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Post by saintjiub on Aug 7, 2020 13:41:47 GMT
who copy and pasted all of my posts here without my permission??? Be thankful that your posts weren't deleted. I had a whole topic deleted and was told the deletion was an inadvertent mistake.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 7, 2020 13:46:35 GMT
who copy and pasted all of my posts here without my permission??? Be thankful that your posts weren't deleted. I had a whole topic deleted and was told the deletion was an inadvertent mistake. Why I have to be thankful that my posts weren't deleted while I deleted them already?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2020 14:57:06 GMT
The point is that this is an interesting opportunity to address the topic of what constitutes evidence and what doesn't.
For this particular case, we've got two contradictory claims:
- A comment published in the spring 1980 issue of the Official International Queen Fan Club magazine, allegedly coming from the band (presumably Brian), which reads as follows: 'It is the first track the band really created in the studio.' - An unsourced Wikipedia article (which potentially has some other mistakes) claiming that 'May wrote this song shortly after the band's formation in 1970, following the break-up of Smile.'
The latter doesn't cite any evidence or sources and anyone anywhere could've written it based on rumours, imagination, speculation or broken telephone; the former, even if coming directly from live witnesses, is not by any means incontestable taking into consideration that people can lie, misremember, forget or simply mix up memories. However, that doesn't at all mean witness testimonies should automatically be dismissed and that unsourced claims should be believed just because 'those who were there could be wrong' or 'sometimes fans know better than the artists themselves.' It does not follow that an official claim and a claim backed up by no evidence at all should be on an equal footing.
As far as those who, unlike us, were there, have claimed, 'The Night Comes Down' was at least partially written in the studio, which corresponds to December 1971 at the Music Centre in Wembley, London. Said hypothesis could easily be debunked by better evidence. Examples of better evidence:
- A verified recording featuring Michael Grose (who only played with them in 1970) including that song on the set-list. - An entry on Brian's journal, dated xx.xx.1970, including the words 'today (or last week, or at some other point around that date) I wrote a new song called "The Night Comes Down".' - Studio chatter at the time from recording in which the engineer asks them about the song and one of them says 'that's an oldie - it predates John joining the band, and it was penned right after Smile disbanded.'
Should any of the above exist and ever see the light, it'd be absolutely reasonable to switch from the 'December 1971' position and embrace a new temporary conclusion (by definition, they're all temporary as the absolute truth is virtually unreachable).
Going to the next tier, there are pieces of evidence which, if they existed, could put the 'December 1971' claim into question, without necessarily disproving it. Examples:
- An interview in which Brian (or one of his bandmates) says that 'The Night Comes Down' was written in 1970. - A Fan Club magazine Q&A section with a different (contradictory) answer to the same question. - Barry Mitchell claiming they played the song while he was in the band (by the way, IRL, he said the opposite).
None of them would automatically eliminate the possibility of the song having been at least partially written in the studio, but they'd at least bring in a reasonable case to doubt and to try and investigate further.
Last and certainly least, there are claims which provide no evidence at all and which do not work to confirm or deny that temporary conclusion, let alone to support another claim (such as the 1970 hypothesis). Those include:
- Wikipedia, Reddit, or blog posts, websites and even printed media publications which may have copied from each other without going to any primary sources whatsoever. - Personal incredulity: 'I don't think...' statements. In particular, claiming 'they didn't have enough time to write a song' is utterly false, since songs can be written swiftly (e.g. 'Crazy Little Thing'). - Rushed conclusions from otherwise valid points.
I do find the latter particularly interesting: it wouldn't make sense to write off cases such as musicologists working together to establish if certain Bach piece belonged to his early, mid or late period or if it wasn't his to begin with, based on hints and evidence collected from his other works (of which there are hundreds, possibly thousands, depending on how they're being counted); that's completely different to 'those lyrics sound juvenile, therefore he wrote them aged 22 or 23 instead of 24'. As commented earlier, weak/throwaway lyrics do not necessarily confirm that the song was written in 1970 - they could also be consistent with a song written in the studio while they did their first demos.
