Queen album)

Lazing on a sunday afternoon

Is Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon Queen's shortest song?

Yes. TheStig 13:25, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Nope. “Yeah” is their shortest with 4 seconds 98.116.218.68 (talk) 17:50, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistency on Bohemian Rhapsody release date?

from the article:

1976	"Bohemian Rhapsody"	Pop Singles	9

and

"Bohemian Rhapsody"/"I'm In Love With My Car" - Elektra E45297; released December, 1975

If these are US and UK release dates perhaps this should be made clearer..

NPOV?

Freddies piano solo on "Death on..." is described as "wonderful" Not exactly NPOV :p Grymsqueaker

"There are some very nice backing vocals by Freddie as well as very high and fairly low harmonies by Roger, and some falsettos by Brian." doesn't seem to be very NPOV either... humanoidboogie

People tend to gush when it comes to a band this awesome. lol 65.248.164.214 (talk) 22:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Queen prog or not?

...as they say... No Synthesisers! (Just massive overdubbing.) I would not call it prog. --Fantailfan 12:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I definentally think it's progressive. They made progress with the rock sound and did not even used synths. Synths is not really needed for music to be progressive.

You don't need synths to make Prog Rock...they just help. Yes, ELP, Rush, Kansas, Dream Theatre...synth heavy bands there. 65.248.164.214 (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Prog and synth are NOT synonymous. At all. Seriously. I'd say this is progressive rock, or at least art rock. Awesomebriks (talk) 18:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

For me, only the two epics, Bo Rhap and Prophet's Song are actually prog songs. However, the album certainly exhibits prog influences in other places too, as Stephen Lambe's book acknowledges. AllMusic states that 39 is prog, but that appears to be more due to its mystical subject matter than anything else. Rodericksilly (talk) 22:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Rejected Songs

where do you find these rejected songs like "woe" and others.

No pauses?

Re this quote:

"There are no pauses between the songs. This gives the album as a whole a collage effect. The songs seem to play continuously without stopping in between."

Is this just the original vinyl version? Both the remastered casette and CD versions definitely have pauses between the tracks, except between "The Prophets' Song" and "Love of my life". Can anyone provide any back-up for this? Stejsmith 06:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Not to be a stinker but stejsmith is half wrong. He is right about the "prophet's song/love of my life" no puase thing. Where he is wrong is as follows : Just after the song titled "Death On Two Legs(Dedicated To...)" is yet another song from the album ( on the cd and LP of "A Night At The Opera") called "Lazing On A Sunday Afternnon". There is not any pauses between these two tracks either. I have the LP cassette and CD versions of "A Night At The Opera" and have listened to them thoroughly. STejsmith is right about there not being a pause between The Prophet's Song" & "Love Of My Life". I am also certain that there is no actuall pause between the "DeathOn Two Legs" song and the "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon" track. Now, as far as the rest of he recording there isnt any other pauses that I can tell on the cd or cassette. (The Vinman)

Rock opera?!

Okay, if this is a rock opera, I dare you to work out the plot. Twin Bird 02:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• Alright, I like dares. A man kills a guy on a Saturday night(Death On Two Legs), followed by lazing around on a Sunday afternoon(Lazying On A Sunday Afternoon). He then decides to go for a ride in his car(I'm In Love With My Car) where he drives to his girl friends house(You're My Best Friend). The two drive on the countryside, in the good ol' year of '39('39). They go dancing(Sweet Lady), and afterwards to a dock where they are taking a boat ride(Seaside Rendezvous). While out on the water, the police capture the man, and take him to prison, where he awaits his sentence(Prophets Song). The man, who knows he is guilty, shows his effections to the woman(Love Of My Life) before remenising on his past(Good Company). He is then sent into the trial, crying to his momma, and regreting his bad mistakes. But lifes choices have conciquences and he is excicuted and the last line, Any Way The Wind Blows(Bohemian Rhapsody). God Save The Queen is just there to make it cooler!(forgive my spelling) BS 0013

You made that up on the spot, didn't you?  :)

