Spread your wings
| Spread your wings | |
|---|---|
| Queen | |
| publication | February 10, 1978 |
| length | 4:32 |
| Genre (s) | Hard rock |
| Author (s) | John Deacon |
| Label |
EMI (Europe) Elektra (North America) |
| album | News of the World |
|
Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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| Singles | ||||||||||||||||||
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Spread Your Wings is a song by the British rock band Queen , written by bassist John Deacon . It is included on the October 1977 album News of the World and was released on February 10, 1978 in Europe as a single with Sheer Heart Attack as the b-side . It was not released as a single in North America, but instead appeared as the B-side of Billboard's number 1 hit Crazy Little Thing Called Love in 1980 . While the song didn't hit the charts big, it's very popular with Queen fans.
text
The text describes a young man named Sammy who works in a bar cleaning (“You should've been sweeping / up the Emerald bar”). While his boss scolds him in the verses and says that he has no ambitions and should be content with what he has (“You've got no real ambition, / you won't get very far / Sammy boy don't you know who you are / Why can't you be happy / at the Emerald bar ”), the narrator encourages him in the chorus to pursue his dreams (“ spread your wings and fly away / Fly away, far away / Pull yourself together 'cause you know you should do better / That's because you're a free man. ”).
music
The song is written in 4/4 time , starts in the key of D major , changes in the bridge to its parallel key in B minor and ends again in D major. It starts with a short piano intro, followed by the first verse, which is only accompanied by an acoustic guitar , piano and hi-hats , and the chorus, in which the electric guitar and drums are added. The bridge consists of short, slow guitar tones. In contrast to the first, the second stanza contains electric guitar sounds and drum sounds almost from the start. This is followed by the refrain again. The outro is - apart from two short calls - instrumental. It consists of a longer guitar solo in which - which is extremely unusual for Queen - the same chord progression is repeated several times and slowly fades out from the fourth time. The whole song does not contain any background vocals, just Freddie Mercury's lead vocals.
occupation
- John Deacon : bass , acoustic guitar
- Freddie Mercury : vocals , piano
- Brian May : electric guitar
- Roger Taylor : drums
Music video
The music video was filmed in Roger Taylor's garden in Surrey in 1978 . The ground is covered by a layer of ice and snow on which the musicians played. Brian May later said: "Looking back, it couldn't be done there - you couldn't do that!" ("When I look back, it shouldn't have been done there - you couldn't do that!")
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charts DE Charts UK
- ↑ Queens single releases. In: ultimatequeen.co.uk. Retrieved November 19, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Review. allmusic , accessed on November 19, 2016 .
- ↑ Lyrics. In: queenonline.com. Queen, accessed November 19, 2016 .
- ↑ musical analysis. queensongs.info, accessed November 19, 2016 .
- ↑ Information about the video. songfacts.com, accessed November 19, 2016 .
- ↑ music video. In: youtube.com. Queen Official, accessed November 19, 2016 .