Freddie Mercury wrote this song after seeing a painting by the same name and an accompanying poem by Richard Dadd. Queen's song makes reference to the characters in the poem, which follows the medieval theme of the album. Like the painting, Queen's production is similarly complex on this song.
The recording features producer Roy Thomas Baker playing castanets, and Mercury playing a harpsichord. Roger Taylor called the song Queen's "biggest stereo experiment."
The song wasn't played live that often, only a few times on the Queen II tour - including at the famous Rainbow Theatre show in 1974, which is soon to be released as a live CD/DVD package in September 2014, thus giving us a live released version of one of Queen's rarest songs.
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