Twin Bird, it's not rock opera in the sense that Tommy, The Wall or American Idiot are rock opera, but rather a rock 'n' roll homage to opera. Some of the songs do have very operatic themes, and many of them have their own self contained plots:

• Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon tells the story of a week in the life of a purportedly "ordinary guy" (although he doesn't appear to be terribly ordinary!).
• '39 is the story of a group of volunteer space travellers in the unspecified year of [something]39 who return to Earth to find that, due to time dilation, 100 years have passed and everyone they knew is dead, except for the singer's daughter, who looks like her mother. The volunteers despair and leave Earth together for "a new home".
• The Prophet's Song tells the story of a disconcerting seer who tells everyone of his apocalyptic vision of God, and gives a warning to all mankind. One listener jeers that the prophet is mad, breaking the spell, but the singer is unnerved by what he has heard, and is still unable to "laugh at the madman".
• Good Company is a whole life story for the singer. As a child, the singer's father, an old man puffing a pipe, advises him to "take care of what you've got" and "keep good company". He grows up happily, surrounded by close friends, and marries Sally J, "the girl from Number 4". As they grow closer together, however, he loses all his friends. He begins to devote his life to his work, working longer and longer hours, and ends up running his own Limited Company. This comes at the expense of his marriage, and he hardly notices when his wife leaves him. At the end of the song, the singer is an old man, puffing his pipe. He is alone and friendless, and advises the listener to "take care of those you call your own and keep good company".
• Bohemian Rhapsody is mock opera in its own right. The story is not really clear, but seems to be along the following lines: It opens with some musings on the nature of fantasy and reality. The singer, a "poor boy" who needs "no sympathy" explains that nothing matters to him because he is "easy come, easy go". Then (possibly after time has passed) he confesses to his "mama" that he has shot a man, and bemoans having thrown away his life so soon. He is scared of dying, but feels he must "face the truth". What follows (the really operatic bit) is a strange vision of thunder and lightning, with dancing and appearences by Gallileo, Scaramouche and Figaro. The terrified singer pleads that he is "just a poor boy". Supernatural forces begin to struggle for his soul, with God's name invoked, and references to Beelzebub setting a devil aside for the singer. The singer becomes defiant, and attempts his escape. There doesn't appear to be any conclusion to the story, which just ends back at the start, with the singer once again expressing the sentiment that "Nothing really matters to me. Any way the wind blows..."

So you see, a lot of the songs could quite reasonably be considered rock opera, but the album itself does not have an underlying story (in fact the songs were often written independantly without reference to one another). The question is now whether the album itself is "rock opera". I think not, but I'm not the one who's been applying these genre classifications to the albums on these articles. RobbieG 12:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Surely there can be no doubt this is not a Rock Opera. It only appeared on that radar due to the title of the album. MrMarmite 10:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

This is no rock opera. When Queen did the We Will Rock You stage musical, they drew from ANATO, but chose instead to place its concepts within a larger dystopian Matrix/THX-1138/1984-esque framework of "music as revolution against tyranny." If ANATO was truly a rock opera, they could have done the musical solely on that basis (and made a much stronger production as well, IMO). I have loved Queen for 18 years, so there is no hating going on here, BTW. 65.248.164.214 (talk) 16:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that first one was pulled right out of a public toilet. Awesomebriks (talk) 18:57, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Bismillah? No, I will not let you go. Let HiM go? Bismillah? I will not let him go. Bismillah, Bismillah [X infinity], yeah, yeah,

. Everyone in Iran gets the joke, or they should. I'm late for a date, set long, long ago -- for the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, to end this shit forever. Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 04:06, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Prophet's Song

Not sure if this is necessarily true, but it seems pretty obvious from what I've heard of the song: The Prophet's song was written about May's dream of The Great Flood (or the story of Noah, hence the dove). I've read this somewhere, but I can't remember where, but it makes sense. I'm pretty sure, but not sure enough to write it in. MaddenedMan 09:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Wrong

"The title was apparently chosen because if the tracks on Queen's original studio albums are numbered in sequential order starting with their first, this would be the 39th song in the sequence."

