Two songs on my iPhone this morning at the gym that got me thinking. Two utterly different styles, yet their meaning could be very similar if taken out of their literal context and held up against the artists and their personal lives themselves…
First up is Queen’s hard rockin’ Hammer to Fall:
We don’t waste no time at all
Don’t hear the bell but you answer the call
It comes to you as to us all
We’re just waiting for the hammer to fallOh, every night and every day
A little piece of me is falling away
But lift your face the Western Way
Build your muscles as your body decays
Rich or poor or famous
For your truth it’s all the same
Lock your door the rain is pouring
Through your window pane
Baby now your struggle’s all in vainWhat the hell we fighting for?
Just surrender and it won’t hurt at all
You just got time to say your prayers
While you’re waiting for the hammer to fall
Written in 1984 during the height of the Cold War by Brian May, it’s generally a song about fearing atomic war, really. But now, past the 99 Luftballonism, when it’s sung by Freddie Mercury it has a certain air of allusion and irony to how, in a few years time, he would succumb to AIDS (lyrics emphasis mine).
The second song, written by Howard Ashman, called Human Again for the musical Beauty and the Beast is about a bunch of enchanted furniture wishing the spell that they’re under makes them uh… human again! But again, listening to the lyrics and overlaying it across Mr Ashman’s life (who wrote this song during the last stages of his fight with AIDS while holding out for new treatments. Unfortunately he died before seeing it on the screen) it turns into something more than cartoon folly:
When I’m human again
So sweep the dust from the floor!
Let’s let some light in the room!
I can feel, I can tell
Someone might break the spell
Any day now!When we’re human again
Only human again
When the girl fin’lly sets us all free
Cheeks a-bloomin’ again
We’re assumin’ again
We’ll resume our long lost joie de vie
We’ll be playin’ again
Holiday’ again
And we’re prayin’ it’s A-S-A-P
When we cast off this pall
We’ll stand straight, we’ll walk tall
When we’re all that we were
Thanks to him, thanks to her
Coming closer and closer
And closer and…
We’ll be dancing again!
We’ll be twirling again!
We’ll be whirling around with such ease
When we’re human again
I found it odd that these two songs shuffled themselves next to each other. Like ghosts communicating to me through electronics. Thanks for the music, dead guys!