Brian May, CBE, PhD, FRAS tells the story of his parents' disappointment at his choice of professions... until he flew them on the Concord to a concert at Madison Square Garden in 1977. His father shook his hand, finally understanding why he chose what he did. Brian had what he needed from his parents. He did not ever stop studying, but did finally get his PhD in 2007, 30 years after he began his educational journey. He is quite active in science and astrophysics, speaking around the world and participating in projects with great scientists everywhere, including NASA. Bri's stereoscopy has opened a new world for younger folks about our history and future of photography. His books on the subject are spectacular. He's a wonderful teacher of music and science, active on Instagram, and TH-cam. Can you tell how much I adore him? ❤
Brian May is Dr Brian May also Roger Taylor has degree in Biology after changing from dentistry Freddie has a diploma in graphic art and design John Deacon has a first class honours degree in electrical engineering he made the amp that Brian still uses today for his guitar sounds, from an old circuit board & speaker that he found in a skip one very very AMAZING band ❤
This is the basis of the movie Interstellar, whether the producers know or acknowledge it or not. It's the very same story. It's a good movie. This is also the song that George Michael used to sing when he was a busking teenager on the streets of the UK.
What made Queen special was that every member of the band wrote their own songs (usually on their own - not many songs were co-written), and each of them had major hits, and each wrote in pretty different styles. I can listen to a Queen song and tell at least 90% of the time which one of them wrote it. I can't think off-hand of any other band that had such broad songwriting talent.
@@acfiv1421 exactly, that's why they could do so many genres of music, also because each member were such great musicians they actually had the ability to play it. Freddie's vocal abilities were fantastic and just put the cherry on top.
Wow. Space travel. I’ve always enjoyed this song and never understood the lyrics or bothered to investigate them. Makes me love the song even more. Should have guessed it considering Brian May is an astrophysicist. Great trivia too. 39th song! Wow!
HOLY SHIT! - I have loved this song for decades, and today my mind has been blown!!!! I never really understood the lyrics, but always felt that it was a study in making a period sounding song, which is awesome! But now I know it is really a period peace in the future! INCREDIBLE!
In case you didn't know, all members of Queen were highly intelligent and well educated. Brian May has a PhD in Astrophysics; Roger Taylor has a degree in Biology and as in med school studying to be a dentist when Queen released their first album in 1973. John Deacon has his degree in Electrical Engineering, and used his degree to invent many things including the Deacy Amp, that gave Brian's guitar a unique sound. Finally, Freddie Mercury, was an artist, not a scientist, earning his degree in Graphic Arts, and he designed the album covers for the first 5 Queen albums.
Roger Taylor attended the London School of Medicine in Whitechapel, which is where Joseph Merrick aka The Elephant Man spent his last years in residence and where his skeleton is housed. The skeleton is not for public view and is kept for the interests of medical science.
I love Queen but have only had their greatest hits albums. I started listening to their other albums and I came across this beautiful song on The Night At The Opera album. Written and sung by Brian May, with Roger Taylor and his gorgeous falsetto voice. One of my favourite songs now 😘
FTL, faster than light travel. I bought the 8 track of this album in 1977 when I was 14. You must experience this album entirely in one sitting. The way that it meanders from one style to the next is truly brilliant. Lazy on a Sunday afternoon and the prophet song on one album. It wasn’t until 1998 that I first heard the meaning of these lyrics. Mind you, an eight track tape doesn’t come with lyrics on the back or the inner slave. The way the meaning is woven in is hard to pick up on through the vocals all by themselves. As with a lot of singers, I had misunderstood the vocals. “ in a land where I’ll grant you renew“ was what I thought I was hearing. In my opinion a pivotal and definitive portion of the songwriting I had always gotten wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a copy of the LP which may have (lyrics included)brought the greater meaning of the song into light for me as a younger person. I think it was Einstein who’s theory of faster than light travel comes with a paradox in the Space Time continuum. The mission to find a New World took a year to find and return from. That year of travel equated to several decades back on earth. And it gets a little muddy in the meaning. They leave in 39 and return in 39? Literally a century went by not decades. And the woman whose eyes he looked into would’ve been long gone. Instead she had grown old while he barely aged at all. and the first time I heard this song after that knowledge I just cried. Time is a goddamn thief
Great reaction! My super hippy neighbors (How hippy? They lived in a YURT.) used to play this when I was a youngster, but I never guessed it was Queen, either. Correction: Columbus sailed in 1492, not 1442.