The band denies this on their website. They say the fact that it was their 39th studio song was merely a coincidence they noticed after the album had been released.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.82.35.51 (talk • contribs).

"39 does indeed appear to deal with the time-dilation effect of near-lightspeed travel. However, at risk of being a little pedantic, there is nothing in the lyrics to suggest that 100 years have passed (tried to include link but spam-filtered, so find your own...). It is not even explicitly stated that the narrator's loved one is dead - the reprise of the line "Don't you hear my call though you're many years away" could suggest this, but then "your mother's eyes in your eyes cry to me" merely suggests a gap of a generation or so (which would still scupper most relationships!). All somewhat subjective admittedly." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.202.145 (talk) 09:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

"OK, I'm being dense - I suppose the two successive 'years of 39' could indicate a gap of a century, which in turn would strongly suggest his loved one was no more. However I'd always interpreted this as meaning that (from the crew's perspective) they returned the same year they left. Both of these could be true I guess. Personally I never picked up on the death angle." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.202.145 (talk) 09:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Name

Shouldn't it be "A Night At The Opera" the way it's written on the album cover? 84.108.245.222 18:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Album and song titles and band names. – Candyfloss 22:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Queen A Night At The Opera.png

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BetacommandBot (talk) 10:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done Donny (talk) 14:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Full song writing list

A number of well known albums such as Led Zeppelin IV and The Beatles' White Album have a page for every song. As this is widely considered Queen's Magnum Opus, would you reckon it would be deserving for the same to happen with this album? It's a very popular album as the article suggests, and I think it should. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.32.41.11 (talk) 01:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In general, a song should only have its own article if it fulfills the notability criteria for songs. If you plan to write an article for a given song, be prepared to argument for its notability. – IbLeo (talk) 07:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

None of the songs on the album are just 'typical' in any way, all of them have something unique or notable about them. For further detail, I've written out my reasonings below.

• Death on Two Legs: Meaning of the song caused controversy which is a notable topic.
• Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon: Used a very creative recording process and is one of Queen's most unique works, commentary is notable.
• I'm In Love With my Car: B-side. 'nuff said.
• You're My Best Friend: single.
• '39: B-side.
• Sweet Lady: Eventually evolved into the faster version of "We Will Rock You", so such an article would be necessary to give that commentary in an appropriate place, and is a very notable topic.
• Seaside Rendezvous: A very intricate recording process using Mercury's and Taylor's voices for an a capella segment. Notable topic with a lot to say about it, too much for just a sub-section in this article.

• The Prophet's Song: Was originally to be released as a single for this album, and is quite an epic number with plenty of notable commentary to go with it.
• Love of My Life: Is an explanation really necessary?
• Good Company: Similar reasoning to Prophet's Song and Seaside Rendezvous.
• Bohemian Rhapsody: ...
• God Save the Queen: Notable because of its role in Queen's live shows.

TheStig_t·c 23:47, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism?

is someone vandalizing this page? The pages for Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...), Lazing o a Sunday Afternoon, I'm in Love with My Car, 39, Sweet Lady, Seaside Rendezvous, The Prophet's Song, Good Company, and God Save the Queen are gone completly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.56.253.215 (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

First of all, that's not vandalism. Second, yes. If you look at the page history, Wiki libs removed them yesterday. The links didn't go anywhere. They just redirected back to this page. Friginator (talk) 02:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Charts section/table?

Dear all,

I noticed that there is no Charts section/table like the one in, e.g., the Innuendo or The Miracle article (with chart peak position by country, platinum/gold certification and sales). Does anyone else feel like this is missing? Should we work on adding this?

Looking forward to your opinions, Ben

--Georgepauljohnringo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC).

Track listing isn't correct for all cassette releases.

