“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. Rolling Stone ranked it number 330 of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2004, 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.
Other than the last 30 seconds, which contains a guitar solo by May, the song is generally set in a capella 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. Soon after the album was released, many radio stations played the songs consecutively, without interruption. When performed live, the song is usually followed by “We Are the Champions”, as they were designed to run together. The songs are often paired on the radio and at sporting events, where they are frequently played They were the last two songs Queen performed at Live Aid in 1985.
Since its release, “We Will Rock You” has been covered, remixed, sampled, parioded, referred to, and used by multiple recording artists, TV shows, films and other media worldwide. It has also become a popular stadium anthem at sports events around the world, due mostly to its simple rhythm. In 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.
“We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” were written in response to an event that occurred during the A Day at the Races Tour. The band played at Stafford’s Bingley Hall, and, according to Brian May: 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.
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).