yeah, great pick John, lets further confuse our sheltered lad further by playing him “I’m In Love With My Car”, the Roger Taylor song and vocal, from the same album. BTW, that was Brian’s vocal in ‘39.
Ha! I knew this would blow Dave's mind. Another great Brian May song from "A Night At the Opera" is "Good Company". The lyrics are straightforward (though well-crafted), but the guitar arrangement is extremely creative.
Guys, go watch the film "Interstellar" if you haven't seen it. It explores the same idea of time dilation during space travel. It's like a cinematic version of "39."
Hey guys. ya this is another under rated Queen song. I love it. Night at the Opera was stuck in my cassette player in my car for months lol lots of love
I do love this song and I do love Brian's story within this song. As the person of interest in this story looks into the eyes of his granddaughter he sees the eyes of his own daughter crying to him. The ship apparently lost contact with mission control at some point in their journey and were all presumed to be long dead. "Can you hear my calls, though you're many (light) years away, can you hear me calling you?" When they returned to earth after their one year journey, the earth had aged 100 years. Brian has his PhD in Astrophysics and also has degrees in math and physics. Yeah, the guy really is Dr. Gray Matter and one hell of an amazing guitar player.
Brian May is a brilliant musician, a genius, and a respectable humanitarian. '39 is a great song. Thanks, guys! On another note, the last 20 minutes or so of nothing reminds me of one of those hidden tracks you find on albums. I was expecting something to happen. Lol
Such a beautiful song!! This is from the same album as Bohemian Rhapsody, You're My Best Friend (which if you know the 'greatest hits', you know these two), but additionally The Prophet's Song (which you recently reviewed). There are so many styles on this album, and they're all stellar! You might as well go through all the tracks to get the complete feel of all that Queen can do: Death On Two Legs, I'm In Love With My Car (sung by Roger), Sweet Lady, Seaside Rendezvous, Love Of My Life, Good Company (also by Brian), and in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's passing, they finish off the album with God Save The Queen. Just a masterpiece of an album - and they'd follow it up with another great one in A Day At The Races!
The, 'milk seas', being reference to the milky way. So, the ship is travelling across the galaxy, rather than an ocean on earth. It took them 100 years to travel to the, 'land so newly born', i.e. a discovered planet, and back again, and yet, to the brave score souls, (20 of them), only one year had passed. The effect of travelling at enormous speeds causing what's known as time dilation, where everything slows down within the vessel as it travels across the galaxy, whereas, back on earth time runs normally, with the effect that time seemingly passes faster outside the vessel, relative to it. Of course, when they returned to earth with the good news, everyone they knew had passed on, save small children who are now over 100 years old. 'Your Mothers' eyes from your eyes, cry for me.'
Glad I asked about this yesterday, great song great reaction. I learned about the meaning about 10 years after I first heard it so I was curious to see how close Dave would get. Queen reactions are always fun. On the live killers version of this song Freddie sings lead which is the first version I had heard. So when I heard the studio version I was confused why Freddie sounded different.
Not to brag but... I understood the relativistic implications in my teen years (when the album came out). I was (still am) very interested in atrony and science fiction so I already knew the basic physics of how that worked.
