by Georg Purvis
ROCK IT (PRIME JIVE) (Taylor)
• Album: Game
“‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ is totally elemental,” Roger explained in a 1980 Sounds interview. “It’s the most basic song ever that just says you can enjoy rock and roll. That’s all.” An apt description for what may be one of the drummer’s most underrated songs, opening up the second side of The Game with a deceptively rudimentary set of guitar arpeggios as Freddie croons, “When I hear that rock and roll / It gets down to my soul.” The song then explodes into life as Roger assumes the vocal responsibilities.
Sounding like an outtake from Roger’s Fun In Space album, the song glides along at a raucous clip with a tight rhythm section and some soaring guitar, including an especially jarring solo. Oddly, the real star of the show is the synthesizer, which adds interesting, spacey flourishes to the recording; co-producer Mack recently revealed that they were added because there was too much empty space between verses.
Two versions of the song were recorded: one with Freddie on lead vocals throughout, and the other with Roger on vocals. Freddie and Brian agreed that the former was superior, but John, Roger and Mack fought for the latter, since it added to the diversity of the album. (And, besides, Brian sang on ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, so why shouldn’t Roger get to sing lead on one of his songs?) A compromise was struck, and Mack joined together the introduction from Freddie’s version with the main vocals from Roger’s.
It mattered little in concert, since Freddie took the reins. It was played sparsely, though, receiving only a handful of airings between 1980 and 1981, then resurfacing as the opening number on the 1982 Rock ‘n’ America tour and three of the six Japanese Hot Space shows.
ROLLIN’ OVER (Marriot/Lane)
• Album (Brian): BTTL
Originally recorded by The Small Faces in 1968 for their concept album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, ‘Rollin’ Over’, in its original state, was a mid-tempo rocker lasting less than two minutes, albeit with some fine vocals by the song’s writers, Steve Marriot and Ronnie Lane. In Brian’s hands, however, the song becomes a scorching tour de force of guitar riffs and exploding drums, turning into what might as well be an outtake from one of Queen’s earlier albums (indeed, Smile played it in their touring days).
Unfortunately, the song has received little in the way of fan appreciation, most regarding it as too weak a song to close such a pivotal album, Brian’s first. Considering the sombre route Brian took with ‘Just One Life’, the song that precedes ‘Rollin’ Over’, it’s perhaps best that he closed the album with an all-out rave-up, as if to say that, despite his personal issues at the time, he can still find solace in good old-fashioned rock‘n’roll.
With Chris Thompson assisting Brian on vocals, ably backed up by Miriam Stockley and Maggie Ryder, the song opens with the tinkling of Mike Moran’s piano before striking out fully courtesy of the rhythm section of Gary Tibbs on bass and Geoff Dugmore on drums. Brian takes any opportunity possible to steer the song back in his direction, soloing after most of the verses, and even throwing in a lick of The Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’. It’s quite possibly Brian’s most enjoyable cover, second only to ‘All The Way From Memphis’.
‘Rollin’ Over’ was played live by The Brian May Band in Buenos Aires and Santiago in November 1992, but was dropped after the first two dates, never to be performed again.
ROUGH JUSTICE (Taylor)
• B-side (The Cross): 1/88 [84] • Album (The Cross): Shove
Roger’s third solo project was a hit-or-miss affair, but ‘Rough Justice’ was one of the better songs to come out of the sessions, closing the patchy Shove It album in the way it deserves: with a good old-fashioned rocking finale. Recorded entirely by Roger and Spike Edney, the song is set to a merciless, driving rhythm that comes to a quick conclusion. Roger sings of life as a criminal on the streets but, apart from the shouted chorus, little else is memorable.
‘Rough Justice’ was released as the B-side of ‘Shove It’ in January 1988 and was performed regularly by The Cross over the years. The version that concludes the US version of the album features a brief, fifty-second reprise of ‘Shove It’.
