Hi all. I need to vent a pet peeve a little. To get started, consider the chorus to the Queen song "Killer Queen". Killer Queen <line in question> dynamite with a laser beam guarantied to blow your mind Please take a moment to post what you think the line is, and I will be back in a day or so. Thanks.
That is what the lyrics are. She keeps Moet et Chandon In her pretty cabinet 'Let them eat cake' she says Just like Marie Antoinette A built-in remedy For Kruschev and Kennedy At anytime an invitation You can't decline Caviar and cigarettes Well versed in etiquette Extraordinarily nice CHORUS She's a Killer Queen Gunpowder, gelatine Dynamite with a laser beam Guaranteed to blow your mind Anytime Recommended at the price Insatiable an appetite Wanna try? To avoid complications She never kept the same address In conversation She spoke like a baroness Met a man from China Went down to Geisha Minah Then again incidentally If you're that way inclined Perfume came naturally from Paris For cars she couldn't care less Fastidious and precise
There are several websites that provide lyrics to songs. However, I've noticed that they're not 100% accurate.
Exactly so. Gunpowder gelatine is on every lyrics site I have checked, and it is _wrong!_ The correct lyric as Freddy sings it in the original recording is "gunpowder turpentine". 1. If you listen to the the original recording, you can clearly hear the consonants "rp" in that order in the word in question. 2. Queen rarely used nonsense lyrics, and there is no such thing as gelatine. There is gelatin (as in Jello). There is gelignite (as in nitroglycerine gelled with colliodian iirc). But there is no gelatine. 3. Gunpowder and turpentine is a "thing" however. In the Napoleanic warfare era (say around the time of the American Revolution) mixtures of gunpowder and turpentine were ignited on the battlefield. It gave off a black, acrid, choking smoke. Sort of a combo smoke screen, tear gas cloud ala the little corporal. Actually I think there is another error is this song lyric, but I can't give a lot of evidence for it. "went down to geisha minah". I strongly suspect it's really "Went down to Asia Minor". It makes a lot more sense and if you listen closely it sounds to me like Freddy "fumbled" the lyric, accidentally putting a "g" sound in front of "Asia Minor" The thing to remember about Freddy and company, is that they were very "Lewis Carroll/Jabberwocky" in there lyrics. And that the most likely reason they never corrected errors others made regarding their lyrics is that they were to busy laughing their asses off about it. Pardon the language. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Thanks for letting me vent. Over the years I've tried to get at least one lyric website to a least respond. Total silence. Oh well. Anyway, those who have or can lay hands on an original recording of "Killer Queen" give it a fresh listen, keeping in mind the three points above, particularly #1. Post back and let me know if you agree of not. Best regards to all you Queen fans.
Never really noticed that much to be honest. But sure enough, the above is correct! - Well pointed out.
I have the sheet music for Killer Queen, which I assume is "official". The lyrics are as given above, but surely they can't be right. The gelatine/turpentine thing sounds plausible, although it's usually pronounced so "turpentine" rhymes with "wine". I'm not sure who wrote the lyric - might be interesting to check. If it wasn't Freddy, maybe he fudged it. The "Geisha Minor" doesn't make any sense; it's got to be "Asia Minor", which is a real place - it refers to the Anatolian peninsula. There's no such thing as "Geisha minor", unless its the name of a nightclub or something.
Turpentine- it's the Brittish pronunciation, turpenteen. They call methane meethane too. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! According to the liner of the "Greatest Hits" cd. Freddie wrote it. Asia Minor- yeah, that's what makes me almost certain that Freddy got a little "tongue tied" for a fraction of a second. I know for a fact that the lyrics printed in the albums didn't always match the actual recording. If you have the "Night at the Opera" lp check out "Love of My Life". My guess is that they swapped some phrases around in the studio and never bothered to mention it to the art department.
It's reasonable to assume that the printed lyrics that came with the record jacket are the version that's copyrighted.
One would think so, but somehow I wonder. I'm thinking perhaps the group really didn't care much what the copywrited version was, just what the recording and live performances were. Speaking of live performances, the best concert I ever saw was Queen at the Omaha civic aditorium in 1977 or 78. (Showing my age Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) It was the tour with the UFO lighting effect "Jailhouse Rock" opening. Wild.
The Doors and Frank Zappa both sang lyrics that widely differed from the printed copy released with the recordings in order to get radio airplay for their tunes. 'course there is always the Kingsman's "Louie Louie" where no discernible lyrics exist either written or sung according to that congressional committee examination. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Showing your age? The first concert I attended was Josh White at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in 1960. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You probably never heard of him (one guy with an acoustic guitar singing the blues) but I saw the Kingston Trio at the same venue a couple of months later. The 70s was the decade of great concerts, all right. Everything from Black Sabbath to Fairport Convention to CSNY to Heart to Genesis to Tangerine Dream. But the most memorable concert I went to was Kris Kristofferson opening for Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour (a Hollywood club) around 1970. Well maybe also Metallica and Guns'n'Roses co-headlining the Rose Bowl about 25 years later. But there was a time when radio stations had no problems with the original lyrics. There was no PG version of the Rolling Stones "Star F****r"or Zappa's "Jewish Princess." Ironically it was the JDL who got that song 86'ed--not for the profanity but the slur against Jewish princesses. Mrs. Fraggle is one and she thought that was the funniest song ever. We were so disappointed that he didn't even perform it in concert! They didn't have Google in those days. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/louielou.htm The song was written by Richard Berry (1935-1997) in 1955 and the Kingsmen were just covering it--quite possibly not understanding the words themselves. Although Berry was American, it's about a Jamaican sailor homesick for his girl. He was trying to capitalize on the calypso craze popularized by Harry Belafonte and others, which was purported to be a Jamaican style of music but actually from Trinidad. It's been said that the reason Bob Marley and other Jamaican musicians invented reggae was to banish the association of their island with calypso.
I realize this is old, however it is indeed gelatin. I believe what adds to the confusion is the way the stanza is written. If we look at differently, without the likl split and pause, it becomes "gunpowder, gelatin dynamite with a laser beam". Gelatin dynamite is a type of dynamite that doesn't sweat nitroglycerin. All that aside, in a 1977 BBC interview, you can clearly hear the interviewer say "glycerin dynamite" when asking about the lyric, to which Mercury responds... Well, hear it for yourself @ the 29:20 Mark
