'39 original title

https://www.facebook.com/Queen/photos/a.141525617361.111618.17337462361/10152578977522362/?type=1&theater

This facebook page just keeps delivering. It looks like at some point '39 was called 'Wreck of the 39'. I'm not sure how that title makes sense, unless it's referring to a ship named 'The 39', presumably named for the year it set off.

Maybe, just maybe, the title was based on "Wreck of the Old '97", a traditional song?

It would mean that Brian had somehow been exposed to that American song, which certainly isn't impossible.

I wonder if the lyrics were different when it was called 'Wreck of the 39'. After all, the song as we know it doesn't involve a wreck at all. The astronauts return safely - their ages being asynchronysed with the earth's is the tragic part.

It's a guess, but the title "Wreck of the Old '97" is pretty well-known (more so than the actual ballad, in fact) and Brian *was* going for a folk-sound in '39. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if "Wreck of the '39" was a jocular working title, a deliberate pun on "Wreck of the Old '97" meant to be replaced with a permanent title all along.

I think you're probably right. It makes more sense than there having been a significant change in the lyrics.

... and then they couldn't think of a better title? Unless the '39 refers to a year and this is about (unwanted) time travel, popularising Einstein. :-)

And what about the crossed out "Virgin" ? Does it mean that there's a track entitled Virgin or does it relate to the Virgin Records ?

[QUOTE] [b]MercurialFreddie wrote:[/b]

And what about the crossed out "Virgin" ? Does it mean that there's a track entitled Virgin or does it relate to the Virgin Records ?[/QUOTE]

It's certainly not a track - it isn't numbered, in contrast to the previous four tracks, and it is indented more, underlined in the same ink it was written in and crossed out in a different ink.

Well. This certainly rules out that alleged test pressing as being an original Bohemian Rhapsody title. (The previous post regarding a white label "Bohemien Rhapsody" ..)

As this states August 1975 while the other states OCTOBER 1975. however that doesn't rule out the possibility that it was an inside joke or a DJ misappropriation of the title.

Guess I'll "LIKE" their page even though I don't use FB anymore

[QUOTE] [b]Martin Packer wrote:[/b]

Unless the '39 refers to a year and this is about (unwanted) time travel, popularising Einstein. :-)[/QUOTE]

It is about Einstein's theory of relativity - Brian's explained it before playing it at every Queen+Rogers/Lambert show.

Presumably, the 'year of '39' in the first verse is 2039, and in the second verse they return in 2139. Either that, or shifted 100 years back and in an alternate history where space travel was possible in 1939. Former seems most likely

Could they mean with "wreck"that this particular take wasn't a good take ?

Unlikely - it'd be a very poor use of English if so. Plus, there's two distinct takes with the same title, and one of those has a note about the quality of it - 'Good beginning'. So that shows that the notes on quality of the take were recorded in brackets, not in the title itself.

When I hear it Brian is singing '69' and its about an orgasm so powerful that when its finished you are 300 years older.

Just as plausible if you think about it.

Well, while I got a bit carried away, my description was still based in Brian's own explanation of the song.

Yours is profound! It's canon from now on as far as I'm concerned.

Wasn't Silver Salmon also supposed to be about the wreck of a spacecraft? Hmm .......