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We Will Rock You

"We Will Rock You" is a song by the British rock band Queen for their 1977 album News of the World, written by guitarist Brian May.[3] Rolling Stone ranked it number 330 of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004,[4] and it placed at number 146 on the Songs of the Century list in 2001. In 2009, "We Will Rock You" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[5][6]

This article is about the Queen song. For other uses, see We Will Rock You (disambiguation).

"We Will Rock You"

Other than the last 30 seconds, which contains a guitar solo by May, the song is generally set in a cappella form, using only stomping and clapping as a rhythmic body percussion beat. In 1977, "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions" were issued together as a worldwide top 10 single.[7] Soon after the album was released, many radio stations played the songs consecutively, without interruption.[8]


Since its release, "We Will Rock You" has been covered, remixed, sampled, parodied, referred to, and used by multiple recording artists, TV shows, films and other media worldwide.[9][10] It has also become a popular stadium anthem at sports events around the world, due mostly to its simple rhythm.[11][12] On 7 October 2017, Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World. It features a radically different approach to the guitar solo and includes May's count-in immediately prior to the recording.[13]

We Will Rock You - fast version[edit]

Queen also performed an alternative version of "We Will Rock You" known as the "fast version", featuring a faster-feeling tempo and a full band arrangement. The band would frequently use this version to open their live sets in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as heard on the albums Live Killers (1979), Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl (2004), Queen Rock Montreal (2007), and the expanded edition of News of the World (2011).


A studio version was made for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show at the Maida Vale Studios on 28 October 1977 and first broadcast soon after on 14 November. It includes a separate section that begins with an abridged session version of the original comprising the first verse, chorus and guitar outro - this part has become known as We Will Rock You (slow). Between the two parts there is a brief reading of Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha, used in a BBC Radio documentary. This audio was found on the BBC tapes being reused to record the session and was retained by the band.


This full BBC session version of We Will Rock You was broadcast on Alan Freeman's Final Saturday Rock Show on Radio 1 on 26 August 1978, has also been played on Radio 1's The Friday Rock Show and more recently on Johnie Walker's Sounds Of The Seventies and Vernon Kay's weekday morning show, both on BBC Radio 2.


The fast version is also used as the curtain call music for the musical of the same title, after the finale, which is a pairing of the original "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions". In 2002, the fast version was officially released on a promo single distributed by the tabloid The Sun, and can also be found on The Best of King Biscuit Live Volume 4, and In The Mirror - The Lost BBC Sessions.

– lead and backing vocals, hand claps, foot stamping

Freddie Mercury

– electric guitar, backing vocals, hand claps, foot stamping

Brian May

– backing vocals, hand claps, foot stamping

Roger Taylor

– hand claps, foot stamping

John Deacon

Elizabeth Edwards - backing vocals, hand claps, foot stomping

[25]

Andrew Turner - backing vocals, hand claps, foot stomping

[25]

Information is based on the album's Liner Notes[24]

"We Will Rock You"

17 July 2000 (2000-07-17)[56]

3:08

1992: American band Warrant covered the song for the film Gladiator.[103] The song charted at number 83 on the Billboard Hot 100.[104]

glam metal

2004: American singers Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Pink used this song in an international commercial Pepsi campaign and the song was released on the Pepsi Music 2004: (Dare for More) CD.[105]

pop

1992: American rapper sampled the beat in his song "When Will They Shoot?", from his album The Predator.[106]

Ice Cube

2002: American rapper interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" beat in his song "'Till I Collapse" from his album The Eminem Show and also used a similar pattern in the songs "Puke" from his album Encore and "Cinderella Man" from his album Recovery.[107]

Eminem

2003: The song "Tipsy" directly samples the "We Will Rock You" beat, but reworked into a different beat.[106][108]

J-Kwon

2011: American pop singer interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" beat in her song "E.T".[109]

