Queen: The Complete Works

by Georg Purvis

  FATHER AND SON (May)

  • Soundtrack (Brian): Furia

  Unrelated to the similiarly-titled track from Queen II, ‘Father And Son’ is a dramatic, orchestral piece from the Furia soundtrack with a lovely flute showcase.

  FATHER TO SON (May)

  • Album: Queen2

  Bleeding in seamlessly from the introductory instrumental ‘Procession’, Brian’s epic ‘Father To Son’ kicks off the lyrical aspects of Queen II with the relationship between an elder and his offspring, from the perspective of the father handing down his kingdom – both in the literal sense and figuratively, with the passing-on of the family’s legacy and honour – which is indirectly related to Brian and his relationship with his own father, Harold. The song moves along quickly through several rhythm changes, recalling Brian’s earlier composition ‘Son And Daughter’, with a variation on that song’s riff appearing later in the song. The acoustic conclusion strikes a warm note with a joyous sing-along that leads nicely into ‘White Queen (As It Began)’.

  “On Queen II there is a lot of stuff which I like,” Brian said in a 1983 BBC Radio One interview, “because that was the beginning of doing guitar orchestrations, which I always wanted to do. ‘Father To Son’ starts off with an introduction. After it gets into the song and a few words are sung, it immediately goes into a six-parts orchestral kind of thing. It was really a big thrill for me to be able to do that, because I had never been allowed to spend that amount of time in the studio to construct those things before then. That was the fulfilment of an ambition for me, to get started on that road of using the guitar as kind of an orchestral instrument.”

  He continued, saying, “Led Zeppelin and The Who are probably in there somewhere because they were among our favourite groups, but what we are trying to do differently from either of those groups was this sort of layered sound. The Who had the open chord guitar sound, and there’s a bit of that in ‘Father To Son’, but our sound is more based on the over-driven guitar sound, which is used for the main bulk of the song, but I also wanted to build up textures behind the main melody lines.”

  ‘Father To Son’ received plenty of exposure in the live setting, often performed as the first proper song in the set, following the pre-taped ‘Procession’ introduction, between 1972 and 1974, then played alongside ‘Son And Daughter’ later in the show, but was eliminated from the set list by the conclusion of the 1976 A Night At The Opera Japanese tour.

  F.B.I. (Marvin/Welch)

  • CD single (Brian): 9/98

  With Brian providing not only guitars but bass and drum programming, ‘F.B.I’ is a fairly standard run-through of a single originally released by The Shadows in February 1961. Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt from Status Quo provide rhythm guitars, but if they hadn’t been credited, it would have been impossible to know this. Indeed, as a cover, ‘F.B.I’ suffers the most from its production, reducing the drums to the loud-sounding noise typical of trick-shot programming that plagued so many otherwise decent songs in the 1980s. Yet ‘F.B.I’ was recorded in 1995 for inclusion on Brian’s Heroes project and when that was abandoned, was later released on the CD single of ‘Why Don’t We Try Again’ in September 1998.

  FEEL LIKE

  This song was what eventually grew into ‘Under Pressure’ when David Bowie showed up to a Queen recording session at Mountain Studios. A version with Bowie on piano has been leaked to bootleggers, and was played by Greg Brooks at a recent Fan Club convention, and it’s not difficult to find the parallels between this song and ‘Under Pressure’, with its similar piano and guitar melodies; the pace is slower and Freddie’s vocals are more reserved, indicating that he was mostly improvising the words. With some polishing and a finalized set of lyrics, ‘Feel Like’ would have been a worthy addition to Hot Space, but ultimately the right decision was made with working on ‘Under Pressure’ instead.

  FEEL LIKE MAKIN’ LOVE (Ralphs/Rodgers)

  • Live (Q+PR): Return, Ukraine

  From Bad Company’s second album, Straight Shooter, released in 1975, ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ was another big hit for that band, and was a surprising acoustic rocker with a hard-hitting chorus, unlike anything that any of Paul Rodgers’ bands had released before. It was the success of this single which helped propel its sister album into the higher strata of the UK and US charts, making it an obvious choice for Queen + Paul Rodgers set lists in 2005/2006, and again on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour.

