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 did an encore and then went off, and instead of just keeping clapping, they sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" to us, and we were just completely knocked out and taken aback – it was quite an emotional experience really, and I think these chant things are in some way connected with that.[15]
The "stomp, stomp, clap" beat throughout "We Will Rock You" was created by the band overdubbing sounds of themselves stamping and clapping many times, and adding delay effects to create a sound that made it seem as if many people were participating.
One version was used as the opening track on 1977's News of the World. This consists of a stomp-stomp-clap-pause beat, and a power chorus, being somewhat of an anthem. The stamping effects were created by the band overdubbing the sounds of themselves stomping on the Wessex drum riser[16] and clapping many times and adding delay effects to make it sound like many people were participating. The durations of the delays were in the ratios of prime numbers, a technique now known as non-harmonic reverberation.[17] A tape loop is used to repeat the last phrase of the guitar solo three times as opposed to Brian May playing it three separate times on the recording.[18] The "stomp, stomp, clap" sounds were later used in the Queen + Paul Rodgers song "Still Burnin'".[19]
When performed live, the song is usually followed by "We Are the Champions", as they were designed to run together.[7] The songs are often paired on the radio and at sporting events, where they are frequently played.[7] They were the last two songs Queen performed at Live Aid in 1985.[20]
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.
The music video for "We Will Rock You" was filmed in 1977 at the back garden of Roger Taylor's mansion.[21][22] It sees the band lip synching the song, hand clapping with gloves and foot stomping on a frozen ground.[21] In an interview with Billboard, Taylor spoke on filming the video:
We shot it on the grounds of a country house I'd just bought in Surrey and we hadn't completed the sale, so we weren't allowed in the house. We figured, 'we might as well shoot it here.' It was absolutely freezing cold and we did three takes.[23]
British boy band Five released a cover of "We Will Rock You" on 17 July 2000. It was the fourth single released from their second studio album, Invincible (1999). The song contains rap verses from Five's members Jason "J" Brown and Richard "Abs" Breen, and features two members of Queen: Brian May on guitar and Roger Taylor on drums (only on the single version); however, they do not sing any vocals on the track. Freddie Mercury had died in November 1991, nearly a decade before this version's release, and John Deacon had retired from public life three years before the release of the Five cover.
The song charted at number one on the UK Singles Chart, making it Five's second number-one single, and their ninth consecutive top-ten hit.[58]
A remix by KCPK, sung by a chorus of children under the name Forever Young, was released in a series of animated Evian adverts which aired in France, Germany and Belgium. The remix was later released as a single and entered the local charts.[92]
2004: American pop singers Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Pink used this song in an international commercial Pepsi campaign along with Spanish singer-songwriter Enrique Iglesias, and the song was released on the Pepsi Music 2004: (Dare for More) CD.[106]
1992: American rapper Ice Cube sampled the beat in his song "When Will They Shoot?", from his album The Predator.[107]
2002: American rapper Eminem 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.[108]
2003: The J-Kwon song "Tipsy" directly samples the "We Will Rock You" beat, but reworked into a different beat.[107][109]
2011: American pop singer Katy Perry interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" beat in her song "E.T".[110]
2011: Beyoncé interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" beat in her song "Dreaming", featured on the Japanese edition of her 4th album 4.[111]
2012: One Direction interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" and references "Rock" in their song "Rock Me" featured on their second album Take Me Home.[113]
2012: Kesha interpolated the "stomp-stomp-clap" in her song "Gold Trans Am", featured on the deluxe edition of her second album, Warrior.[114]
1992: U2 used the song as a set list opener before they performed on stage during the Zoo TV Tour.[117]
1993: Nirvana performed it in São Paulo, Brazil, changing the lyrics to "we will fuck you".[118]
1996: Alanis Morissette 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.[119]
2007, 2010: Japanese pop singer Kumi Koda covered this in her a-nation '07 performance, and three years later in a medley at her 10th anniversary concert at the Tokyo Dome.[121]
2012: English rapper Dappy covered the song live alongside Brian May for BBC Radio 1Live Lounge. The song later appeared on UK chart-topping album BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge 2012.[127]
2011: Geddy (a.k.a. Armageddon), former member from hip hop group Terror Squad, mashed up "I Want It All" and "We Will Rock You" for the soundtrack to the 2011 film Sucker Punch.[133][134]
1998: Friends episode "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!".
2012: In the 12 March edition of WWE Raw, 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.[140]
2015: In The Big Bang Theory 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.'[142]
2023: The intro from "We Will Rock You" was the first music transmitted from lucid dreams into reality in real-time.[143][144] The study was published in Dreaming, an American Psychological Association peer-reviewed journal.[145]
Konow, David (2002). Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal. Three Rivers Press. p. 72. ISBN978-0609807323. Two years later, in 1977, they would practically invent the arena-rock anthem with "We Will Rock You." The song was designed for maximum audience participation, where everyone would stomp and clap along to its beat. Even today, whenever you stomp and clap that thunderous beat at a sporting event, Queen gets royalties.
^We Will Rock You (UK CD2 liner notes). Five, Queen. RCA Records, BMG. 2000. 74321 774 032.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^We Will Rock You (UK cassette single sleeve). Five, Queen. RCA Records, BMG. 2000. 74321 774 024.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^We Will Rock You (European CD single liner notes). Five, Queen. RCA Records, BMG. 2000. 74321 776 552.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^We Will Rock You (Australian CD single liner notes). Five, Queen. RCA Records, BMG. 2000. 74321 78012 2.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
