I woke up yesterday morning around 6:30am with the Queen song “39” going over and over in my head, so I couldn’t go back to sleep. “39” is on the short list of my very favorite songs from Queen. A lot of fair weather Queen fans may not even be familiar with the song as it was the B side to “You’re My Best Friend” as well as a deeper cut on “A Night at the Opera.”
When I first heard the song back in the mid-seventies I doubt I understood much about its story. I can remember being confused by the line, “In the land that our grandchildren knew.” The melody has a retro vibe to it like an old folk song. And with the title “39” I initially though it was singing about something that took place in 1939. That is until that line I mentioned popped up. As a teenager I just thought, wow, I guess there’s some kind of time travelly thing going on here.
I was way too young and stupid to think about things like time dilation and special relativity. But Brian May knew what he was talking about. Another cool thing is Brian May did not only write this song he is the one who sings it. When May wrote this song he had already graduated with honors from the Imperial College London with a degree in physics. He had begun his doctoral studies, but left once the band became successful just a year before he wrote this song.
So, needless to say, Sir Brian knew a thing or two about time dilation and special relativity. Which is exactly what the song “39” is about. He wrote this song nearly three decades before the movie “Interstellar” came out, which tells a similar story. In “39” an astronaut with his team of volunteers go on a space mission which for them lasts only one year, but for the people on Earth takes them 100 years. They return to Earth in the year of 39 one hundred years later with good news, but have to live with the reality that their loved ones are all gone and dead, as the astronaut laments in the land that our grandchildren knew.
Brian May has always been my number one favorite guitarist, and where he may be number 26 on the Rolling Stone list of 100 greatest guitarist, I can assure you none of the other 25 guitar players in front of him have an IQ of 180. Fortunately, May finished his doctorate and recently received the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.
In short, the dude is a badass across the board. Go find the song and listen, but remember, that is not Freddy Mercury you hear singing, that is Brian May!
Letters From Nod 