  FEEL THE FORCE (Taylor)

  • US B-side (The Cross): 1/88

  • US album (The Cross): Shove

  In the late 1980s, with the rising popularity of the compact disc, bands and record labels had to compensate by offering incentives for fans to purchase one format instead of another. This meant bonus tracks unavailable elsewhere, and Queen employed this tactic in 1986, with the CD version getting three extra “magical ingredients”: two superfluous remixes of the title track and ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, and a gorgeous piano arrangement of ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’. This practice was carried over into The Cross’ first album, Shove It, with ‘Feel The Force’, a bonus track that still has yet to be released in the UK.

  Sounding like an outtake from Strange Frontier, ‘Feel The Force’ is an optimistic anthem, chock full of synthesizers and programming, though there is some particularly strong guitar work throughout, courtesy of Roger. The song addresses sensory appreciation, with an additional sixth sense (“the force”) with the power to “lift you up” and “make you sing and want to shout.” Unlike most of the other tracks on Shove It, ‘Feel The Force’ is over just as it gets going, which is a shame since it’s one of the stronger tracks to surface from the sessions for the album.

  ‘Feel The Force’ was shoehorned in on Shove It before ‘Stand Up For Love’, and was released as the B-side to the title track in January 1988. The song was first performed live on 6 November 1987 on the TV programme Meltdown, then securing a position on the 1988 Shove It tour.

  FEELINGS

  Also known as ‘Pista 3’, this lugubrious blues rock song may be an early version of ‘Feelings, Feelings’, as it features a line that would show up in that song (“Gotta get rid of this feeling”), but the reality is that the band are jamming on a standard blues progression, with Brian delivering a squealing guitar riff while Freddie improvises incomprehensibly. Likely from the same session as ‘Feelings, Feelings’, ‘Feelings’ was rightly abandoned in its early stages.

  FEELINGS, FEELINGS (May)

  • Bonus: World

  After the underwhelming amount of bonus tracks on the first batch of the 2011 Universal reissues, News Of The World gets off to the right start with Brian’s ‘Feelings, Feelings’, an outtake from the summer of 1977 sessions and premiered by Greg Brooks at a Fan Club Convention in 2000. What’s especially wonderful about this is that the now officially released version is Take 10, whereas what Brooks played to fans was Take 9. There isn’t much difference in the two takes, except that the band sounds a little more confident in their playing; either pass wouldn’t have been out of place on the album itself, though it also would have been an ideal non-album B-side.

  F. E. W. A. (Bulsara)

  With the full title being ‘Feelings Ended, Worn Away’ (the abbreviation a nod to Cream’s ‘Swlabr’, short for ‘She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow’), ‘F.E.W.A’ was written by Freddie and performed by Wreckage on 31 October 1969 at Ealing College Of Art, with further (unconfirmed) performances throughout the rest of their brief career.

  A FIDDLY JAM: see HANG ON IN THERE

  FIGHT FROM THE INSIDE (Taylor)

  • Album: World

  With a chunky bass riff and layers of distorted rhythm guitars, Roger’s ‘Fight From The Inside’ is an unexpected highlight nestled between John’s ‘Spread Your Wings’ and Freddie’s proto-funk ‘Get Down, Make Love’. Addressing the unexpected rise of the punks, the song is also a thinly veiled attack on the press, which, by this time, was also receiving an influx of younger jour
nalists intent on damning everything put out by so-called dinosaur rock acts. Like ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, Roger plays all the instruments himself, except for a few rhythm guitar parts by Brian, suggesting it may have originally been intended for his solo project.

  FINAL DESTINATION (Taylor)

  • Album (The Cross): MBADTK • German/French single (The Cross): 11/90 • Live (The Cross): Bootleg • CD single (Roger): 9/94 [26]

  If there’s any one song that successfully displays Roger’s progression as a songwriter and arranger, ‘Final Destination’ is it: starting slowly and quietly and gradually building in intensity, the song is a poignant and touching love song from Roger to his girlfriend Debbie Leng, with the drummer so enraptured that he feels “that I could ski right off the bridge of your pretty nose.” Okay, so it may not be perfect, lyrically-speaking, but from a musical standpoint it’s an accomplishment, and didn’t deserve to be thrown away on The Cross’ sophomore album, where it languished unknown except for by the most die-hard of Roger Taylor fans.

  Chosen as the third single from the album with ‘Penetration Guru’ on the flipside, but released only in Germany and Europe, ‘Final Destination’ failed to chart and, due to record label indifference, was deprived of a promotional video. It was a regular on The Cross’ 1990 Mad: Bad: And Dangerous To Know tour, with a version from the 7 December 1990 Christmas Fan Club show at the Astoria Theatre in London released on the 1991 Fan Club-only release, The Official Bootleg.

