'39

One of my favorite songs by Queen is ’39.  I find the music amazing but it is the lyrics that have astounded me the most.  Most people fail to realize what is really happening in the song but once I explain it, they seem profoundly affected by the revelation of what is really happening.  These conversations and explanations usually happen as the song is playing and we can’t go back to look at lyrics already past but here I can.

The song was written by Brian May, guitarist for Queen, and appears on their 1975 album, A Night at the Opera.  What I want to do today is fully explain ’39.  I will go through the lyrics and explain them in detail.  I will go back and compare and finally, I will print them one last time at the end, in their entirety, so you can see how it all fits together.

The first verse starts out with:

“In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers
In the days when lands were few.
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn;
Sweetest sight ever seen.”

It seems simple.  The year is ’39 and due to crowding, there doesn’t seem to be enough land.  A group of volunteers are setting sail to colonize new lands, maybe in the new world.  The verse continues:

“And the night followed day

And the storytellers say

That the score brave souls inside

For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas

Never looked back, never feared, never cried.”

This seems to continue on and fits well with what we already put together of the story.  We further learn that there were 20 (a score) and they were brave.  The way the storytellers are referred to gives us the impressions that this happened in the past and was probably a historical event of note.  This verse also tells us that it took “many a lonely day,” or a long time.  In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, crossing the ocean did take many days.

People follow the first verse easy enough; it is when they hear the chorus that things stop making sense.  Here is the chorus:

“Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?

Don't you hear me calling you?

Write your letters in the sand

For the day I take your hand

In the land that our grandchildren knew.”

The first line could fit in here because these voyages were often a few years in length; however it is stated a little strangely.  It’s the last line of the chorus that really tells the listener that they have missed something.  It says, “In the land that our grandchildren knew.”  Knew?  Past tense?  What is going on here?  The rest of the song is equally puzzling and the listener usually gives up trying to figure it out.

The problem is that we made certain assumptions when we listened to the first verse.  We assumed that this was a few hundred years ago and they were crossing the ocean to look for lands in America.  That is not what is happening.  This song takes place in the future.  The crowding and need for new land is a planetary problem and the volunteers were astronauts looking for a planet to colonize.  Brian May most obviously worded his first verse to intentionally mislead the listener.  In essence, he made something of a puzzle to figure out.  The clues are in the remainder of the song but before we look at it, let’s take another look at that first verse.  By the way, I had a little fun misleading you with the picture up top too.

“In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers
In the days when lands were few.
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn;
Sweetest sight ever seen.”

He just says the “year of ’39,” and never states a century.  We at first assumed a few hundred years in the past, but nothing says it couldn’t be a few hundred years ahead in time.   The ship, he doesn’t say what type, sails into the blue and sunny morn.  Nothing in here that precludes the future.

“And the night followed day

And the storytellers say

That the score brave souls inside

For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas

Never looked back, never feared, never cried.”

Again, nothing here keeps us from believing that it could be a future trip into space, instead of a past voyage sailing across the sea.  There is even one phrase used, “sailed across the milky sea,” that may even be more appropriate for a space voyage.  In antiquity, man looked up to the night sky, observed and named the Milky Way.  All of the stars of our own galaxy in the sky give the impression of a wide strip of milk, the “milky seas.”  Also, interstellar travel would take a long time, many years.

Before I explain the rest of the song, I need to discuss some geeky stuff, but I promise to keep simple.  It is important to understanding this song.

One consequence of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is time dilation.  In simple terms, if an astronaut leaves the earth and travels at a very high rate of speed through space, when he returns he might only have experienced a few months or a year but for everyone that remained here on earth, 50 or 100 years might have passed.  The faster the speed, the greater the time differences will be.

We have proven this with atomic clocks on the space shuttle and on earth.  A clock on the shuttle will be a bit slower after a return to earth than one that remained here, because the one on the shuttle was moving at a faster speed.  These speeds, the fastest we can achieve for now, are only creating time differences of a fraction of a second.  Our most traveled astronauts have gain less than a second to their lives compared to ours.  But if we were to travel to the stars looking for a planet to colonize, great speeds would be required that could cause a time dilation of 100 years of earth time for every 1 (one) year of time on that space ship.

One other thing that I think is safe to assume is that our traveler who is singing the song, was married and left behind a wife and kids.  This is implied when he contemplates the “lands that our grandchildren knew.”

Now, let’s look at the chorus one more time:

“Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?

Don't you hear me calling you?

Write your letters in the sand

For the day I take your hand

In the land that our grandchildren knew.”

Now, “Don’t you hear my call though you’re many years away,” makes a lot more sense.  Here I must address something that does bother me and it becomes even more apparent as the song progresses, though it is hinted here.  It seems that our traveler was blindsided by this fact and he never considered the time dilation issue.  I find that puzzling.  He goes on assuming that she writes him letters “in the sand,” which might be the sands of time or maybe just a little something that was their thing.  Now those sands are their homeland that their grandchildren knew.  The past tense implies that so much time passed on earth that his grandchildren are already dead.  Yet, he seemed to be looking forward to holding her hand again upon his return.

Second verse:

“In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue;

The volunteers came home that day

And they bring good news of a world so newly born

Though their hearts so heavily weigh.

For the Earth is old and grey, little darling we'll away

But my love this cannot be.

Oh so many years are gone though I'm older but a year;

Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me.”

Again, the year is ’39 so it is 100 years later or maybe 200 years later, but they have returned and have news of a world to colonize.  Now they have the realization that everyone they knew and loved is now dead.  We know he is just now coming to terms with this and is making the realization because he says, “But my love this cannot be.”  Now here is the big clue to tell anyone that had not caught on that he is talking about time dilation. “Oh so many years are gone though I'm older but a year.”

Now that you know what is going on, try to read the outro without crying:

“Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?

Don't you hear me calling you?

All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand.

For my life

Still ahead

Pity me.”

Those have to be the most profound and emotional lyrics I have ever heard.  He has been gone for what seems like a year to him and he has missed his wife.  He can’t wait to hold her hand and heal him from the profound misery of their separation.  He now realizes that she is long dead as are his kids and grandkids.  He must now live his life knowing that he will never hold her hand again.  “For my life still ahead, pity me.”  What profound sadness.

On a side note, before Brian May joined Queen, he had earned a degree in Physics and was working on a PhD in Astrophysics.  He definitely found a way to bring his two passions together by writing and recording a song involving space travel and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  On another side note, it is not Freddie Mercury who sings this song on the album; it is Brian May.

Here are the lyrics one more time.  Read through them with your new knowledge of their meaning or stop by a Woman’s Touch this week.  I will play this great song at least once during each set this week.

“In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers
In the days when lands were few.
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn;
Sweetest sight ever seen.

And the night followed day

And the storytellers say

That the score brave souls inside

For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas

Never looked back, never feared, never cried.”

[chorus]

“Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?

Don't you hear me calling you?

Write your letters in the sand

For the day I take your hand

In the land that our grandchildren knew.”

“In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue;

The volunteers came home that day

And they bring good news of a world so newly born

Though their hearts so heavily weigh.

For the Earth is old and grey, little darling we'll away

But my love this cannot be.

Oh so many years are gone though I'm older but a year;

Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me.”

[Outro]

“Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?

Don't you hear me calling you?

All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand.

For my life

Still ahead

Pity me.”

Perhaps I should have led with this picture