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Post by saintjiub on Aug 7, 2020 17:17:35 GMT
who copy and pasted all of my posts here without my permission??? Be thankful that your posts weren't deleted. I had a whole topic deleted and was told the deletion was an inadvertent mistake. My response was intended to point out that I felt that the poster was overreacting to having his posts moved to a new topic as part of normal forum housekeeping. I am clarifying that the topic deletion was a genuine inadvertent "mis-click" error, and I accepted the moderator's explanation. The topic deletion was part of moderator housekeeping to remove multiple empty inactive topics that otherwise clutter the board. Hopefully my comments won't derail genuine discussion in this topic.
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Lord Fickle
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Post by Lord Fickle on Aug 7, 2020 17:49:45 GMT
Just to add that forum staff have every right to perform general administrative housekeeping, such as splitting or moving posts or whole threads. This is part of every day forum maintenance on every forum you can care to mention (except those with little or no moderation).
This is only usually performed here when a thread is created for a specific purpose, but is derailed by the conversation moving significantly 'off topic', as with this recent example.
In more general threads, we encourage the natural progression of conversations, and we don't enforce strict rules of staying 'on topic'. We think this creates a more relaxed atmosphere and allows for interesting discussions to develop, even if they are at a sideline to the main topic.
Requests to split or otherwise moderate topics are considered on a case-by-case basis, and in this case, I felt that the split was reasonable and appropriate, given the nature of the parent topic.
As you were... 🙂
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Mustapha Ibrahim
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(Mustapha! Mustapha! Mustapha!) I've never heard of the bloody song!
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Post by Mustapha Ibrahim on Aug 7, 2020 19:02:11 GMT
You don't need permission to move posts somewhere else.
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Post by queenhouse85 on Aug 7, 2020 23:41:19 GMT
Back to the topic, George Purvis said in his book (Queen: Complete Works) this about The Night Comes Down:
"One of the earliest lyrics written by any member of Queen, Brian's elegiac The Night Comes Down' recalls the simpler days of his youth, and laments growing old and having to take on responsibility. Set to a gorgeous acoustic backing, driven by a subtle rhythm section that doesn't overpower the words, Freddie recalls a fling from the Summer of Love: "Lucy was high, and so was I / Dazzling!" That line, of course, harks back to The Beatles' controversial 1967 song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds', which was presumed to be about LSD but was revealed by its author, John Lennon, as a lyrical depiction of a painting his son, Julian, had made of a classmate. 'The Night Comes Down' is a stunning excursion into acoustic territory the band would rarely explore again. Seemingly influenced by many of The Kinks' late 1960s singles, the song is a bright and cheery ballad, certainly a rarity among most other Brianpenned ballads. Performed live in 1971 and 1972 (recordings of which have not surfaced), its only post-Queen performance may have come on 1 March 1974, Greg Brooks reporting in his book, Queen Live: A Concert Documentary, that the song was rumoured to have been played that day along with 'The Fairy Fellers Master-Stroke'. Two versions of the song exist: the first is a demo, recorded between September and December 1971 at De Lane Lea Studios and produced by Louis Austin, while the second version hails from the Trident sessions in 1972. When the band listened to a playback of the rerecorded 1972 version, they decided that the original demo captured the mood they wanted to portray, so the new version was discarded and the old one was used instead. To date, the re-recording has yet to surface, and one can only wonder if it's possible for the unreleased version to surpass the beauty of the demo."