RUNAWAY (Shannon/Crook)
• Download (Q+PR): Cosmos
Brian vaguely alluded to “toying with including a cover song from the 1950s” on The Cosmos Rocks in a June 2008 interview in Classic Rock, and this was proudly trumpeted on the press release as being the first time Queen ever recorded a cover song for an album. (Not entirely true: ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was recorded for the debut album, and ‘New York, New York’ was intended for the Highlander soundtrack.) As with most things Queen-related, these plans changed, and nothing but original material was released on The Cosmos Rocks, leaving ‘Runaway’ – written and first recorded by Del Shannon in 1961 (not the 1950s), then covered by Lawrence Welk, the Small Faces, and Bonnie Raitt – on the cutting room floor. Which is a shame, because the performance is exuberant, with a lively rhythm and searing guitar licks, as the band clearly relish singing the “wah-wah-wah-wonder” falsetto backing vocals. The song was released as a bonus track on the iTunes-only release of The Cosmos Rocks, a deserved position, though it would have also been well-suited as a non-album B-side of ‘C-Lebrity’.
SAIL AWAY SWEET SISTER (May)
• Album: Game • Bonus: Game
An underrated highlight from The Game, Brian’s delicate ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ is subtitled on the lyric sleeve as “To The Sister I Never Had”, finding the guitarist offering up advice to his absent sister. Brian takes the lead vocal, the last time he would do so on a Queen song until 1991’s ‘Lost Opportunity’, over a carefully constructed backing track consisting of bass, drums and piano (often thought to be performed by Brian, but recently revealed to be the work of Freddie). The first take, erroneously labeled as being recorded in February 1980, with Brian on guide vocals (and doing little more than “la-la”ing his way through lyrics that had yet to be finalized), was released on the 2011 reissue of The Game.
Brian’s vocal performance is touching, with Freddie interjecting in the bridge, turning in a gorgeous four lines. The guitarist later expressed regret that he hadn’t pushed for the song to be released as a single, before conceding that its prevention from candidacy was because he, not Freddie, sang the lead vocals. Worse still, the song was never performed live – a shame since it would have worked perfectly alongside ‘Save Me’, which was recorded at the same session in the summer of 1979 – but Brian finally gave it its debut on his 1998 Another World tour.
SANDBOX
This spirited outtake from a 1979 Musicland jam session for The Game features Freddie on piano and shouted interjections, Roger on drums, and John on what can only be described as lead bass. (Brian is completely absent from the recording, hence John’s increased role.) Queen archivist Greg Brooks played the recording at a 2003 Queen Fan Club convention, and hinted that it was a predecessor of ‘Coming Soon’, but there’s nothing to suggest this in its performance or structure.
SATURDAY NIGHT’S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING (John/Taupin)
Elton John’s 1973 classic first made its first appearance in the Queen Lizzy tour in 1977, and was performed only a handful of times during that year before being dropped indefinitely. It was then performed again between 1982 and 1985, generally on Saturday nights, though it usually amounted to little more than an instrumental version. Some renditions do feature Roger and Freddie duetting (quite loudly) on the words, and the band would always turn in an enjoyable performance.
SAVE ME (May)
• Album: 1/80 [11] • Album: Game • Live: On Fire, Montreal • Bonus: Game
More popular yet equally as emotive as Brian’s ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, ‘Save Me’ closes The Game beautifully. Another piano ballad, exploding with a memorable chorus, the song finds the main character in the midst of a broken relationship. “We actually wrote very separately in those days,” Brian told Redbeard on the syndicated North American radio series In The Studio, “and we n
ever really talked about what the songs meant. I think we were quite shy about what we were trying to say in them. We tend to talk about things more now ... I wrote [‘Save Me’] – to cut a long story short – I wrote it about a friend, someone who was going through a bad time, and I imagined myself in their shoes, kind of telling the story. Someone whose relationship is totally fucked up and how sad that person was.”
Recorded in the summer of 1979 in Munich, ‘Save Me’ was performed during the same concerts that introduced ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’; it was retained in the live setting, with Brian on piano, until the conclusion of the 1982 Hot Space tours. It was also released as the second single from The Game in January 1980, although only as a UK single, peaking at No. 11.
