Queen – “We Will Rock You” (1)

 

WE WILL ROCK YOU

Buddy, you’re a boy, make a big noise
Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday
You got mud on your face, you big disgrace
Kicking your can all over the place, singin’
We will, we will rock you
We will, we will rock you
Buddy, you’re a young man, hard man
Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday
You got blood on your face, you big disgrace
Waving your banner all over the place
We will, we will rock you, sing it!
We will, we will rock you, yeah
Buddy, you’re an old man, poor man
Pleading with your eyes, gonna get you some peace someday
You got mud on your face, big disgrace
Somebody better put you back into your place, do it!
We will, we will rock you, yeah, yeah, come on
We will, we will rock you, alright, louder!
We will, we will rock you, one more time
We will, we will rock you
Yeah

NOI TI CULLEREMO/ NOI TI SCUOTEREMO

Amico sei un ragazzino che fa un gran baccano
giocando per la strada. un giorno sarai un uomo grande
Hai del fango sulla faccia, sei proprio una gran vergogna
Mentre spingi a calci la tua lattina dappertutto e canti.

Noi ti culleremo/ scuoteremo
Noi ti culleremo/scuoteremo

Amico sei un giovanotto, un duro,
urlando per la strada conquisterai il mondo un giorno
Hai del sangue sulla faccia, sei proprio una gran vergogna
Mentre sventoli il tuo striscione dappertutto

Noi ti culleremo/ scuoteremo, canta!
Noi ti culleremo/scuoteremo, sì

Amico, sei un vecchio, un pover’ uomo,
supplicando con gli occhi otterrai un po’ di pace un giorno
Hai del fango sulla faccia, sei proprio una gran vergogna
Qualcuno farebbe meglio a rimetterti al tuo posto, fallo!

Noi ti culleremo/ scuoteremo, forza
Noi ti culleremo/scuoteremo, bene, più forte
Noi ti culleremo/ scuoteremo, ancora una volta
Noi ti culleremo/scuoteremo, sì
(L.Z.)

“We Will Rock You” is a song written by Queen guitarist Brian May, who wanted to “create a song that the audience could participate in”. One evening he watched the crowd chanting a football club anthem, and went to bed thinking  “What could you ask them to do? They’re all squeezed in there, but they can clap their hands, they can stamp their feet, and they can sing.” And then, one morning, he woke up and had the idea for the song in his head.

In 1977, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” were issued together as a single. Radio stations began playing the songs consecutively, without interruption. They were the last two songs Queen performed at Live Aid in 1985

Since its release, “We Will Rock You” has also become a cliché at sports events around the world as a stadium anthem, mostly due to its simple rhythm, in an effort to intimidate the opposing team. In stadiums fans are encouraged to stomp their feet and make a lot of noise: stomping and clapping are used as a rhythmic body percussion beat.
It was recorded in an old, disused church in North London where the band liked the acoustics, and the musical arrangement was created by the band overdubbing the sounds of themselves stomping and clapping many times and adding delay effects to create the sound of a lot of people participating. .

Brian May said that his degree in astrophysics helped in the recording of this crucial ‘stomp-stomp-clap!” rhythm of the song. He explained: “Being a physicist, I said, ‘Suppose there were 1,000 people doing this; what would be happening?’ And I thought, Well, you would be hearing them stomping. You would also be hearing a little bit of an effect, which is due to the distance that they are from you. So I put lots of individual repeats on them. Not an echo but a single repeat at various distances. And the distances were all prime numbers.”

This technique is now known as non-harmonic reverberation.