I don't take what Purvis says for granted, but it seems like a precedent to consider.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 8, 2020 0:29:43 GMT
I'm also remember one of my friends told me that he thinks it's written in 1968.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 8, 2020 0:33:52 GMT
Just to add that forum staff have every right to perform general administrative housekeeping, such as splitting or moving posts or whole threads. This is part of every day forum maintenance on every forum you can care to mention (except those with little or no moderation). This is only usually performed here when a thread is created for a specific purpose, but is derailed by the conversation moving significantly 'off topic', as with this recent example. In more general threads, we encourage the natural progression of conversations, and we don't enforce strict rules of staying 'on topic'. We think this creates a more relaxed atmosphere and allows for interesting discussions to develop, even if they are at a sideline to the main topic. Requests to split or otherwise moderate topics are considered on a case-by-case basis, and in this case, I felt that the split was reasonable and appropriate, given the nature of the parent topic. As you were... 🙂 Apologize if I looked angry for a while. I didn't know this informations about the admins I'm learning them now, my knowledge isn't so good about this informations.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 0:43:04 GMT
Back to the topic, George Purvis said in his book (Queen: Complete Works) this about The Night Comes Down: "One of the earliest lyrics written by any member of Queen... Two versions of the song exist... I don't take what Purvis says for granted, but it seems like a precedent to consider. That book is really good, but it's got some mistakes, including the widespread rumour that a Trident version exists. As far as it's been documented, there's only the 1971 demo recorded at the Music Centre. Oh, and by the way, a song written in December 1971 would still qualify as 'one of the earliest lyrics written by any member of Queen', so there's nothing in that claim that contradicts the official statement that it was written in the studio.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 8, 2020 9:19:33 GMT
I think most of the early songs either written in late 60s or early 70s. It would be better to take a look to the upcoming book All Queen Songs, that will help us to find when it's exactly written. Also the song has some references to Beatles_ Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds in the line "Lucy was high and so was I" we all know that the Beatles's song released in 1967, probably Brian inspired to write the song and one year later in 1968 he started writing and probably finished the writting in early 1970
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Lord Fickle
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Post by Lord Fickle on Aug 8, 2020 10:06:34 GMT
Just to add that forum staff have every right to perform general administrative housekeeping, such as splitting or moving posts or whole threads. This is part of every day forum maintenance on every forum you can care to mention (except those with little or no moderation). This is only usually performed here when a thread is created for a specific purpose, but is derailed by the conversation moving significantly 'off topic', as with this recent example. In more general threads, we encourage the natural progression of conversations, and we don't enforce strict rules of staying 'on topic'. We think this creates a more relaxed atmosphere and allows for interesting discussions to develop, even if they are at a sideline to the main topic. Requests to split or otherwise moderate topics are considered on a case-by-case basis, and in this case, I felt that the split was reasonable and appropriate, given the nature of the parent topic. As you were... 🙂 Apologize if I looked angry for a while. I didn't know this informations about the admins I'm learning them now, my knowledge isn't so good about this informations. Fair enough. As I think you now realise, we do things like moving posts for a reason, not just to annoy someone! 😉
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Post by ThomasQuinn on Aug 8, 2020 10:13:59 GMT
I think most of the early songs either written in late 60s or early 70s. It would be better to take a look to the upcoming book All Queen Songs, that will help us to find when it's exactly written. Also the song has some references to Beatles_ Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds in the line "Lucy was high and so was I" we all know that the Beatles's song released in 1967, probably Brian inspired to write the song and one year later in 1968 he started writing and probably finished the writting in early 1970 None of that is evidence-based. All you can say for certain is that the "Lucy In The Sky (With Diamonds)" reference must have been written no earlier than May 1967 and that *probably* means the song was not started earlier than that (although it is not impossible that the lyric was added to a song that he was already writing). You've mentioned a Wikipedia quote that says the song was written in 1970, and a friend of yours who thinks it was written in 1968. But everything you write about The Night Comes Down is based purely on your *assumptions*, and not on any evidence. Do you understand that you can't draw serious conclusions on the basis of that? I've tried to find out more details about the passage on Wikipedia, treating it in good faith like I would any other historical source of questionable provenance I might come across. So far, I've found the following: - It was added to the article on August 27, 2006 along with a mass of further information on individual songs. The edit-description says "merged song articles", which, along