I first had A Night at the Opera on a UK release cassette so it came as a surprise when I later had the LP and CD releases and Good Company and Seaside Rendezvous had swapped positions in the track listing (I always preferred the track listing the way I first heard it). This perhaps ought to be noted on the main page but I don't know whether this different track listing was widespread or just on certain releases. Grunson (talk) 20:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5938174/the_rs_500_greatest_albums_of_all_time/3
  • In Doolittle (album) on 2011-03-17 14:34:47, 404 Not Found
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  • In A Night at the Opera (Queen album) on 2011-06-20 02:17:19, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 02:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

'39

Hello, I deleted the reference to Mägo de Oz as I don't think it's related to the said song. The creator may link his article to this section, but I don't think it's necessary to include this on the article. Thanks. Lynisganda01 (talk) 23:49, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Possible merger of individual track articles into album article?

All the tracks from this album currently have their own articles, and I'm wondering whether some of these are actually worth keeping as individual articles, or whether it would be better to merge them into this one. For example, "Good Company" contains just two references, one of which is to confirm John Deacon as bass guitarist (big deal!). The quotes by Brian May about the song are fascinating and would be worthy of keeping, but they are unsourced – anybody know where they are from? If you look at "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)" or "'39" most of the discussion of the song's meaning is essentially replicated in this album article, and the only extra information is about when the song has been played live. It appears that many of the song articles were created by TheStig118 and his reasoning for them is given in Talk:A Night at the Opera (Queen album)#Full song writing list above.

As an important album there's a good case for the individual song articles to be kept, but they need to be improved and the substantial overlap removed. It goes without saying that "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "You're My Best Friend" should keep their own articles, as the singles from the album and with their own chart placings, certifications, etc. Pinging Rodericksilly, Willondon, G5btb5g-2015b, Forever-AsItBegan and anyone else interested in this article for their thoughts. Richard3120 (talk) 20:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:A Night at the Opera (Queen album)/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

To meet the new criteria for B class, this article would need additional sourcing to support its assertions. It is also noticeably missing a "history" section, as it is so tagged. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 23:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 06:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Release date

Do we have a reliable source that says the album was released on 21 November 1975? It charted w/e 13 December, which would actually suggest a release date a week later on 28 November, because at the time fifteen days was the standard difference between release date and chart date. Richard3120 (talk) 17:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Could this link be of some help for the release dat possibly? http://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/35-rolling-stone-highest-rated/1975/1 combatchuck29 (talk) 22:25 26 October 2017

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No contemporary UK reviews

I've had a look in the British Library for reviews of A Night at the Opera from the four major UK music magazines of the time (NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and Record Mirror), and astonishingly, it doesn't seem to have been reviewed in any of them. Whether this was because EMI refused to send copies of the album to the media for review, or whether the generally anti-Queen UK music press simply didn't bother, I have no idea – there's a review in Rolling Stone from early 1976, but I think most reviews for the "critical reception" section are going to have to be legacy ones. Richard3120 (talk) 16:55, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Melody Maker review

I don't believe the review in the "Reception and legacy" section comes from Melody Maker in 1975. Firstly, it's obvious from reading the first sentence in the source ("Queen was well-known at the time of this album's debut for hard rock") that the use of the past tense shows that this is a legacy review. Secondly, the majority of the review focuses on the quality of the new mix. This isn't the type of thing Melody Maker would have covered, either in 1975 or on a subsequent reissue, despite where the source claims the article has come from – it's far more likely that this review has come from Record Collector or a specialist audiophile magazine such as Hi-Fi Choice. Richard3120 (talk) 21:24, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Found it – I knew it was from an audiophile magazine by the way they were talking... in this case, Audio Video Revolution: http://www.avrev.com/music-disc-reviews/dvd-audio/queen-a-night-at-the-opera-2.html. Richard3120 (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions

I am really excited about the WikiProject Albums and would like to help improve this Queen Album article so that it can get it's GA rating. Is there any suggestions of things I could do to help? --Dragonriderski (talk) 00:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Dragonriderski: the major issues with this article as it stands are in the composition section... many of the assertions made regarding "facts" about each song are either completely unreferenced, or referenced to unreliable fan sites, e.g. Queen Online, Queenzone, Ultimate Queen, etc. What is really needed is the original source for information about these songs... that might come from interviews in the music press at the time, or retrospective appraisals of the album, or biographies about the band. Richard3120 (talk) 10:59, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I added to composition section of "Bohemian Rhapsody" from the print book "Freddie Mercury" by Lesley-Ann Jones. Dragonriderski (talk) 02:37, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@Dragonriderski: it might be a better idea to add those details to the article about "Bohemian Rhapsody" itself, instead of here – this article is meant to give an overview of the album, rather than detailed descriptions of each song. And did Jones really describe Galileo and Beelzebub as "obscure"? Richard3120 (talk) 20:59, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, she did describe them as obscure.

