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Ogre Battle is a track from Queen's second album, Queen II and was written by Freddie Mercury. Mercury wrote "Ogre Battle" on guitar (as confirmed by Brian May in several interviews) in 1972. The band didn't want to record it for their first album, but rather waited until they could have more studio freedom to do it properly.
The ogre-like screams in the middle are Mercury's, and the high harmonies at the end of the chorus hook are sung by Roger Taylor. As the title suggests, it tells the story of a battle between ogres, and features a Brian May guitar solo and sound effects to simulate the sound of a battle. The beginning of the song is the end of the song played backwards including the final gong which when played backwards at the start of the song creates the building wave sound.
The song is one of Queen's heaviest works. The guitar riff, along with Roger Taylor's drumming, give it a very "thrash" sound. It was a longtime live favorite, although on stage Queen played it slower than in the studio. They stopped playing the song somewhere around 1977-1978, playing it on almost every concert up until then.
A different version of "Ogre Battle" exists, recorded in December 1973 for the BBC Radio 1 "Sound of the 70s" programme. This version starts right away with its riff (without any long intro), doesn't have any effects that the version on "Queen II" has and sounds much less polished. The BBC version of "Ogre Battle" did originally have a long intro featuring a grand guitar build up; it was not used for this release, allegedly because the original tape was damaged.
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