with other edits by the same Wikipedia-editor, strongly suggests that it was not *new* information, but information already contained in another article that was moved to the article on Queen's first album. - The stand-alone article from which the info was merged no longer exists, and I cannot find a backup of it on Waybackmachine either. I did, however, find a Spanish-language version from 2007 (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Comes_Down, look under 'Ver historial') that appears to be a direct translation of the original article. It has no references and makes no mention of any sources for any of its claims. - Before the August 27, 2006 edit was made, the following was written about the dates: *Songs composed before the band was formed: "Doin' All Right" (taken from the repertoire of the May/Taylor/Tim Staffell's band [[Smile (Queen)|Smile]]) *Songs composed after Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury and Brian May founded Queen, but before John Deacon joined: "Keep Yourself Alive", "Great King Rat", "Liar", "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll", "Son and Daughter", and "Jesus". *Songs composed after John Deacon joined the band: The Night Comes Down. No references were given for any of those claims either. Strikingly, though, the earlier version of the page states that "The Night Comes Down" was one of the last songs from the first album (along with "Seven Seas Of Rhye") to have been written. This puts me at a dead end. I cannot trace the history of the edit any further as I cannot find any version of the original article that would allow me to see the edit history. The available information allows me to draw the following conclusions, but no more: - No source or evidence for a recording date in 1970 can be found at this time. - The claim has, however, gone unchallenged on Wikipedia for at least 14 years (not a particularly strong argument...) - The same (no evidence given but no challenge offered either) applies to the earlier claim that The Night Comes Down was among the *last* songs on the Queen album to have been written, specifically listing it as the only song (again, aside from SSOR) to have been written *after* John Deacon joined the group. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff here that warrants more research. Clearly, at least two people had done some original research of unknown quality, leading them to two completely different conclusions: a date of writing in 1970, or one after John Deacon joined in 1971. I am very curious as to the reasoning behind those two conflicting statements, but I cannot find anything as to how they came to be in the article, if there was ever any discussion about it, and if so, what arguments were offered. In the absence of further evidence, we have to go by the evidence we do have, namely that it was written while the band were recording in De Lane Lea studios in 1971, with the simple caveat that this date has been challenged but no evidence to controvert it has been offered so far.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 8, 2020 11:56:26 GMT
Finding some informations from the books that are written about early years could help us more. Books like Queen Early Years, Is This The Real Life? Untold Story Of Queen. If anyone have this books and could help us please share the informations here
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 12:13:55 GMT
I think most of the early songs either written in late 60s or early 70s. It would be better to take a look to the upcoming book All Queen Songs, that will help us to find when it's exactly written. Also the song has some references to Beatles_ Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds in the line "Lucy was high and so was I" we all know that the Beatles's song released in 1967, probably Brian inspired to write the song and one year later in 1968 he started writing and probably finished the writting in early 1970 That doesn't prove anything. Even if Brian was inspired by 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', that doesn't mean he could only have written it in the 1967 - 1970 period and that from the 1st of January 1971 onwards it was impossible for him to reference those lyrics. Again, 'Seaside Rendezvous' has plenty of 1920's influences, but it was written in 1975. For ''39', Brian was allegedly inspired by Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha, which was published in 1922. Does it mean Brian had to have written ''39' in the 1922 - 1925 period, over two decades before being born? If Brian could write a song in 1975 influenced by a 1922 book, then he could've also written a song in 1971 influenced by a 1967 record. Finding some informations from the books that are written about early years could help us more. Books like Queen Early Years, Is This The Real Life? Untold Story Of Queen. If anyone have this books and could help us please share the informations here According to something you posted yourself (which you then deleted), you're not willing to believe in statements made by those who were there because they've made mistakes in the past; then why do you have a different standard with a book written by someone who wasn't there?
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Post by ThomasQuinn on Aug 8, 2020 12:31:41 GMT
Finding some informations from the books that are written about early years could help us more. Books like Queen Early Years, Is This The Real Life? Untold Story Of Queen. If anyone have this books and could help us please share the informations here That would depend on the sources these books would use for any statement on the subject, if in fact they do comment on the subject. It could help, absolutely, but if they only contain unreferenced statements it would not get us any further than "author X thinks it was written in .... for reasons unknown to us".