I had this album on 8-track first when I was 16 years old, as that was the only music playing device I had at the time, and it would play over and over again, sometimes through the night while I was sleeping. I did get the LP later when I became an adult and could afford a decent stereo system, but along with you and Dave, I just learned what the song was actually about and was very pleasantly surprised, and for some reason it kind of brought a tear to my eye, maybe being the old sentimental grandpa I have become? I had kind of forgotten about this song, as I don't listen to Queen much these days and that song is not on most Queen playlists. Here is a vote for "I'm In Love With My Car", a hard rocking song that Freddie also does not sing lead on,one of my Queen favorites, always reminds of the 1979 Fiat X 1/9 I purchased brand new in 1980 and had to sell a couple years later as I became a new dad of the first of my 3 boys and could no longer afford the insurance (and the tickets!) Dang, I miss that car! Thanks for bringing back some old memories!
@@LiteralistReactions I also thought a LOT about today's reaction video song "Red Barchetta" a lot during by driving of that car, but my car was blue. Never been a fan of red, even though it means FAST. HAHA! Barchetta was a great reaction video! And I am still reeling in this song, (39), can't really get the song or meaning out of my head and have shared it with many! Thanks again!
Hello. I love your comments. They should analyze the official version of Yoy Take My Breath Away, where they can appreciate the incredible voice of Freddie Mercury, doing the choirs alone in the whole song. It's a real work of art. By the way from the same album A day at the races .Thanks.
Brian writes some of the deeper songs. He of course had to put a small hidden Relativity lesson in it too. BUT Brian being an only child probably was used to thinking (over thinking?) things like this. I say this as someone raised as an only child (several half siblings are about)
there is a very strong rumour that 39 was part of the inspiration for Christopher Nolans "Interstellar" th-cam.com/video/pdwnpfCzSqs/w-d-xo.html ,as this masterfull mashup makes all too clear,there is even a microsecond of footage where the digits on coopers CB radio sudenly focus and its on channel 39,also im sure someone else has mentioned it but the guitar that Brian has played all though his musical career was made from odds and ends of houshold objects by him and his father from scratch becausde he couldn't afford to buy a proffessionally made one.
So, I was looking forward to checking out a new channel! Nope….it was not to be. What channels such as yours often fail to realize is the majority of your listeners/watchers want to hear the entire song before discussing and analyzing it! Stopping in the middle (ESPECIALLY in a Queen song!!) drives me (us?) into slobbering with frustration and irritation!!! There is no earthly reason to hit STOP in the middle!! The song was written by Brian May, lead guitarist, is an astrophysicist!! The “milky seas” refer to the Milky Way, which is clearly mentioned. All of the band members are high college grads…May is also a big animal rights activist AND was knighted! So it’s Sir Brian May! It was the “band of brains” as I always call them now.
Sheri - thanks for stopping by and commenting. Thing is, you can listen to the song "'39" without interruption any of dozens of ways. If you're here to listen to a song, you're in the wrong place. If you're here to watch someone listen to a song for the very first time in their life, you're in the right place. I used to listen to "new" music in the 70's with my closest friends. Instead of pausing the music, when we would hear something amazing, or different, or strange, and we would discuss what we heard then pick up the needle and play that part again. That's not very different from what we do here. There is an earthly reason to stop the music. Dave will listen to the song again later, in its entirety, uninterrupted, but we don't really need to do this in front of an audience, now do we? - JD
Brian May, CBE, PhD, FRAS tells the story of his parents' disappointment at his choice of professions... until he flew them on the Concord to a concert at Madison Square Garden in 1977. His father shook his hand, finally understanding why he chose what he did. Brian had what he needed from his parents. He did not ever stop studying, but did finally get his PhD in 2007, 30 years after he began his educational journey. He is quite active in science and astrophysics, speaking around the world and participating in projects with great scientists everywhere, including NASA. Bri's stereoscopy has opened a new world for younger folks about our history and future of photography. His books on the subject are spectacular. He's a wonderful teacher of music and science, active on Instagram, and TH-cam. Can you tell how much I adore him? ❤
Brian May is Dr Brian May also Roger Taylor has degree in Biology after changing from dentistry Freddie has a diploma in graphic art and design John Deacon has a first class honours degree in electrical engineering he made the amp that Brian still uses today for his guitar sounds, from an old circuit board & speaker that he found in a skip one very very AMAZING band ❤
I am right with you there John. I've been listening to that song for many years and i just found out what it's about lol
This is the basis of the movie Interstellar, whether the producers know or acknowledge it or not. It's the very same story. It's a good movie. This is also the song that George Michael used to sing when he was a busking teenager on the streets of the UK.