A video was filmed at Alexandra Palace on 22 December 1979, directed by Keith McMillan and using animation in a Queen video for the first time. With a storyboard by Brian and animated by a Japanese company called Cucumber, the video was subsequently issued on the Greatest Flix video in 1981, and was restored for the 2002 Greatest Video Hits 1 DVD.
SAY IT’S NOT TRUE (Taylor/Rodgers/May)
• Live: 46664 • Download/CD Single: 12/07 [90] • Album (Q+PR): Cosmos • Live (Q+PR): Return, Ukraine
Written and recorded for the 46664 project in 2003, Roger’s stunning ‘Say It’s Not True’ was performed at the charity concert held in Cape Town, South Africa, on 29 November 2003. With Dave Stewart and Brian on acoustic guitars front stage, and a hidden accordion player, Roger sang the lead vocals of a song gently chastising ignorance and naïveté; the result was an early highlight of the show, even though it was incorporated merely to allow a set change from Bob Geldof to Paul Oakenfold. This live version was released on the 46664 companion album, Part One: African Prayer, with “Magic potions for lives” changed to “Magic cocktails”. The song was retained for the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour, with Roger taking lead vocals centre stage accompanied by Danny Miranda and Jamie Moses on acoustic guitars and Spike Edney on keyboards. A live acoustic version was released on Return Of The Champions, though it lacks the spontaneous energy of the live 46664 version.
While the 2003 studio version has yet to be released, the song was returned to in 2007 during sessions for The Cosmos Rocks. As the first official single to be released from the sessions, expectations were high for a return to form, and with critics (and vocal fan opponents) ready to lambaste the song should it underperform. Replacing the delicate acoustic guitar bed with a synthetic drone, the first verse and chorus are sung by Roger, with Brian joining in for the second verse, before the two founding members of Queen duetting beautifully on the second chorus. The song, driven by a simple acoustic guitar melody and subdued drums, then kicks into high gear for the final chorus, with The Red Special screaming alongside Paul’s arresting vocal delivery, turning the song into a fully-fledged power ballad.
Fans and critics were placated for the time being, raising expectations even further for the full album, which wouldn’t be released until nine months later. ‘Say It’s Not True’ was released as a free download-only single on World AIDS Day, 1 December 2007, with a physical CD single (due to popular demand) released at the end of the month. Unfortunately, the reception to the song had softened by that point: those who wanted the song already had it, and the CD single offered nothing else new to entice fans to purchase it (despite the promise of all proceeds going to the 46664 project), and so the single stalled at an abysmal No. 90 in the UK charts.
The song was performed live throughout the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour, one of the three mainstays from The Cosmos Rocks in the set (the others were ‘Cosmos Rockin” and ‘C-lebrity’), this time in the arrangement of the 2007 studio version. A touching and slightly out-of-breath rendition was duly released in June 2009 on Live In Ukraine.
SCANDAL (Queen)
• Album: Miracle • A-side: 10/89 [25] • Bonus: Miracle
A rare highlight on the second side of The Miracle, ‘Scandal’ is a vicious attack on the tabloids of which Brian and Freddie (and, to a lesser extent, Roger) were victims. Written in 1988, around the time that Brian’s first marriage was falling apart, tabloid reporters published photographs of Brian and his new girlfriend, Anita Dobson. Brian, typically, was outraged and disappointed that his children had to hear of private matters through the press.
“It’s something which has affected us, individually, as members of the group recently,” Brian told Hard ‘n’ Heavy in 1989. “It’s very strange, ‘cause we were fairly famous for a long time in England, you know, the last fifteen years or whatever, but we didn’t become a prey to these kind of scummy papers until recently. And it’s not related to what you are doing, you know. They are not interested what music you play, or anything. They just want the dirt, and if they can’t find any they’ll invent it if they choose to pick on you. So we were all going through a lot of changes in our lives and suddenly it became a big problem, you know, in a similar way ... you’ve heard about what they did to Elton, you know? These stories about Elton, and everything, which he sued them for and got a million quid off ’em. You know, great. Well they did very similar things to me particularly, and to a certain extent to Roger, and Freddie also had been through it a little while before. But this thing is total ... you know, steam in and destroy someone’s life. They really are the scum of the earth. You can’t exaggerate it too much.”