Katy Perry

2011: interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" beat in her song "Dreaming", featured on the Japanese edition of her 4th album 4.[110]

Beyoncé

2011: sampled the "stomp-stomp-clap" in her song "You and I", which also features the band's guitarist Brian May, from Gaga's album Born This Way.[106][111]

Lady Gaga

2012: interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" and references "Rock" in their song "Rock Me" featured on their second album Take Me Home.[112]

One Direction

2012: interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" in her song "Gold Trans Am", featured on the deluxe edition of her second album, Warrior.[113]

Kesha

1992: lead singer Axl Rose performed the song with Queen at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.[114][115]

Guns N' Roses

1992: used the song as a set list opener before they performed on stage during the Zoo TV Tour.[116]

U2

1993: performed it in São Paulo, Brazil, changing the lyrics to "we will fuck you".[117]

Nirvana

1996: and her band ended the first encore of her "Can't Not" Tour (following the song, "You Learn") with a cover of the song, with Alanis playing the "stomp-stomp-clap" rhythm on drums.[118]

Alanis Morissette

1990s


2000s


2010s


2020s

1991: produced remixes of "We Will Rock You", for an EP released by Hollywood Records. The "Ruined Remix" also contains contributions by Flea and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.[129]

Rick Rubin

1991: achieved an underground hit with their remix of the song with a speech by U.S. president George H. W. Bush.[130]

Emergency Broadcast Network

2004: made a remix of "We Will Rock You" titled as "Pornstar Champion" for their debut album, Blah...Blah...Blah...Love Songs for the New Millennium[131]

Scum Of The Earth

2011: Geddy (a.k.a. Armageddon), former member from hip hop group , mashed up "I Want It All" and "We Will Rock You" for the soundtrack to the 2011 film Sucker Punch.[132][133]

Terror Squad

2012 : Helmut VonLichten (formerly of ) mixed this song with an orchestral version of "Posthumus Zone" for CBS's Super Bowl 50 coverage.[134][135] This mashup was later used for the 2015 film Pixels.

E.S. Posthumus

2014 : Canadian dubstep producer and downlink remixed this song in the track Rock You.[136]

Excision

1987: did a parody of "We Will Rock You" titled "I Have Come to Kill You".[137]

Henry Rollins

1998: Friends "The One Where Ross Moves In" - [S05E07]: Ross moves into Joey and Chandler's apartment. As time goes by, Ross reveals he's quite annoying by imposing a lot of changes to the norm of the apartment. One being the changing of the answering machine message to the tune of "We Will Rock You" by Queen, to which Ross alters the lyrics to "We Will, We Will Call You Back!".

2010: The cast of the Off-Broadway musical performed covers of "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions" in a video spoof of the Muppets' "Bohemian Rhapsody".[138]

Avenue Q

2012: In the 12 March edition of , The Rock performed his version during the Rock Concert segment by adding references to Team Bring It and fans chanting "Cena Sucks" in the chorus while taking aim at John Cena before they square off at WrestleMania XXVIII.[139]

WWE Raw

2014: Indonesian singer made a controversial political campaign video with a parody of the song to support presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto for the 2014 Indonesian presidential election. Dhani wore Heinrich Himmler's SS Uniform in the video.[140]

Ahmad Dhani

2015: In episode "The Bachelor Party Corrosion" Raj, Howard and Leonard sing a modified version of the song called, "We Will Percussive Shock You" and Sheldon burst out singing the first verse of the original song, which he then credited to his eidetic memory, mentioned that in this instance it was a 'curse.'[141]

The Big Bang Theory

2023: The intro from "We Will Rock You" was the first music transmitted from lucid dreams into reality in real-time.[143] The study was published in Dreaming, an American Psychological Association peer-reviewed journal.[144]

[142]

List of number-one singles of 1978 (France)

List of UK Singles Chart number ones of the 2000s

(from Queen Rocks)

Lyrics at Queen official website