'39
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"'39" is a song on the Queen album A Night at the Opera. It is a skiffle (folk) song written and sung by guitarist Brian May.
It is a science-fiction song about one of a score of (that is a group of 20) volunteers who leave a dying Earth in search of new world to settle, and who then return to report success 100 years later, with only a year passing for the volunteers thanks to time dilation.
Brian May described the song as follows: It’s a science fiction story. It’s the story about someone who goes away and leaves his family and because of the time dilation effect, when you go away, the people on earth have aged a lot more than he has when he comes home. He’s aged a year and they’ve aged 100 years so, instead of coming back to his wife, he comes back to his daughter and he can see his wife in his daughter, a strange story. I think, also, I had in mind a story of Herman Hesse which I think is called ‘The River’. A man leaves his hometown and has lots of travels and then comes back and observes his hometown from the other side of the river. He sees it in a different light having been away and experienced all those different things. He sees it in a very illuminating way, cause I felt a little bit like that about my home at the time as well having been away and seen this vastly different world of rock music. Totally different from the way I was brought up and I had those feelings about home.
It was released as the B-side to You're My Best Friend. Bassist John Deacon plays an upright bass.no:'39