It certainly is a subject that merits further investigation, but I would not hold my breath for anything definite.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 12:42:45 GMT
Thank you for looking into the Wikipedia edits, by the way.
My personal hypothesis, which is just that (a personal hypothesis) and shouldn't be taken as fact by any means, is that the 'shortly after Queen began' claim was added by someone who in good faith (but still mistakenly) drew a conclusion based on a hunch, and that the 'written after John Deacon joined' one was added either by me or by someone who read my website at the time, but back then I also lacked sources for such a statement so it wouldn't make any sense to simply assume it's correct either way.
As far as the big picture goes, it doesn't make a massive difference whether Brian wrote the song aged 22, 23 or 24, but my concern is not that at all: it's seeing that people are willing to dismiss official claims on the (correct) grounds that those who were there have made mistakes about their own past, but then willingly (and blindly) take Wikipedia or books (written by people who weren't there) as truth. A double standard, and quite a big one.
It's not black and white and it's not a grey scale either: of course it does not follow that everything those who were there say about the matter is 100% true and everything those who weren't there say is 100% false. It's just that claims ought to be supported by evidence, and just like live witnesses can make mistakes, so can published authors and unsourced Wikipedia edits.
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oreno
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Post by oreno on Aug 8, 2020 12:50:15 GMT
Normally we just have to go with the balance of probabilities, otherwise we end up splitting hairs down to atomic level. Which is tedious and condescending, and is really not a useful way to conduct debate. Or if there's an absence of clear evidence, as in this case, there is little more to say except "written in 1970-71" unless new evidence emerges. Beyond that it can be interesting to debate/disagree if you have a strong case to make, but otherwise it's just going around in circles. Meanwhile we should all study this page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy for homework.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 12:57:10 GMT
Or if there's an absence of clear evidence, as in this case, there is little more to say except "written in 1970-71" unless new evidence emerges. If so, then it should be 'written in 1947 - 1971' (or 'written in 1954 - 1971' if we start when Brian began playing guitar, or 'written in 1964 - 1971' if we start when he first joined a band and presumably began writing songs) as the '1970' claim has as much going for it (i.e. nothing) as would a '1969' claim or a '1968' claim, etc. The '1971' claim, on the other hand, is backed up by a direct comment from the band themselves, which does count as clear evidence. A renowned palaeontologist must be peer-reviewed and his/her findings verified to a high degree before being published by a reputable source; it doesn't happen when it comes to a book, blog post, Wikipedia edit or magazine article about a rock/pop artist: as long as there are no glaring errors such as spelling 'Bryan Mei' or claiming 'Crazy Little Thing' features a harp solo, they're good to go. When Bach musicologists get together and analyse if certain piece of his was genuinely his and, if so, if it belonged to his early period or not, etc., they do it using mathematical calculations and stylistic comparisons to tens of thousands of musical phrases and motifs, at least a few hundred extant autographed scores and so on; it's way, way, way more than simply 'hey, that song's got lyrics which to me sound weaker/simpler than those he wrote later, therefore it must precede the rest of the album!' There's a lot of the latter going around, and I've been guilty of that many, many times, which is why I deleted my website and have refused to resurrect it until I get something worthy of publication: no matter how good or noble my intentions, if what's written there is not rigorously verified and assessed, plenty of false information and inaccurate conclusions can sneak their way in amidst otherwise sound research and create those myths which then get repeated and fossilised, and then years later they're so ingrained in people's collective fanon (fan canon) that they go unchallenged and keep being repeated, believed and added upon, when they shouldn't have begun in the first place.