The one reason I love Queen is they could play any type of music and they did it great, and never were afraid to do it. Great reaction
What made Queen special was that every member of the band wrote their own songs (usually on their own - not many songs were co-written), and each of them had major hits, and each wrote in pretty different styles. I can listen to a Queen song and tell at least 90% of the time which one of them wrote it. I can't think off-hand of any other band that had such broad songwriting talent.
@@acfiv1421 exactly, that's why they could do so many genres of music, also because each member were such great musicians they actually had the ability to play it. Freddie's vocal abilities were fantastic and just put the cherry on top.
Thanks for taking my recommendation, great reaction!
Lovely melancholy tone. Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me. An astrophysicist gets folky.
Wow. Space travel. I’ve always enjoyed this song and never understood the lyrics or bothered to investigate them. Makes me love the song even more. Should have guessed it considering Brian May is an astrophysicist. Great trivia too. 39th song! Wow!
HOLY SHIT! - I have loved this song for decades, and today my mind has been blown!!!! I never really understood the lyrics, but always felt that it was a study in making a period sounding song, which is awesome! But now I know it is really a period peace in the future! INCREDIBLE!
That's why we're here. - JD
this became my favorite 'Queen' song the first time i heard it
Though their hearts so heavily weighED... Darling WELL away (no apostrophe)
One of my favorites
In case you didn't know, all members of Queen were highly intelligent and well educated. Brian May has a PhD in Astrophysics; Roger Taylor has a degree in Biology and as in med school studying to be a dentist when Queen released their first album in 1973. John Deacon has his degree in Electrical Engineering, and used his degree to invent many things including the Deacy Amp, that gave Brian's guitar a unique sound. Finally, Freddie Mercury, was an artist, not a scientist, earning his degree in Graphic Arts, and he designed the album covers for the first 5 Queen albums.
Roger Taylor attended the London School of Medicine in Whitechapel, which is where Joseph Merrick aka The Elephant Man spent his last years in residence and where his skeleton is housed. The skeleton is not for public view and is kept for the interests of medical science.
I love Queen but have only had their greatest hits albums. I started listening to their other albums and I came across this beautiful song on The Night At The Opera album. Written and sung by Brian May, with Roger Taylor and his gorgeous falsetto voice. One of my favourite songs now 😘
FTL, faster than light travel. I bought the 8 track of this album in 1977 when I was 14. You must experience this album entirely in one sitting. The way that it meanders from one style to the next is truly brilliant. Lazy on a Sunday afternoon and the prophet song on one album.
It wasn’t until 1998 that I first heard the meaning of these lyrics. Mind you, an eight track tape doesn’t come with lyrics on the back or the inner slave. The way the meaning is woven in is hard to pick up on through the vocals all by themselves. As with a lot of singers, I had misunderstood the vocals. “ in a land where I’ll grant you renew“ was what I thought I was hearing. In my opinion a pivotal and definitive portion of the songwriting I had always gotten wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a copy of the LP which may have (lyrics included)brought the greater meaning of the song into light for me as a younger person.
I think it was Einstein who’s theory of faster than light travel comes with a paradox in the Space Time continuum. The mission to find a New World took a year to find and return from. That year of travel equated to several decades back on earth. And it gets a little muddy in the meaning. They leave in 39 and return in 39? Literally a century went by not decades. And the woman whose eyes he looked into would’ve been long gone. Instead she had grown old while he barely aged at all. and the first time I heard this song after that knowledge I just cried. Time is a goddamn thief
I bought it the same year! I was 13. I really love all of Queen's catalog up to and including Jazz. I lost contact in the 80's until Innuendo
Great reaction. Love Queens versatility
A gorgeous song. They were so versitile.
