Spread Your Wings

In the late 70s, when my mom would drop me and my little brother off at pre-school in her white Mustang with the vinyl top, Queen’s News of the World was the 8-track cassette of choice. We made her play it for us every time we got in the car. We were, of course, obsessed with the 1-2 punch of “We Will Rock You” / “We are the Champions.”

But as a life-long lover of sad-bastard ballads, it was the third track of the first program that really stuck with me. Now, if you look at the track listing on CD or vinyl reissues, “Spread Your Wings” is track 5, not track 3. That’s true. But on 8-track, it was the third song of the first program. This was the trinity of songs that got us to school every morning, and the melancholy of “Spread Your Wings” seemed to soften the triumphalism inherent in those first two songs. Maybe it’s Queen telling us all, “sure you got your ass kicked, boy, but get your head on straight and next time, it’s gonna be you. Now get out there and spread your wings.” That’s certainly the way I heard it when I was four or five.

Queen is the first band I remember loving. As I covered in the 1975 post, the Eagles were my gateway into being a sentient music fan—the band I sought out when I was teen and could by my own music and magazines. But as a pre-schooler, Queen was the band I inherited from my mom. In the car, we had N_ews of the World_ on 8 track. And at home I had The Game on vinyl. I’d put on Side 1 and jump on my rocking horse, and when it was over, I’d hop off and flip over to side two. I had a little Sears suitcase record player in the room I shared with my brother. And my favorite records were The Game and Chimpmunk Punk. Just those two, on repeat. I think that record player was the coolest thing I ever owned until at least high school.

When I listen to “Spread Your Wings” now, I hear something a little extra. And it’s not just because I don’t have the 8-track anymore. Spread Your Wings was written by John Deacon, the band’s bass player. It’s the story of a guy named Sammy who has a shit job and is determined to make a better life for himself. But all his boss sees is someone with “no real ambition….who won’t get very far.” Here’s the thing I missed when I was a kid: you never really never really find out what happened. The song ends with the narrator exhorting Sammy to “spread your wings,” but there’s no resolution. We don’t know if Sammy actually got up the guts to leave his job at the bar.

That’s really why the song works. The song isn’t about Sammy, it’s about you. Life is long, friends. There’s still time to make your next move.

Fave lyrics:

Since he was small Had no luck at all Nothing came easy to him Now it was time He’d made up his mind This could be my last chance His boss said to him, “Now listen, boy You’re always dreaming You’ve got no real ambition, you won’t get very far” Sammy boy, don’t you know who you are? Why can’t you be happy at the Emerald Bar?