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oreno
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Post by oreno on Aug 8, 2020 13:22:53 GMT
Or if there's an absence of clear evidence, as in this case, there is little more to say except "written in 1970-71" unless new evidence emerges. If so, then it should be 'written in 1947 - 1971' (or 'written in 1954 - 1971' if we start when Brian began playing guitar, or 'written in 1964 - 1971' if we start when he first joined a band and presumably began writing songs) as the '1970' claim has as much going for it (i.e. nothing) as would a '1969' claim or a '1968' claim, etc. The '1971' claim, on the other hand, is backed up by a direct comment from the band themselves, which does count as clear evidence. A renowned palaeontologist must be peer-reviewed and his/her findings verified to a high degree before being published by a reputable source; it doesn't happen when it comes to a book, blog post, Wikipedia edit or magazine article about a rock/pop artist: as long as there are no glaring errors such as spelling 'Bryan Mei' or claiming 'Crazy Little Thing' features a harp solo, they're good to go. When Bach musicologists get together and analyse if certain piece of his was genuinely his and, if so, if it belonged to his early period or not, etc., they do it using mathematical calculations and stylistic comparisons to tens of thousands of musical phrases and motifs, at least a few hundred extant autographed scores and so on; it's way, way, way more than simply 'hey, that song's got lyrics which to me sound weaker/simpler than those he wrote later, therefore it must precede the rest of the album!' There's a lot of the latter going around, and I've been guilty of that many, many times, which is why I deleted my website and have refused to resurrect it until I get something worthy of publication: no matter how good or noble my intentions, if what's written there is not rigorously verified and assessed, plenty of false information and inaccurate conclusions can sneak their way in amidst otherwise sound research and create those myths which then get repeated and fossilised, and then years later they're so ingrained in people's collective fanon (fan canon) that they go unchallenged and keep being repeated, believed and added upon, when they shouldn't have begun in the first place. You see this is exactly what I mean by splitting hairs to atomic level. No need for it whatsoever. But yes I'd say 1971 seems fair since the fan club quote (and the word "created", not "written") suggests that either way it was not a finished work until it was down on tape.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 8, 2020 17:54:20 GMT
It's two separate things that seaside rendezvous has a lot of 1920s influences on it and it "if it's like so The Night Comes Down written in 1920s or 1940s" I mean Freddie Mercury was a fan of classic music so he decided to write a song with 1920s influences but that doesn't mean he started writing them in 1920s. Brian May was a fan of Beatles back then it's just a guess that he could inspired to write a song like "Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds" in 1968. What I mean is he could started the writing in 1968 and finished it around 1970
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NathanH
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Post by NathanH on Aug 8, 2020 20:14:20 GMT
It's two separate things that seaside rendezvous has a lot of 1920s influences on it and it "if it's like so The Night Comes Down written in 1920s or 1940s" I mean Freddie Mercury was a fan of classic music so he decided to write a song with 1920s influences but that doesn't mean he started writing them in 1920s. Brian May was a fan of Beatles back then it's just a guess that he could inspired to write a song like "Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds" in 1968. What I mean is he could started the writing in 1968 and finished it around 1970 Good point it's like See What A Fool I've Been. Brian heard a song on TV in circa 1967 before Smile were formed and inspired he wrote SWAFIB. It certainly wasn't used straightaway though it ended up being played by Smile but it wasn't played by Queen until a couple of years after they formed. Another song is White Queen, Brian wrote it while at college but Tim Staffell has confirmed more than a once that they didn't play the song in Smile. I don't think it was even heard within the context of Queen until recording the first album.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 21:32:42 GMT
It's two separate things that seaside rendezvous has a lot of 1920s influences on it and it "if it's like so The Night Comes Down written in 1920s or 1940s" I mean Freddie Mercury was a fan of classic music so he decided to write a song with 1920s influences but that doesn't mean he started writing them in 1920s. Brian May was a fan of Beatles back then it's just a guess that he could inspired to write a song like "Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds" in 1968. What I mean is he could started the writing in 1968 and finished it around 1970 Keywords: 'it's just a guess'. Brian didn't stop being a Beatles fan in 1970: at any point between their rise to fame and the present Brian could've written songs inspired by them. 'All Dead, All Dead' was reportedly McCartney influenced (granted, said influence could also come from Wings). 'The Show Must Go On' was partly influenced by Pachelbel's Canon. So if Brian could've written a song in 1990 influenced by a 17th century piece, then he could also write a song in 1971 inspired by a 1967 piece. As for 'The Night Comes Down', since you're going with 'he could...' statements: he could've also both started it and finished it in December 1971, which may have been what happened according to the official claim (which may have come from him, by the way). Regarding 'White Queen', here's what we've got: - The lyrics dated from 1969 in As It Began (the book). - Brian claiming he wrote it while in college. - Timothy claiming Smile never played it. Those three leave loads of possibilities still wide open, including: - The 1969 date could be wrong (not the only mistake in that book by any means). - Brian could be misremembering (which also applies to 'The Night Comes Down', of course, but, again, that doesn't render Wikipedia more trustworthy). - Timothy could've forgotten. Some other alternatives: - All three claims are correct, and the lyrics precede the music by a few years. - All three claims are correct, and Brian wrote the music in 1969 as well, but he simply never submitted it to Smile for whatever reason. - Only the first claim is incorrect, and Brian wrote it whilst during his MSc or his (then unfinished) PhD (that was still 'in college', technically).
