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Does anybody know who reads the passage of "Siddharta" in the BBC version of We Will Rock You?

Thank You
Being a Scolar when it comes to Queen...
According to www.queen.musichall.cz
it was Herman Hess.

"Some songs were re-recorded for BBC Radio. We Will Rock You was one of them. In this version is little interlude with reading from Siddhartha by Herman Hess. When Queen asssembled in the control room for a playback, they discovered remnants of a Radio 4 programme on their tape"

Hope this helps.....
Boom-boom. Big strong man like you... shouldn't be afraid of a little boom-boom.
Herman Hesse died in 1962, so I don't think it was him. Besides, it's a woman's voice there, so it was probably an anonymous narrator. What that caption actually meant is that "Siddhartha" was written by Herman Hesse, not narrated by him.
Could it be Herman Hesse himself? Could it be on those old radio shows Kastagir was talking about?

:)

Lester, I don't think there's a woman's voice in there. As the narration continues, the pitch is changed from low to high, which produces that particular voice change, but I think it is always the same narrator.
Being a Scolar when it comes to Queen...
There's a very good chance it could be Hesse himself, but it really does sound to me like the narrator's voice is a woman, or at least an effete-sounding man. The pitch does change, yes, and the narrator's voice is still the same, but I have doubts that it's Hesse. That's just me, though.
According to Record Collector (June 2001) - that was a woman:

"An unusual aspect of Session 6 is the inclusion of a narrative passage which precedes "We Will Rock You". Immediately after an explosion, and just prior to the opening chords, a female voice cuts in briefly with an extract of a reading from Siddartha, by Herman Hesse. How did this come about? At that time, only master tapes survived from BBC sessions, while the actual tapes used to compose them were recorded over later.

When Queen assembled in the control room for a playback, they discovered remnants of a Radio 4 programme on their tape. The band incorporated a segment of this unusual material into their own work. The broadcast version began in "News Of The World" fashion, then breaks for the Siddartha interlude."
The reader is a woman and English, so...

Actually, I am not sure it's from Siddharta. It's possible that the text is about Siddharta but nobody could ever show me the English translation of the book matching the text the woman reads. If someone could help, it would be nice. Siddharta is one of my all-time favourite novels and I do not recognize this part as part of the novel.
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Thank you all for the explanations.

Serry, you rule. ;)

Yourvalentine: perhaps it was some sort of critical analysis / debate over the book itself, instead of its reading. I dunno.

Cheers ALL!
Being a Scolar when it comes to Queen...
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Lester Burnham wrote: [/QUOTENAME]There's a very good chance it could be Hesse himself, but it really does sound to me like the narrator's voice is a woman, or at least an effete-sounding man. The pitch does change, yes, and the narrator's voice is still the same, but I have doubts that it's Hesse. That's just me, though.[/QUOTE]

It doesn't sound like Hesse. Besides, Hesse had one of the worst cases of a German accent I know of.
Not Plutus but Apollo rules Parnassus
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME]The reader is a woman and English, so...

Actually, I am not sure it's from Siddharta. It's possible that the text is about Siddharta but nobody could ever show me the English translation of the book matching the text the woman reads. If someone could help, it would be nice. Siddharta is one of my all-time favourite novels and I do not recognize this part as part of the novel.[/QUOTE]

It is a portion from the book Siddharta. I can't pinpoint it, but I have read the passage (in the original German) which could easily have been translated into the English featured in the BBC session.
Not Plutus but Apollo rules Parnassus
Well, just tell me at which point of the novel you find this text and I sure find it myself. A rough description would do.
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[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]<b><font color = "crimson"> ThomasQuinn wrote: [/QUOTENAME][QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Lester Burnham wrote: [/QUOTENAME]There's a very good chance it could be Hesse himself, but it really does sound to me like the narrator's voice is a woman, or at least an effete-sounding man. The pitch does change, yes, and the narrator's voice is still the same, but I have doubts that it's Hesse. That's just me, though.[/QUOTE]

It doesn't sound like Hesse. Besides, Hesse had one of the worst cases of a German accent I know of.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I know, I was the one who said it wasn't Hesse. I just said "There's a very good chance it could be Hesse himself" to be diplomatic.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Well, just tell me at which point of the novel you find this text and I sure find it myself. A rough description would do.[/QUOTE]

I'm afraid I don't recollect EXACTLY where; it's been two years since I read it, and I only recall being very pleased at finding the passage. I believe it was somewhere halfway to two thirds into the book.
Not Plutus but Apollo rules Parnassus
Very helpful. Only "somewhere in the book" would have been more specific. Still no proof that the text is from the novel.
I do not want any google ads here.
I love how an English woman's voice can be so easily confused with a German man's. Keira Knightley and Michael Shumacher often get mistaken for one another, so I've heard.

Anyway. I remember once going through Siddartha here - http://www.online-literature.com/hesse/siddhartha/ - and searching for Brahmanism/Brahminism and Buddha, trying to find the passage in WWRY, but failing spectacularly.
Gullibility and credulity are considered undesirable qualities in every department of human life -- except religion.

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