Queen: The Greatest Legend Lives Forever

The Prophet's Song

Oh 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 hands 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 men'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 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
Oh oh children of the land
Quicken to the new life
Take my hand
Oh, 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 around will be your dow'ry
Oh oh 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
Oh oh oh oh and two by two my human zoo
They'll be
Running for to come
Running for to come
Out of the rain
Oh, flee for your life
Who heed me not, let all your treasure make you
Oh, fear for your life
Deceive you not the fires of hell will take you
Should death await you
Oh, oh, people can you hear me (oh, oh, people can you hear me)
(Oh, oh, people can you hear me)
And now I know (now I know) (now I know)
And now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know that you can hear me (now I know that you can hear me)
And now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
The Earth will shake in two will break in two will
Shake in two will break in two
Doubts all around around around around around around around around
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Now I know (now I know) (now I know)
Wow ooh wow ooh wow ooh wow ooh wow ooh wow ooh wow ooh wow ooh
Listen to the wise (listen to the wise) (listen to the wise)
Listen to the wise (listen to the wise) (listen to the wise)
Listen to the wise man (listen to the wise man) (listen to the wise man)
Laa laa la la la la laa laa (laa laa la la la la laa laa)
La la la la laa laa (la la la la laa laa)
La la la la laa laa (la la la la laa laa)
La la la la laa laa (la la la la laa laa)
La la la la laa laa (la la la la laa laa)
La la la la laa laa (la la la la laa laa)
La la la la laa laa (la la la la laa laa)
La la laa laa (la la laa laa)
La la laa laa (la la laa laa)
La la (la la)
La la (la la)
La la (la la)
Come here (come here)
I you come here (I you come here)
I you come here (I you come here)
I you (ah)
Aah (ah)
Aha (aha)
Aah (ah)
Aha (aha)
Listen to the mad (listen to the mad)
Listen to the man (listen to the man)
Listen to the mad (listen to the mad)
Listen to the mad man (listen to the mad man)
God give you the grace to purge this place
And peace all around may be your fortune
Oh oh children of the land
Love is still the answer, take my hand
The vision fades, a voice I hear
Listen to the madman
Oh, but still I fear and still I dare not
Laugh at the madman

~•~•~•~•👑•~•~•~•~

♪ Song fact: Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this after he had a dream about the Great Flood. Many religions and cultures have stories of floods, including the Great Flood of The Bible that led to Noah's Ark. Brian May had the dream that inspired this song years before he wrote it. He wasn't trying to push any religious agenda with the lyric, but he did want to convey a message. "In the dream, people were walking on the streets trying to touch each other's hands, desperate to try and make some sign that they were caring about other people," he told Melody Maker in 1975. "I felt that the trouble must be - and this is one of my obsessions anyway - that people don't make enough contact with each other. A feeling that runs through a lot of the songs I write is that if there is a direction to mankind, it ought to be a coming together and at the moment, it doesn't seem to be happening very well." A working title was "People Of The Earth," which is a phrase that came to Brian May in his dream and made it into the lyric. In the video The Making Of A Night At The Opera, Brian May explained: "'Prophet's Song' was built around a different tuning - the bottom strings tune down to a 'D'. And I became fascinated with what you could do with that - it gives the guitar a lot more depth. It wasn't a very common thing to do in those days. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was the first, I probably wasn't, but it was unusual, and it gave the guitar a real sort of doomy kind of growl to it. It's different from tuning the whole guitar down at semi-turn, which a lot of people do - this is actually the bottom string going down a turn, so most of the guitar is still playable in the normal way, in tune with the piano. Because it has a floating tremolo, as soon as you change the tune of one string, the whole thing goes a little out of tune so you normally have to have a separate guitar with different tuning. It's a bit awkward having a tremolo, but it makes that effect. And the end of each riff was different, which was a little kind of obsession that I had. It was a very 'Queen' thing though: we'd never repeat ourselves, even in the context of a song. We weren't one of these groups who would say, 'That's a nice chorus, we'll pop it in here and in here again.' You would always hear something different every time the chorus came round, and it became a little trademark I suppose, and something which really keeps you on your toes internally as well.
Y

ou're always looking for new colors, and the new colors sometimes relate to the words. You know, maybe there's a different point to be made in the next chorus because the song has moved on. Songs to me are journeys, and if you find yourself repeating a chorus then maybe there isn't much of a journey to the song."
According to the song's producer Roy Thomas Baker, the wind at the beginning is actually an air conditioner with a phaser on the microphone. In the beginning of this song, Brian May plays a toy version of a Japanese string instrument called a koto, which someone gave him when he was in Japan. "It's only this big toy koto, but it makes a beautiful evocative sound," he said. "We were very influenced by Japan, I have to say. Even the riff is kind of Japanese-influenced."
Brian May put a delay effect to use on this track. "I started messing around on the guitar, discovered that if I played a note and then the repeat came back to me, I could play along with that note and then another repeat," he said in The Making Of A Night At The Opera . "You would build up 3-part harmonies that way, and you could build up counterpoint and you could do rhythmic things - fascinating. So, the thought came along: Wouldn't it be nice to apply this to vocals as well? I did some demos of [singing] 'oh, people can you hear me?' and worked it out. I then chopped up the demos so we had a continuous demo for Freddie [Mercury], and then Freddie liked it so we put Freddie in the studio and he did it live with these delays."
Roy Thomas Baker added regarding Mercury's vocal: "He starts off singing in the center, and then the first delay starts to the left, then the second delay goes to the right, then he can sing and make 3-part harmonies just by harmonizing with himself as it comes back around into his headphones. The delay was done by using two stereo Studer machines - they were still running the tape from one reel to the other the way you'd normally run a tape machine, whereas you run it from one reel through and then off the machine and then straight to a different machine, and then playing back on a different machine, so the tape would actually be laying across the room. There were a few chairs and lamps and coat hooks around that we hooked it over until we ended up with the right delay. He had to perform it live, so it's being performed live with the delays in his headphones and he could hear it so he could sing along with it and then harmonize with the vocals when it came back to him."