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 9, 2020 0:46:20 GMT
It's two separate things that seaside rendezvous has a lot of 1920s influences on it and it "if it's like so The Night Comes Down written in 1920s or 1940s" I mean Freddie Mercury was a fan of classic music so he decided to write a song with 1920s influences but that doesn't mean he started writing them in 1920s. Brian May was a fan of Beatles back then it's just a guess that he could inspired to write a song like "Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds" in 1968. What I mean is he could started the writing in 1968 and finished it around 1970 Keywords: 'it's just a guess'. Brian didn't stop being a Beatles fan in 1970: at any point between their rise to fame and the present Brian could've written songs inspired by them. 'All Dead, All Dead' was reportedly McCartney influenced (granted, said influence could also come from Wings). 'The Show Must Go On' was partly influenced by Pachelbel's Canon. So if Brian could've written a song in 1990 influenced by a 17th century piece, then he could also write a song in 1971 inspired by a 1967 piece. As for 'The Night Comes Down', since you're going with 'he could...' statements: he could've also both started it and finished it in December 1971, which may have been what happened according to the official claim (which may have come from him, by the way). Regarding 'White Queen', here's what we've got: - The lyrics dated from 1969 in As It Began (the book). - Brian claiming he wrote it while in college. - Timothy claiming Smile never played it. Those three leave loads of possibilities still wide open, including: - The 1969 date could be wrong (not the only mistake in that book by any means). - Brian could be misremembering (which also applies to 'The Night Comes Down', of course, but, again, that doesn't render Wikipedia more trustworthy). - Timothy could've forgotten. Some other alternatives: - All three claims are correct, and the lyrics precede the music by a few years. - All three claims are correct, and Brian wrote the music in 1969 as well, but he simply never submitted it to Smile for whatever reason. - Only the first claim is incorrect, and Brian wrote it whilst during his MSc or his (then unfinished) PhD (that was still 'in college', technically). I didn't say he stopped to being a Beatles fan after 1970. I mean he could heard the song and started the writting around early 1968 or at the end of 1967 and finished it around 1970.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 9, 2020 0:54:43 GMT
It's two separate things that seaside rendezvous has a lot of 1920s influences on it and it "if it's like so The Night Comes Down written in 1920s or 1940s" I mean Freddie Mercury was a fan of classic music so he decided to write a song with 1920s influences but that doesn't mean he started writing them in 1920s. Brian May was a fan of Beatles back then it's just a guess that he could inspired to write a song like "Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds" in 1968. What I mean is he could started the writing in 1968 and finished it around 1970 Good point it's like See What A Fool I've Been. Brian heard a song on TV in circa 1967 before Smile were formed and inspired he wrote SWAFIB. It certainly wasn't used straightaway though it ended up being played by Smile but it wasn't played by Queen until a couple of years after they formed. Another song is White Queen, Brian wrote it while at college but Tim Staffell has confirmed more than a once that they didn't play the song in Smile. I don't think it was even heard within the context of Queen until recording the first album. Yes exactly
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Post by ThomasQuinn on Aug 9, 2020 9:53:28 GMT
