'39 - Remastered 2011

Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this. The song is about an astronaut who travels to a distant place at near the speed of light. Because of the time dilation that takes place at these speeds, he and his crew return home 100 years later. He has aged only a year but sadly finds that his wife has long passed on and that he is about the same age as his grandchildren, with everyone he knew before being dead for many years. May describes it as a "sci-fi folk song."

Brian May studied astrophysics, which gave him the impetus for this song. He considered science for a career, and when he dropped out of his astrophysics degree to start Queen, it caused a huge rift between him and his father, who believed Brian was throwing his life and career away - even though he had helped his son build his signature Red Special guitar as a youngster. It was only when his father saw Queen play in Madison Square Garden in 1978 that the elder May finally acknowledged that his son had made the right choice. A clearly emotional Brain May recalled this story in the Days of Our Lives documentary.

After writing this song, Brian May read the Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha, which tells the story of a man who sets out on a journey to find enlightenment, leaving his community behind. "The last thing in the book was him staring across the river to his town, which was no longer his because none of his friends were alive," May told Melody Maker in 1975. "It all seemed very similar to what I had done in my song and I thought that maybe that that was subconsciously what it was about, going out in search of an artistic career and being afraid of leaving everything behind. It hit me that it was a personal song and not just a story. I don't usually consider an ordinary story enough to put on a record. There had to be another reason and that told me what it was. It was my insecure feeling of wondering if everything gets left behind if you go out in search of what we are going out in search of."