Queen Of The Reich

Well of the music video for this song is cheese because it's like 1983.Give Queenryche a break.

They took their name FROM the song, not the other way. Not bad overall, considering they were about 18-19 when they wrote it.

Chris Degarmo mentioned in an interview that he wrote the lyrics to this song after having a nightmare. Beyond that, I'm not sure if the song has any deeper meaning.

Link to the video: youtube.com/watch

Heh, "Tales of Queensryche" is pretty cheesy, but this a great Iron Maiden inspired metal song.

Aside from the cheese the song is rather deep like all their songs. They have always been a band that speaks of deep things. This one seemd bible based but in a riddle like many others. Their 2 women named in the bible. The harlot and the faithful woman. The harlot is known as false religion (Or babylon the great, the mother of all harlots)and it speaks of how she sits on many waters meaning she controls the world in general. The bible states that most of the world is under Satanic influence at 1 John 5:19 and the faithful women is the one that sticks to goodness which are very few.

Anyway, to keep it short I'll explain. In the dead of night: meaning when you don't expect it. She'll get you and hasd power signified by Light and Thunder. Over Blackened plains She'll find a way shows that she try hard to get you through the hardest circumstances. Flying high symbolizes that 1) height shows great power. 2) Night shows evil. So strength in evil she will hide your fate or what will happen to you if you follow her. Now remeber that Satan uses her (False Religion) to trick people.

Taking your soul from where you can see or notice it happening. Light signifies ability to see or know something but since that is fading it means you are losing sight. Castle or tower in the bible signifies protection and safety.

Your soul slipped away which may signify a gradual sneaky way such is how Satan works. Then he claims she has you as many others have gone and that she is coming for you.

Fading means you are losing ground against her. Your life cast astray shows it is pitch to the side by her. remeber in the book of Revelation the harlot rides on the back of the beast. Throught the bible the beast has stood for who the world power is. In the end it will be The United nations because this beast has many heads and the harlot rides on it. Thus she cotrols it. But it states that the beast will turn on her in the end when god puts it into their hearts that is the nations to destroy the harlot (the world of false religion that lied about god)That is why the beast shall atain. The bible says the beast will turn on the harlot and eat her flesh so anyone that joined her and beleived her lie will go woth her. Satan knowing he uses it as a tool (Her)Meaning false religion.

The light will not shine meaning its over for you. You die at her place (with her) and you won't see the light.

It is the sign of the croos you'll find ahead.

God talked about graven images as not to be used in worship but many use the cross which Jesus did not even die on. It was a stake or as all romans hung criminals an upright beem

The cross is a graven images that false cristians use. (A graven Image)

Souls screaming out in pain will be the day they die by the beast. (The nations)

Which is the end of thier lives or as known in the bible tribulation when the beast turns finally on the harlot.

The Armagedon when the beast is detryed by Jesus and the angels. Of course false religion is already dead but they must die too for thier Greed and evils.

So you see somebody knew the bible or was influeneced. This band was always deep and most will never understand thier riddles.

I remember reading somewhere that their first EP - in which this song is present - was a concept album... in fact I recall it's in the video clip for this very song!

Basically, story goes that in the future there's a one world government and a Queen rose to power. She, of course, is a tyrannical dictator. A group of rebels (the band, of course), infiltrates her base to get rid of her and restore peace.

Following this logic, this song is pretty straightforward: this is the first track of the album, and it describes the titular character: she's a vile woman, who frequently abducts people for one reason or another. That's all we need to know to understand the rebels are the good guys :)

Geoff Tate in 2012 commented on the song:

"For me, I honestly can't relate to the whole dungeons-and-dragons lyrical content of that song; it's really cartoonish and juvenile to me."

blabbermouth.net/news/geoff-tate-why-i-don-t-enjoy-singing-queen-of-the-reich-anymore/

Reich is German for realm, and the themes of this song seem to follow the opinion that this song was written about a fantasy world (someone mentioned it was based on a nightmare too).

In essence to me it appears that DeGarmo had a fantasy nightmare (as apparently he was into dragons, dungeons, castles, warlocks etc. at this time in his life).

Yeah, there's really no depth here, it's as straightforward as it gets. Kinda like if you were trying to read a deeper meaning into Van Halen's Atomic Punk. Nope, it's all surface. They were just kids, it was the late '70s/early '80s guitar-oriented rock and metal scene, they wrote something that was "cool" and cyberpunk-ish for the time. That's pretty much the whole thing they've got going on for the eponymous EP (and as others have mentioned, the song came before the name!) and for The Warning.

Rage for Order is their first album where they start dealing with concepts in a more thorough way, though their only two concept albums in the sense of "one story carried through to its conclusion" are Operation: Mindcrime, of course, and Promised Land. Empire is conceptually linked to the changing times, but not a concept album any more than Hear In The Now Frontier.

"But dude, what about Operation: Mindcrime II?" Okay, fine, I'll give. But without DeGarmo, nothing in the world could save the project from being a try-hard also-ran compared to their glory days.

To contextualize this song and others on the EP, gotta remember that the band minus Geoff Tate was originally performing Maiden and Priest covers... Which clearly had a HUGE influence on their first work here. Geoff Tate stepped away from his band to lend vocals so they'd have something to shop around, then once they agreed to get away from covers entirely, he joined the band.

Real shame about the current state of things, but not every band is like able to stay together or remain relevant for decades. In fact, history shows most aren't. But this much public acrimony in a split is a rare thing.

Ah, well.

Does anyone know what the heck this song is about, other than a way for the band to use their name in a song?