Keywords: 'it's just a guess'. Brian didn't stop being a Beatles fan in 1970: at any point between their rise to fame and the present Brian could've written songs inspired by them. 'All Dead, All Dead' was reportedly McCartney influenced (granted, said influence could also come from Wings). 'The Show Must Go On' was partly influenced by Pachelbel's Canon. So if Brian could've written a song in 1990 influenced by a 17th century piece, then he could also write a song in 1971 inspired by a 1967 piece. As for 'The Night Comes Down', since you're going with 'he could...' statements: he could've also both started it and finished it in December 1971, which may have been what happened according to the official claim (which may have come from him, by the way). Regarding 'White Queen', here's what we've got: - The lyrics dated from 1969 in As It Began (the book). - Brian claiming he wrote it while in college. - Timothy claiming Smile never played it. Those three leave loads of possibilities still wide open, including: - The 1969 date could be wrong (not the only mistake in that book by any means). - Brian could be misremembering (which also applies to 'The Night Comes Down', of course, but, again, that doesn't render Wikipedia more trustworthy). - Timothy could've forgotten. Some other alternatives: - All three claims are correct, and the lyrics precede the music by a few years. - All three claims are correct, and Brian wrote the music in 1969 as well, but he simply never submitted it to Smile for whatever reason. - Only the first claim is incorrect, and Brian wrote it whilst during his MSc or his (then unfinished) PhD (that was still 'in college', technically). I didn't say he stopped to being a Beatles fan after 1970. I mean he could heard the song and started the writting around early 1968 or at the end of 1967 and finished it around 1970.
He could have. But the simple fact that it contains references to a 1967 Beatles-song doesn't make it any more likely that it was written in '68 than in '70 or '71 - it simply means that the reference to "Lucy In The Sky" was no *older* than May 1967 (terminus post quem), and the fact that we have a recording from December 1971 (terminus ante quem) means the song was finished no later than tat, giving us a window of some 4 1/2 years.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2020 13:35:59 GMT
I didn't say he stopped to being a Beatles fan after 1970. I mean he could heard the song and started the writting around early 1968 or at the end of 1967 and finished it around 1970. He could've also created the song in the studio, which is what happened according to those who, unlike us, were there.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2020 15:33:07 GMT
By the way, the assumption that 'The Night Comes Down' was influenced by 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is also unsourced and it also comes from pure speculation. The name 'Lucy' wasn't invented by The Beatles: it could simply be a former crush/girlfriend, a character from a book, a reference to another song, etc. It's like claiming 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was based on ABBA'S 'Mamma Mia' or vice-versa because they share those two words. Coincidences also exist.
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Post by queen1970s on Aug 9, 2020 17:34:12 GMT
By the way, the assumption that 'The Night Comes Down' was influenced by 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is also unsourced and it also comes from pure speculation. The name 'Lucy' wasn't invented by The Beatles: it could simply be a former crush/girlfriend, a character from a book, a reference to another song, etc. It's like claiming 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was based on ABBA'S 'Mamma Mia' or vice-versa because they share those two words. Coincidences also exist. As I said before we can't compare the songs to each other. One of the important things that we have now is from John Deacon's interview with Bob Harris in a car in 1977 that he said most of the songs written before he joined the band this is probably one of the reasons that he hadn't any song written by himself on "Queen" album.
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Post by NathanH on Aug 9, 2020 20:24:03 GMT
As I said before we can't compare the songs to each other. One of the important things that we have now is from John Deacon's interview with Bob Harris in a car in 1977 that he said most of the songs written before he joined the band this is probably one of the reasons that he hadn't any song written by himself on "Queen" album. Yeah he said apart from one or two numbers, if it genuinely was one or two songs than I reckon it must've been My Fairy King and Seven Seas Of Rhye.
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