  Deservedly, the song was re-recorded during sessions for Happiness? in 1993, at One on One Studios in Los Angeles with Japanese star Yoshiki (see the ‘Foreign Sand’ entry for more information). Extending well beyond five minutes, the song is completely restructured (with the line “I would feel that I could ski right off the bridge of your pretty nose” replaced by “You would renovate my soul”) and given a punchier arrangement by Yoshiki. The musicianship is stronger than The Cross’ version, thanks in no small part to Yoshiki’s masterful drumming and keyboard work. The re-recording was issued on the CD single of ‘Foreign Sand’ in September 1994 and as a Japanese-only bonus track on the Happiness? CD.

  FIRE (May)

  • Soundtrack (Brian): Furia

  Not lasting even a minute, ‘Fire’ is a dark keyboard piece with appropriate accents from the orchestra, all climaxing quickly in a sudden finale.

  FIRE AND WATER (Fraser/Rodgers)

  • B-side (Q+PR): 9/08 [33]

  The title track of Free’s third album, ‘Fire And Water’ became an instant radio classic upon its release in 1970, overshadowed only (unfairly) by ‘All Right Now’. Queen + Paul Rodgers introduced the song into their set list on their penultimate night in Belfast on 13 May 2005. A live recording, from 27 October 2005 in Tokyo, was released as the B-side of ‘C-Lebrity’ three years later.

  THE FIRE WITHIN (May/Kamen)

  Written and arranged by Brian and composer Michael Kamen, ‘The Fire Within’ was Brian’s chance to finally get a song performed for the Olympic Games. Lasting nearly nine minutes, the song was performed live at the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 8 February 2002, and was conducted by Kamen. Brian’s guitar solo was prerecorded since he was unable to attend.

  FIRST GLANCE (SOLO FLUTE) (May)

  • Soundtrack (Brian): Furia

  ‘First Glance’ is the main theme of Furia performed on flute by Phillip Davies; though the preferable option would have been to keep the piece unadorned by keyboard drones, it still adds to the overall sombreness of the piece.

  FIRST KISS (May)

  • Soundtrack (Brian): Furia

  A two-minute romantic interlude, ‘First Kiss’ features prominent contributions from The London Musician’s Orchestra conducted by Michael Reed, and apart from a few scattered keyboard drones, they are really the stars of this fine piece of music.

  FLASH TO THE RESCUE (May)

  • Album: Flash

  Coming after Roger’s ‘Escape From The Swamp’ on Flash Gordon, ‘Flash To The Rescue’ is a variation on the main theme comprised mostly of dialogue with a repetitive piano riff chugging away in the background.

  FLASH’S THEME (May)

  • Album: Flash • A-side: 11/80 [10] • Compilation: Hits1, HitsUS • CD Single: 11/88 • Bonus: Flash • Live: On Fire, Montreal • A-side: 3/03 [15]

  The main theme from the Flash Gordon album is this throwaway song, enjoyable enough to bear repeated listens but certainly not a masterpiece. “Mike Hodges really made it into a cult film by being very self-consciously kitsch, whereas Dino [deLaurentiis] regarded it as an epic and not to be messed with,” Brian recalled in 2001. “I’ll never forget: [Dino] came to the studio, sat down and listened to our first demos and said, ‘I think it’s quite good, but the theme will not work in my movie. It is not right.’ And Mike walked over and said, ‘A chat with you, Dino. You don’t understand where this film is going to be pitched...’ But I had a really nasty moment there: ‘Oh no, he hates my ‘Flash’ ... aaaahhh-aaaaaahhh, and it’s going to go on the cutting room floor.’”

  Released as the only single from the album in November 1980, the song was edited down to under three minutes and retitled ‘Flash’, excising most of the album dialogue except for just enough to sum up a two-hour movie in two minutes; the single reached No. 10 in the UK and No. 23 in the US. A video was filmed by Mike Hodges while the band were working on the song at Anvil Studios, showing them recording to film: specific scenes are projected onto a screen above the band, the method actual orchestras would use when recording music for a movie.

  ‘Flash’s Theme’ was performed live as part of a Flash Gordon medley between late 1980 and 1981, but was dropped just after the ‘We Will Rock You’ video shoot in November 1981. A live version, from the November 1981 concerts, was released on both Queen Rock Montreal and the 2011 reissue of Flash Gordon. The studio version was later used as the introduction for the 1982 Hot Space world tour, but was not played as a song in its own right. A remix by DJ Mista Lange was included on the 1991 remaster of Flash Gordon, extending the song to nearly seven painful minutes. Avoid at all costs.