Took me over 30 yrs to finally understand the meaning of the song.
Great reaction! My super hippy neighbors (How hippy? They lived in a YURT.) used to play this when I was a youngster, but I never guessed it was Queen, either.
Correction: Columbus sailed in 1492, not 1442.
My Favourite 😊 thanks
yeah, great pick John, lets further confuse our sheltered lad further by playing him “I’m In Love With My Car”, the Roger Taylor song and vocal, from the same album. BTW, that was Brian’s vocal in ‘39.
Your votes were added! - JD
Ha! I knew this would blow Dave's mind. Another great Brian May song from "A Night At the Opera" is "Good Company". The lyrics are straightforward (though well-crafted), but the guitar arrangement is extremely creative.
Added, thanks! - JD
Guys, go watch the film "Interstellar" if you haven't seen it. It explores the same idea of time dilation during space travel. It's like a cinematic version of "39."
Hey guys. ya this is another under rated Queen song. I love it. Night at the Opera was stuck in my cassette player in my car for months lol lots of love
I do love this song and I do love Brian's story within this song. As the person of interest in this story looks into the eyes of his granddaughter he sees the eyes of his own daughter crying to him. The ship apparently lost contact with mission control at some point in their journey and were all presumed to be long dead. "Can you hear my calls, though you're many (light) years away, can you hear me calling you?" When they returned to earth after their one year journey, the earth had aged 100 years. Brian has his PhD in Astrophysics and also has degrees in math and physics. Yeah, the guy really is Dr. Gray Matter and one hell of an amazing guitar player.
Brian May is a brilliant musician, a genius, and a respectable humanitarian. '39 is a great song. Thanks, guys! On another note, the last 20 minutes or so of nothing reminds me of one of those hidden tracks you find on albums. I was expecting something to happen. Lol
Definitely wish we had done that on purpose! - JD (Hmmmmmmmm)
On the Queen LIVE Killers album, Freddie sings lead on this song. Roger's voice is still beyond belief on the track and the crowd gets right into it.
Brian May also creates Stereo-Optic books
Such a beautiful song!! This is from the same album as Bohemian Rhapsody, You're My Best Friend (which if you know the 'greatest hits', you know these two), but additionally The Prophet's Song (which you recently reviewed). There are so many styles on this album, and they're all stellar! You might as well go through all the tracks to get the complete feel of all that Queen can do: Death On Two Legs, I'm In Love With My Car (sung by Roger), Sweet Lady, Seaside Rendezvous, Love Of My Life, Good Company (also by Brian), and in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's passing, they finish off the album with God Save The Queen.
Just a masterpiece of an album - and they'd follow it up with another great one in A Day At The Races!
The, 'milk seas', being reference to the milky way. So, the ship is travelling across the galaxy, rather than an ocean on earth. It took them 100 years to travel to the, 'land so newly born', i.e. a discovered planet, and back again, and yet, to the brave score souls, (20 of them), only one year had passed. The effect of travelling at enormous speeds causing what's known as time dilation, where everything slows down within the vessel as it travels across the galaxy, whereas, back on earth time runs normally, with the effect that time seemingly passes faster outside the vessel, relative to it. Of course, when they returned to earth with the good news, everyone they knew had passed on, save small children who are now over 100 years old. 'Your Mothers' eyes from your eyes, cry for me.'
Glad I asked about this yesterday, great song great reaction. I learned about the meaning about 10 years after I first heard it so I was curious to see how close Dave would get. Queen reactions are always fun. On the live killers version of this song Freddie sings lead which is the first version I had heard. So when I heard the studio version I was confused why Freddie sounded different.
Dr May is an astrophysicist too so it's a space folk song. They've written and released some fabulous songs and not just the popular songs
Not to brag but... I understood the relativistic implications in my teen years (when the album came out). I was (still am) very interested in atrony and science fiction so I already knew the basic physics of how that worked.
