Ogre Battle (song)
Encyclopedia : O : OG : OGR : Ogre Battle (song)
| "Ogre Battle" | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Song by Queen | ||
| From the album Queen II | ||
| Album released | March 8 / April 9 1974 | |
| Recorded | August 1973 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Song Length | 4:08 | |
| Record label | EMI / Hollywood Records | |
| Producer | Roy Baker and Queen | |
| Queen II Album Listing | ||
| "Loser In The End" (Track 5) | "Ogre Battle" (Track 6) | "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke" (Track 7) |
Ogre Battle is a Queen song, the first on "Side Black" of their experimental second album, Queen II, and also the first on the album to have been composed by Freddie Mercury. Like the title suggests, it tells the story of a battle between ogres, and features a Brian May guitar solo and sound effects (most notably Taylor screaming) to simulate the sound of a battle.
Mercury composed it in the very early days; reportedly, he wrote it on guitar and used to play it really fast. Still, he let Brian record the guitar parts. "Ogre Battle" had been part of Queen's live show since 1972 (before the release of the first album) but it was reserved for the second project because they wanted to record it properly instead of using studio off-time; another song saved for that second album was May's "White Queen (As It Began)", which he had written in college.
"Ogre Battle" is very complex musically including an acyclic structure and some strange harmonic modulations. For the recording sessions lots of progressive effects were included at the request of Mercury to producer Roy Thomas Baker. Those effects include reversed snare rolls, wild screaming, a heavily reverbed gong and the fact that the intro is the same outro put backwards, hence first the echo of the gong is heard, then the final scream, the psychedelic guitars and then the song properly begins.
Queen about the record
Brian May:
"Freddie also wrote 'Ogre Battle' which is a very heavy metal guitar riff. It's strange that he should have done that. But when Freddie used to pick up a guitar he'd have a great frenetic energy. It was kind of like a very nervy animal playing the guitar. He was a very impatient person and was very impatient with his own technique. He didn't have a great technical ability on the guitar but had it in his head. And you could feel this stuff bursting to get out. His right hand would move incredibly fast. He wrote a lot of good stuff for the guitar. A lot of it was stuff which I would not have thought of, because it would be in weird keys. He had this penchant for playing in E flat and A flat and F. And these are not places that your hand naturally falls on when playing the guitar."
Trivia
- The [[Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen|Ogre Battle]] series of video games is named after this song. Several of the titles in the series are also named after Queen songs, such as "Let Us Cling Together","The March of the Black Queen", and the proposed sequel "In the Lap of the Gods"
- [}}}] at YouTube , along with Sweet Lady, Live from Hyde Park in London 1976
| Queen |
| John Deacon | Brian May | Freddie Mercury | Roger Taylor |
| Discography |
|---|
| Studio albums: Queen | Queen II | Sheer Heart Attack | A Night at the Opera | A Day at the Races | News of the World | Jazz | The Game | Flash Gordon | Hot Space | The Works | A Kind of Magic | The Miracle | Innuendo | Made in Heaven |
| Live albums: Live Killers | Live Magic | Live at Wembley '86 | Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl | Return of the Champions |
| Compilations: Greatest Hits | At the Beeb | Greatest Hits II | Classic Queen | Queen Rocks | Greatest Hits III | Stone Cold Classics |
| Box sets: Greatest Hits I & II | The Crown Jewels | [[Queen - The Platinum Collection: Greatest Hits I, II & III|The Platinum Collection: Greatest Hits I, II & III]] |
| DVDs |
| We Will Rock You | The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert | Greatest Video Hits 1 | Queen Live at Wembley Stadium | Greatest Video Hits 2 | Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl | Return of the Champions | Super Live in Japan |
| Musicals |
| We Will Rock You |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.