Bryan wrote different styles of music for each character. Diana’s songs are in a rock-pop style from the Eighties. Queen Elizabeth’s music sounds more regal, with horns and drums. Charles gets rock songs with strings and orchestrations. Parker Bowles gets what Bryan describes as a “light FM” sound. He made the paparazzi sounds like the Clash. “I tried to make all these styles live on top of each other, so in the songs there will be a part where the punk comes in and it’s over a classical piece and a rock & roll piece goes on top of that,” he says. “So in theory, it was easy in my brain but to do it was not so easy, but it’s fun.”Broadway previews of Diana begin in March 2020.
The article mentions that Jon did a lot of writing on his own, and we've already heard that "Unbroken" sounds like solo Jon, but I do hope the album sounds like a band record. But I guess most of all I hope it's good. 😉I saw that Sunday morning, with [the] Dayton [shooting] and what had happened, and I just started strumming on the guitar, and it came and it came rather quickly over the course of maybe two days. I kept tweaking it, and I knew I had something. I was so proud of what I had but, I didn’t have a song title. I sat there and I said, “What the hell is the name of this song?” And I said, “It doesn’t really have a proper chorus,” and I was thinking of Neil Young’s “Ohio,” and telling a story. And I said, Okay well (singing) “Four dead in Ohio,” and then you go, “I guess that’s the name of this song.” And then, when you really sit with that song, there is no second verse. (singing) “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah” ... that might be a great hook, but it’s not a verse. And when I wrote this, I was playing it for a bunch of people, Shanks was one of them. And I said, “I don’t know why Neil, who’s so poetic and prolific, didn’t write a second verse and instead went for that.” And Shanks was like, “That’s a great hook.” I go, “Well, this song isn’t about hooks, it’s about telling this story.” And then I still had no title. That’s when I put the last line repeating what the first line did, and I said, “There’s the title, ‘Lower The Flag,’” because that’s exactly what the whole thing is about.Even that bridge was just so different for me, (singing), “If there’s something we can talk about, let’s talk about it.” And the rhythm of that melody was something that I’d written, I got it, I did it and went in the studio with it. I had everything completely finished, and I went in with (bassist) Hughie (McDonald) and [drummer] Tico [Torres], me and Shanks. And I was playing guitar, and I’m playing the guitar on the record, and Tico starts playing, and we said, “[the drum] is not helping, it’s hindering the progress of the song.” We said, this isn’t a drum song, this isn’t what this should be. And so he flew all the way to California and didn’t play on it, because we knew what we had lyrically and just wanted to tell the story
God of mercy, God of lightHopefully someone can let me know if this is wrong. 😜
Save your children from this life
Hear these words, this humble plea
For I have seen the suffering
And with this prayer I'm hoping
That we can be unbroken
