Zen Music moment - Queen II

Zen Music Moment – Queen II

It was the summer of 1974. I had just graduated from school and was working at a construction job during he summer before I left for college in Kansas. I worked during the day, swinging a sledgehammer or pulling wet concrete (Mud), and in the evenings, I ran and lifted to get ready for my first season in college football.

At night, after working out, I would pile several LPs on my turntable, and drop into bed, tired and weary. The albums would play one after another as I drifted into sleep, waiting for that next day to arrive. I had a huge album collection, so the variety was never ending, but as my time was occupied, I became restless.

On a Saturday afternoon, carrying my new wealth in my back pocket, I stopped at TG&Y, five and dime to browse through he record bins for something new to listen to. I was, along with my friend Jerry Reale, a constant visitor to record stores and variety stores, and knew most LPs by sight. I considered myself o connoisseur of the modern rock genre at the ripe age of 18.

It was in those racks that I ran across something I had never seen before. The cover intrigued me. The album was called “Queen II.” I assumed that “Queen” was the name of the band. The cover was mostly black, with the 4 members of the band in poses that reminded me of the old “Meet the Beatles” cover, but this record had a darker, almost more sinister looking cover.

On the flip side, the song titles were about White and Black Queens, fairy fellas and an Ogre battle. The era of progressive rock was no stranger to medieval or mystical themed music, but this seemed to stand out in a rack of other LPs that seemed less than exciting. I was drawn to the cover itself.

I bought the album, and took it home. I unwrapped the cover and opened the foldout. Inside, a field of white displayed an almost androgynous band, also dressed in white.
As usual, I took the LP out of the sleeve, looked at the song titles and length of each cut. Then I put the album on the turntable, picked up the lyric sheet and lay back to listen to and critique the band.

What I heard caught me completely off guard. Guitar rang out like orchestral movements. Background vocals that rang out like operatic pieces and a melting of each song into the next like melted butter blending into a cake mix.
I had heard “Yes” and I had heard “Emerson Lak and Palmer.” I had listened to “Deep Purple” and the “Beatles,” but this album was the best mix of them all. It had the multi-layered complexity of “Yes” and “Pink Floyd,” and the powerful guitar of Deep Purple. Then it flowed form my poor sparkly speakers like side two of The Beatles “Abbey Road.”

I felt then like something I would experience only indirectly when I had a baby son. The first time we feed baby Fletch a spoonful of ice cream, his face lit up in ecstatic confusion, still holding his surprised mouth open as the frozen sugar treat melted and filled his taste buds. That was what I felt as the music drifted around me. I felt like the monster in “Young Frankenstein” as he grasped at the air trying to catch the sounds when he first heard the music of the violin.

It was the first day of a love affair with eh music of “Queen.” In college, we would turn out the room lights and listen to the complex, dizzying verses of “The Prophet’s Song” We would sing parts of “Bohemian Rhapsody” while lying in a cloud burst, camped under the stars. “Thunderbolts and Lightning, very very frightening…”

There are only three albums I ever bought because of the cover. I dared the others because of the great surprise I received form risking a buy on “Queen II.” The other two were Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” and Toto’s first album. I was not disappointed in wither.

On such a breathless night as this
Upon my brow the lightest kiss
I walked alone
And all around the air did say
My lady soon will stir this way
In sorrow known
The White Queen walks and the night grows pale
Stars of lovingness in her hair