Though the song hardly makes a statement, it’s a powerful rocker with a bubbling synthesizer and some great guitar work from Brian. Released as the fourth single from The Miracle, it was the least successful release from that album, peaking at No. 25 in the UK, despite the inclusion of John’s non-album ‘My Life Has Been Saved’ as the flipside. In the US, it became the second single release but failed to make any impact on the charts. An extended remix, adding nearly two minutes to the original running time, was released on 12” versions of the single as well as on CD versions of The Miracle, with a completely new intro.
A video, filmed in October 1989 by Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossascher at Pinewood Studios, turned out to be less than stellar. The band basically ran through the song on a soundstage with newspaper clippings plastered randomly, and with a big painted banner in the background declaring, “We Want It All!” “I don’t think it’s totally successful, this video, as a portrayal of what’s in the song,” Brian explained. “It’s a kind of brave attempt, but it’s a little cold, and you don’t really see the band interacting as a band. It’s a bit stagey. But at least it makes you think of what the song’s really about.” Unspectacular at best, the single’s lack of success accounted for its exclusion from Greatest Hits II (as well as its counterpart, Greatest Flix II), but nothing could justify its exclusion from the third instalment. The video was eventually released on Greatest Video Hits 2 in 2003.
SEAGULL (Ralphs/Rodgers)
• Live (Q+PR): Ukraine
The closing track from Bad Company’s 1974 self-titled debut album was performed on the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour, with Paul on acoustic guitar and vocals and Roger accompanying him on conga drums. While the song was removed from the set after a few performances, it was returned to on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour, gaining a permanent spot in the repertoire and, subsequently, on Live In Ukraine.
SEASIDE RENDEZVOUS (Mercury)
• Album: Opera
Closing the first side of A Night At The Opera in tongue-in-cheek manner, Freddie’s delightful ‘Seaside Rendezvous’ shows the vocalist’s love of music hall as he sings about a romantic getaway for two by the water. Driven by piano, and containing no guitar whatsoever, the most intriguing features of the song are the orchestrations of brass and woodwind, as vocalized by Roger and Freddie respectively. The songwriter rather coyly told NME in 1975 that “[It] has a 1920s feel to it, and Roger does a tuba and clarinet on it vocally, if you see what I mean. I’m going to make him tap dance too; I’ll have to buy him some Ginger Rogers tap shoes.” In actuality, the tapping was done by the drummer with thimbles on a wash
board.
SEE WHAT A FOOL I’VE BEEN (May)
• B-side: 2/74 [10] • CD Single: 11/88 • Bonus: Queen2
Written by Brian in the late 1960s and included in Smile’s set lists at the time, this blues pastiche was dusted off and polished up for inclusion in early Queen set lists. The song was first recorded at Trident Studios during sessions for the first album in 1972 but remained unreleased; a second version was recorded the following August while the band was recording Queen II, and was released as the B-side of ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ in February 1974.
Live versions would include alternate lyrics, but the studio version features a camped-up vocal performance by Freddie. Upon first listen, this can be a bit off-putting, but the result is a fine slice of blues that the band would never attempt again. ‘See What A Fool I’ve Been’ was performed between 1970 and 1976, and revisited in 1977 during Queen’s improvised gig for the fans who attended the ‘We Are The Champions’ video shoot.
Though the song was derived from ‘That’s How I Feel’ by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, it was credited solely to Brian since it’s an entirely traditional blues scale – the Terry/McGhee version is hardly unique.
SELF-MADE MAN
At the 2000 Fan Club Convention, Greg Brooks unveiled a slew of previously unreleased and unknown Queen tracks. Though he played tracks mainly from the Miracle/Innuendo sessions, Brooks showed that the band had then been at a songwriting peak. A perfect example is ‘Self-Made Man’, appearing in demo form with Brian providing the lead vocals while Freddie sings the bridge (similar to ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’). An exemplary track, the demo appears to be nearly complete and would have been an ideal inclusion on Innuendo, during sessions for which the song was recorded. Had it been released, it would have been credited to Queen though it’s likely that the song was written by Brian.