What's DRAGON ATTACK about?

I have always assumed it's about the pressures of going into the studio and having to perform i.e. write, play and compose to meet a deadline. However, having a "dragon on your back" and "chasing the dragon" are also druggie terms. Some of the lyrics support this view e.g. "out of my head" is English slang for being high (or perhaps crazy). On the other hand, references to "stack" and Mack" suggest the studio/music interpretation. What do you think?


DRAGON ATTACK - LYRICS
Take me to the room where the reds all red
Take me out of my head is what I said yeah
Hey take me to the room where the greens all green
And from what Ive seen its hot its mean

-gonna use my stack
-its gotta be mack
-gonna get me on the track
-got a dragon
on my back

Take me to the room where the beats all round
Gonna eat that sound - (yeah yeah yeah!)
Take me to the room where the blacks all white
And the whites all black take me back to the shack

-she dont take no prisoners
-gonna give me the business
-got a dragon on my back
-its a dragon attack

Get down - I said so
Hey hey - all right

Shes low down
-she dont take no prisoners
Go down
-gonna give me the business
No time
-yeah chained to the rack!
Show time
-got a dragon on my back
Show down
-go find another customer
Slow down
-i gotta make my way

Here's some comments about Dragon Attack, not mine, btw ... lol

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5118

Here's some comments about Dragon Attack, not mine, btw ... lol

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5118

I always thought it was about working with Mack, their producer for The Game.  From what I've read, their working relationship didn't get off on the right foot.  But they later worked with him on several occasions, even on solo projects.

The dragon is EMI/Elektra

Hi, Holly2003.

How are you? I hope you're doing fine. Thanks for creating this topic. :-)

What a great thread. This is one of my all-time favorite Queen songs and, in my humble opinion, Brian May's best tune after "39 and "It's Late".

I always thought about the lyrics as being both, in fact: I do feel there are references to drug-related effects and slangs, but I think they work in the song as a metaphor for the compulsion for doing and experiencing music and responding to the challenge of creating new, different sounds.

The song seems to play deliberately with the notion of doing and selling music as being similar in some figurative way to being addicted to drugs and having to both overcome the addiction and sell it.

The "Dragon on my back" is probably a metaphor to the challenge of keeping Queen's identity as a band while exploring new pathways to music and trying to reach - or pander to... - a different audience too as the whole pop music scene changes  ("show down, go find another costumer").  

It seems to me that "black is all white" and vice-versa is a reference to this new, funky sound that Queen was starting to explore. Funk was in U.K at the time, it seems, a synonim for "black" - I remember Freddie saying before introducing "Staying Power" in MK: "We gonna try some sounds in the funk, black category, whatever you call it - it doesn't mean we lost...". 

So I guess you are right on both accounts: the song plays with all these references to convey ultimately a message about the composer's experience in an ever-changing music business. 

That's just my reading, the question about lyrics is that it's all so subjective that many interpretations, or any, for that matter, are valid. Each one interprets it in his/her own way in the end and there's no way of telling whether it's wrong or right. 

I hope you're doing fine!

Take care!

Yara

Very interesting topic, and part of what makes music so powerful in that one person's take on a song is totally different, and in this case, many different views on what it's about.  I always thought that the song had some relation to the Sugar Shack in Munich, where the band hung out while recording The Game.  Freddie apparently was a regular there, and for some reason I always thought that this was Brian's introduction (he married young, wasn't a renowned party guy) to a scene he wasn't necessarily familiar with.  Of course he was part of the legendary Queen parties in the past, but that's the imagery I had of this song.

Puff the Magic Dragon on steroids.

love the song, but I have no idea what it's about.  I think it's one of those queen songs that have no meaning.

My first impression and ever lasting one until this thread was about visiting a house of ill repute.

It must have been from the fact when they first played the song live all the lights were red

In Brian's starlicks video he tells that he did the solo late in the night probably very drunk, that might also go for the lyrics.

I don't know why but I always thought it's about cocaine

What's it about?  It's four letters and sounds like fades.

[QUOTE]

[b]MmP wrote: [/b]

In Brian's starlicks video he tells that he did the solo late in the night probably very drunk, that might also go for the lyrics.
[/QUOTE]
I thought that was "Put Out The Fire"?
[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]Being drunk on two songs like that ...  woah!  That's a lot of Guiness.


[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]

[b]Zebonka12 wrote: [/b]

[QUOTE]





[b]MmP wrote: [/b]



In Brian's starlicks video he tells that he did the solo late in the night probably very drunk, that might also go for the lyrics.

[/QUOTE]
I thought that was "Put Out The Fire"?
[/QUOTE]
Being drunk on two songs like that ...  woah!  That's a lot of Guiness.





It was Put Out the Fire - I think MmP got them confused.







There is no meaning to the lyrics of that song. They rhyme and and have rhythm - which sounds cool. That's it.