All God's People

^ it's down to personal taste, isn't it? One man's meat is another's poison and all that.....

I'm not into it because I find the sentiment pretty puke-inducing - same as "Jesus". I'm not very religious, you see: songs like this make me go YUCK!! lol.

Yeah, I know it's a matter of personal taste. Which is exactly why I don't understand why someone could not like it. Fair enough explanation, though.

[QUOTE] [b]waunakonor wrote:[/b]

Fair enough explanation, though.[/QUOTE]

I'm glad it gets your approval lol :p

[QUOTE] [b]Thistleboy1980 wrote:[/b]

^ it's down to personal taste, isn't it? One man's meat is another's poison and all that.....

I'm not into it because I find the sentiment pretty puke-inducing - same as "Jesus". I'm not very religious, you see: songs like this make me go YUCK!! lol.

[/QUOTE]

I'm not religious at all, and while I don't like "Jesus" either, I do appreciate the music of "All God's People". I just kinda ignore the lyrics for the most part (primarily because I just don't think they're very good, I don't consider them extremely religious).

I love All God's People. It reminds me a lot of the music from The Lion King, which I also love. African style music really speaks to me spiritually, not in a God & Jesus religious sense, but more of a primal feeling of oneness with Mother Earth.

I never liked the face value of the title. And it's been hard to get over that. Anyone else feel the same?

As noted earlier, "All God's People" did start as "Africa By Night" from the Barcelona sessions. The FM Solo Collection boxed set says ABN was to be included on the then-forthcoming Queen rarities set. Obviously, that didn't happen.

Brian has said that Freddie pulled the unused track out during the Innuendo sessions and he (Brian), Roger and John recorded their parts separately for it. I'm guessing they just layered their parts one at a time onto the backing track, which still had Mike Moran's piano, synth and programming parts on it, too, and since he co-wrote at least some of the lyrics, he's given a co-writer credit, too, which is fair. I've never heard it mentioned that he was directly involved in the Innuendo sessions, so I'm guessing he wasn't.

I didn't like this song much at first, but it grew on me and when I was researching the Chronology book and learned more about it's creation, I came to like it more. It's got a lot of energy, optimism, a fun vocal by Freddie and the music is moody and atmospheric. I don't think it's trying to be overly religious in the sense of being evangelical, rather it's just having fun with the gospel style again, which Freddie obviously liked ("Somebody To Love," "Soul Brother," "The Golden Boy"), and playing around with the lyrical tropes of the genre.

Regarding its songwriting: http://repertoire.bmi.com/title.asp?blnWriter=True&blnPublisher=True&blnArtist=True&page=1&keyid=20997&ShowNbr=0&ShowSeqNbr=0&querytype=WorkID

No mention of Mike there, so the fact he's on the credits is more of a formality.

Brian's input was described by John Brough in Mr Blake's book.

Maybe people don't like it because it's too explosive compared to the tracks that come before it,don't try so hard and ride the wild wind,and after it there's these are the days of our lives.
I wonder why there's a chainsaw at the end of the song.

[QUOTE] [b]Thistleboy1980 wrote:[/b]

I'm not into it because I find the sentiment pretty puke-inducing - same as "Jesus". I'm not very religious, you see: songs like this make me go YUCK!! lol.

[/QUOTE]

Kinda off topic by now, but I always took Jesus as something of a lighthearted parody of heavy metal music at the time - it's got a sort of Black Sabbath sound to it, the punchline being that they're singing about Jesus rather than anything dark or stereotypical of the genre.

I won't lie, I've never listened to All God's People all the way through, so I can't really comment.

EDIT: Having listened to it just now, I like the vocals. Not sure if the bombastic-ness and bright synths fit with the rest of the album really. I'm indifferent towards the lyrics.

There's no true that song was for Barcelona.
Before the meeting between Freddie and Montserrat, Freddie wanted to do a second solo album with Mike Moran as producer, and they wrote some songs, this was one of them. There were only demos, not final tracks. When Barcelona emerged as a solid album, they forgot the songs you can find in FM Box Set, and African By Night was one of those songs.

[QUOTE] [b]Apocalipsis_Darko wrote:[/b]

There's no true that song was for Barcelona.
Before the meeting between Freddie and Montserrat, Freddie wanted to do a second solo album with Mike Moran as producer, and they wrote some songs, this was one of them. There were only demos, not final tracks. When Barcelona emerged as a solid album, they forgot the songs you can find in FM Box Set, and African By Night was one of those songs.

[/QUOTE]

That does make sense. I remember Brian mentioning it'd come from Freddie 'at the same time as the Barcelona project', as opposed to 'for the Barcelona project.'

[QUOTE] [b]Sebastian wrote:[/b]

Regarding its songwriting: http://repertoire.bmi.com/title.asp?blnWriter=True&blnPublisher=True&blnArtist=True&page=1&keyid=20997&ShowNbr=0&ShowSeqNbr=0&querytype=WorkID

No mention of Mike there, so the fact he's on the credits is more of a formality.

Brian's input was described by John Brough in Mr Blake's book.[/QUOTE]

Interesting to view some of the entries at the BMI page - this one for example:
http://repertoire.bmi.com/title.asp?blnWriter=True&blnPublisher=True&blnArtist=True&keyID=0&ShowNbr=882900000&ShowSeqNbr=3&querytype=WorkID

That's probably a rap or hip-hop track that samples one of Freddie's songs somewhere.

[QUOTE] [b]Sebastian wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Apocalipsis_Darko wrote:[/b]

There's no true that song was for Barcelona.
Before the meeting between Freddie and Montserrat, Freddie wanted to do a second solo album with Mike Moran as producer, and they wrote some songs, this was one of them. There were only demos, not final tracks. When Barcelona emerged as a solid album, they forgot the songs you can find in FM Box Set, and African By Night was one of those songs.

[/QUOTE]

That does make sense. I remember Brian mentioning it'd come from Freddie 'at the same time as the Barcelona project', as opposed to 'for the Barcelona project.'[/QUOTE]

From The Solo Collection boxed set book, Page 8, the Barcelona chapter:

***
In terms of songwriting, 1987/88 was something of a prolific period for Freddie. A number of the ideas he began during the Barcelona sessions were never finished, and those which were underwent significant changes along the road to perfection. Working titles such as Rachmaninov's Revenge, Vocal Exercises and Freddie's Overture gave way to The Fallen Priest, Exercises In Free Love and Guide Me Home, and another idea, the exotically-titled Africa By Night, evolved into All God's People, and although far progressed, was shelved only to be re-worked later by Queen for the 1991 Innuendo album.
***