I had this album on 8-track first when I was 16 years old, as that was the only music playing device I had at the time, and it would play over and over again, sometimes through the night while I was sleeping. I did get the LP later when I became an adult and could afford a decent stereo system, but along with you and Dave, I just learned what the song was actually about and was very pleasantly surprised, and for some reason it kind of brought a tear to my eye, maybe being the old sentimental grandpa I have become? I had kind of forgotten about this song, as I don't listen to Queen much these days and that song is not on most Queen playlists. Here is a vote for "I'm In Love With My Car", a hard rocking song that Freddie also does not sing lead on,one of my Queen favorites, always reminds of the 1979 Fiat X 1/9 I purchased brand new in 1980 and had to sell a couple years later as I became a new dad of the first of my 3 boys and could no longer afford the insurance (and the tickets!) Dang, I miss that car! Thanks for bringing back some old memories!
Great story, really. - JD
@@LiteralistReactions I also thought a LOT about today's reaction video song "Red Barchetta" a lot during by driving of that car, but my car was blue. Never been a fan of red, even though it means FAST. HAHA! Barchetta was a great reaction video! And I am still reeling in this song, (39), can't really get the song or meaning out of my head and have shared it with many! Thanks again!
Another fun fact. 0.39 is (rounded up) the distance between the sun and mercury in astronomical unit.
Hello. I love your comments. They should analyze the official version of Yoy Take My Breath Away, where they can appreciate the incredible voice of Freddie Mercury, doing the choirs alone in the whole song. It's a real work of art. By the way from the same album A day at the races .Thanks.
Thanks, and welcome to the Fellow Humans club! Your suggestion and votes were added to our list! - JD
There's a great live version of this with Freddie Mercury singing lead.
Brian writes some of the deeper songs. He of course had to put a small hidden Relativity lesson in it too. BUT Brian being an only child probably was used to thinking (over thinking?) things like this. I say this as someone raised as an only child (several half siblings are about)
In the days before the net, I was listening to this for about the millionth time.... I got what what this was about
We all knew about this song
Brian May: overachiever.
there is a very strong rumour that 39 was part of the inspiration for Christopher Nolans "Interstellar" th-cam.com/video/pdwnpfCzSqs/w-d-xo.html ,as this masterfull mashup makes all too clear,there is even a microsecond of footage where the digits on coopers CB radio sudenly focus and its on channel 39,also im sure someone else has mentioned it but the guitar that Brian has played all though his musical career was made from odds and ends of houshold objects by him and his father from scratch becausde he couldn't afford to buy a proffessionally made one.
the highest backing vocal range.....roger taylor...drummer not freddie.
So, I was looking forward to checking out a new channel! Nope….it was not to be.
What channels such as yours often fail to realize is the majority of your listeners/watchers want to hear the entire song before discussing and analyzing it! Stopping in the middle (ESPECIALLY in a Queen song!!) drives me (us?) into slobbering with frustration and irritation!!!
There is no earthly reason to hit STOP in the middle!!
The song was written by Brian May, lead guitarist, is an astrophysicist!! The “milky seas” refer to the Milky Way, which is clearly mentioned. All of the band members are high college grads…May is also a big animal rights activist AND was knighted! So it’s Sir Brian May! It was the “band of brains” as I always call them now.
Sheri - thanks for stopping by and commenting. Thing is, you can listen to the song "'39" without interruption any of dozens of ways. If you're here to listen to a song, you're in the wrong place. If you're here to watch someone listen to a song for the very first time in their life, you're in the right place. I used to listen to "new" music in the 70's with my closest friends. Instead of pausing the music, when we would hear something amazing, or different, or strange, and we would discuss what we heard then pick up the needle and play that part again. That's not very different from what we do here. There is an earthly reason to stop the music. Dave will listen to the song again later, in its entirety, uninterrupted, but we don't really need to do this in front of an audience, now do we? - JD
Ah, 14 minutes not 31. What's with all the black? Space travel?
Exactly. I will delete the meditation in space sequence when I get more time. - JD
first