So, I should concentrate more on good solid citations in the composition area and not worry as much about actual additions to the article. I actually had to order books from out of our library system because there wasn't anything available. It's like pulling teeth to find printed works on Queen. Dragonriderski (talk) 23:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

She has a bizarre view of what constitutes an "obscure" character then... Anyway, I wasn't suggesting your addition was wrong or not useful, more that it was better suited to the article about the song in question, where you can go into more detail about it. Yes, you're right - what will stop this article reaching GA status is a lack of good citations. At least there are biographies about both Queen and Mercury – probably the best source will be the documentary made as part of the "Classic Albums" series by Eagle Rock for VH1.

If you think it's hard finding sources about Queen, you should try finding information about the postpunk/new wave and alternative groups of the late 70s and early 80s... Richard3120 (talk) 00:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

George Michael performed "'39" at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert on April 20th,[4] 1992.[5][6] Dragonriderski (talk) 01:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I made a minor change adding the actual date (20th) of the tribute concert and my citation (4). I have no idea how to how to get rid of the two Queenzone citations (5,6). Dragonriderski (talk) 01:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

You just delete them if you have a better source, which you do – thanks for that. In fact the Queenzone source didn't even mention Michael's performance of "'39" , as far as I could see, so it wasn't very useful as a citation. I made some minor alterations to the date (British band, so the convention is to use the British dating system) and I moved the reference to the end of the sentence, because it looks strange splitting up a date with a citation number in the middle of it – see WP:CITEFOOT for information where to place a citation (in general, at the end of a sentence after the full stop/period, or after the comma that ends a clause). Richard3120 (talk) 01:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

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Genre

I don't understand why was pop genre added to this album and "A Day At The Races". All the same, the source says that the genre of the album is pop in the sense that it is more a mass product, not in terms of the musical component. Alex katsenelson (talk) 00:11, 07 September 2018 (UTC)

full of Original Research and fan-boy POV

Un-referenced material, non-encyclopedic language, etc., etc. Where to start fixing this atrocity of an article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.44.55 (talk • contribs) 10:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Really? Would you like to be more specific about where the problems are? What would you do to improve it? Because the only section which is generally full of unreferenced or poorly-referenced material is the "Songs" section - I agree that this should be cut down a lot to take out the unsourced material and that many of the songs do not deserve their own individual articles. But otherwise I don't see much evidence of POV, OR or unencyclopedic writing. Richard3120 (talk) 13:41, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

50.111.44.55 You could start as I've just done, trimming the song entries down to simply "Side one" and "Side two" (with a sub-section for "Bohemian Rhapsody" which I think is unavoidable - but none of the other songs warrant such an in-depth examination based on the sources), adding some decent book sources and trimming out a load of fancruft. More to come, I suspect. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: excellent work, thank you. I still feel there's a lot of unsourced and trivial material in the "Songs" section, especially the parts discussing on which tours each track was subsequently performed... is this really notable? And I think apart from the two singles, most of the other songs could be redirected to this article – the individual song articles mostly just repeat what is already here, padded out with unsourced OR or non-RS fansite sources. Richard3120 (talk) 16:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Release date (part 2)

I suggested in the "Release date" thread above that 28 November was a more likely release date than 21 November for this album, based on charting date, and now I see the Sounds review also states that the album would be released on 28 November. Unless someone can provide a source for 21 November being the release date (which isn't sourced anywhere in the article), I'm going to change it to 28 November and cite the source. Richard3120 (talk) 17:38, 26 December 2022 (UTC)