  FLASH’S THEME REPRISE

  (VICTORY CELEBRATIONS) (May)

  • Album: Flash

  The title says it all: coming at the end of the album, ‘Flash’s Theme Reprise (Victory Celebrations)’ is made up mostly of movie dialogue among Flash, Aura and Hans Zarkov. The song concludes in a gloriously over-the-top crescendo, with a final, echoed cry of “Flash!” and an orchestral outro before leading effortlessly into ‘The Hero’.

  FLICK OF THE WRIST (Mercury)

  • AA-side: 10/74 [2] • Album: SHA • CD Single: 11/88 • Bonus: SHA

  By late 1974 Queen were a hot live ticket, with respectable album and singles sales, yet they hadn’t received the financial benefits they felt they were due. Freddie poured his frustrations into this acidic track which takes the stance of an unscrupulous manager manipulating a naïve entertainer with doublespeak and legal forms. The song spews venom from each line hissed by Freddie, and is an even more heated composition than ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to .....’, which expressed similar sentiments toward Queen’s management.

  The second song of the Sheer Heart Attack medley, ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ blends in effortlessly from Roger’s ‘Tenement Funster’ and features a fine ensemble performance, complete with a tortured guitar solo and some breathless drumming from Roger. Somewhat bewilderingly chosen as the counterpart to ‘Killer Queen’, ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ became a double A-sided release with that single, issued in October 1974 and peaking at No. 2 in the UK and No. 12 in the US. Understandably, due to its quirky pop sensibilities, ‘Killer Queen’ received the most attention, and its counterpart fell into obscurity, eluding inclusion on any of the Greatest Hits packages, despite a special, single-only stand-alone edit (finally released in 2008 on The Singles Collection – Volume 1) and never receiving a promotional video.

  ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ was performed live between 1974 and 197
6, and a remixed version with a new lead vocal and guitar solo was presented on the band’s fourth BBC session on 16 October 1974.

  FOOLIN’ AROUND (Mercury)

  • Soundtrack (Freddie): Teachers • Album (Freddie): BadGuy • Compilations (Freddie): Pretender, FM Album, Solo Collection

  With a dominant, triumphant synthesizer motif, ‘Foolin’ Around’ is another fine track from Mr Bad Guy, and neatly blends dance with rock – exactly what Hot Space should have sounded like. With the pulsating bass beat of Stephan Wissnet and random stabs of guitar from Paul Vincent, the song is otherwise bathed in synthesizers and drum programming, yet still sounds fresh and vital beyond its 1985 release date. As on ‘I Want To Break Free’, Fred Mandel provided a suitable synthesizer solo, with accompaniment from Vincent on Brian May-sounding guitar orchestrations, which later drew ire from Queen’s guitarist, who questioned the point in hiring a soundalike when a quality song could have become a Queen song.

  Interestingly, the song was proposed to be a single, with a 12” extended version prepared; while it did feature in the 1984 Nick Nolte film Teachers (an earlier version appeared on the soundtrack album, with only subtle differences), the idea for single release was scrapped along the way. An instrumental mix was also prepared, and both of these versions were later released on The Solo Collection, but the most interesting find from the archives was an earlier version, recorded on 31 May 1984 at Musicland Studios. While some lines were later altered, it featured a completely new introductory verse as well as real drums (a drum-machine appears only on the album version), and is certainly essential listening. More mundanely, the song was remixed in 1992 by Steve Brown, with arrangements and instrumentation by Andrew Flashman and Andrew King. This version appeared on The Great Pretender in the US and The Freddie Mercury Album in the UK, and makes the song even more danceable than in its original incarnation.

  FOOTBALL FIGHT (Mercury)

  • Album: Flash • B-side: 11/80 [10] • Bonus: Flash

  An energetic performance from the band, Freddie’s ‘Football Fight’ is one of the few pieces from the Flash Gordon album featuring an ensemble performance. The song was included in the film in a humorous match between Ming’s henchmen and Flash, throwing around a metallic football, the song is every bit as camp as the sequence it accompanies. An early take from February 1980 was released on the 2011 reissue of Flash Gordon, and is unique in that instead of synthesizer, the song is played on piano. Freddie can be heard guiding the band through the song, and while it wasn’t intended as a finished recording, its roughness is charming and an interesting alternate to the polished, finished version.