Queen: The Complete Works

by Georg Purvis

  It’s useless to ponder the “what if”s of the world, but with ‘Some Things That Glitter’, it’s difficult not to: not only would it have made a fine follow-up single to ‘C-Lebrity’, thus guaranteeing it a position in the set list, it would have also been stunning to have heard Brian sing lead vocals instead of Paul. Brian certainly had faith in the song, submitting it to sessions for Kerry Ellis’ Anthems album, a version of which was duly released on that album, albeit pointlessly retitled to ‘I Loved A Butterfly ’.

  SON AND DAUGHTER (May)

  • B-side: 7/73 • Album: Queen • Compilation: BBC

  One of the band’s first real attempts at blues, a genre in which they didn’t find much extended success, ‘Son And Daughter’ is probably the song that garnered the most comparisons to Led Zeppelin. With interesting subject matter (instead of a single parent having to do the work of two parents, the song features a child who has to please his parents by accepting the roles of both son and daughter), it worked far better in the live setting than on record, where it was reduced to a three-minute song devoid of the improvisational sections that made so many live performances spectacular.

  Two BBC versions exist. The first, recorded on 25 July 1973, is an enjoyable but perfunctory run-through, with the band only just starting to expand the track through improvisation. The second, recorded on 3 December and issued on Queen At The Beeb, is an exciting, seven-minute excursion that is far superior to the album version. It allowed Brian the chance to showcase his guitar techniques, incorporating a solo that would later be worked into ‘Brighton Rock’. The song was performed as early as 1970, but was eventually dropped in favour of newer material by 1976.

  SON OF STAR FLEET (May)

  • B-side (Brian): 10/83 [65]

  Essentially a re-edited mix of ‘Star Fleet’, ‘Son Of Star Fleet’ features all the instrumental bits of the original song in a convenient, four-minute piece, thus earning Brian even more royalties. As of this writing, the song has yet to appear on compact disc.

  SOUL BROTHER (Queen)

  • B-side: 10/81 [1] • CD Single: 11/88 • Compilation: Vision • Bonus: Space

  Recorded during sessions for The Game, ‘Soul Brother’ was credited as a Queen composition presumably because of the numerous references to previous song titles: ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Somebody To Love’ are among the many titles mentioned. The song, which glides along at an easy, soul-based pace, was released as the B-side of ‘Under Pressure’ in October 1981, and then on the US ‘Heaven For Everyone’ single in June 1996. The song was given wider exposure on the 2009 box set The Singles Collection – Volume 2 and then two years later on the Hot Space reissue. “Freddie told me one day he had a surprise for me,” Brian later said of the song. “He said, ‘I’ve written a song about you, but it needs your touch on it!’ I think, curiously, we were both working on songs separately which referred to each other. Can’t remember which one of mine it was, since a lot of my songs were obliquely aimed at him (as well as to be sung by him!). Anyway we got in the studio and he played this song. Now whether it was really about me I don’t know. But I thought it was fab. I know he wrote it in about fifteen minutes! As to why not on an album - well, Freddie deliberately wrote it as a B-side to fill a gap, so I imagine the album was already sewn up.”

  SOUL (SEE YOU IN HULL) (Falloon)

  Performed on Roger’s 1994/1995 Happiness? tour, little is known about ‘Soul (See You In Hull)’ except that it was written and sung by Jason Falloon, Roger’s guitarist of choice for Happiness? and Electric Fire and the two supporting tours.

  SOUVENIR (McCartney)

  In May 2001, the Fan Club reported that Brian, Roger and possibly John had been asked by Paul McCartney to contribute to a tribute album for Linda McCartney, who had been Paul’s wife for nearly thirty years when she died in 1998 of breast cancer. ‘Souvenir’, a track from McCartney’s recently released Flaming Pie album, was named as their contribution, but, for whatever reason, the project either didn’t go ahead or Queen’s contribution wasn’t used; it’s not even known if the song was recorded or not.

  SPACE (May)

  • Album (Brian): World

  Just as Back To The Light starts off with a short keyboard introduction, so does Another World. ‘Space’ can hardly be considered a song, but it sets a mood for the album to follow, indicating that all is not going to be bright and happy. Brian said of the piece, “I just wanted to put that little fragment on as an introduction to the album – it’s nice to sort of tease in that way, I think. And for me, I wanted something just to set up the big heavy opening track, and just set the mood of where the album’s going.”

  SPREAD YOUR WINGS (Deacon)

  • Album: World • A-side: 2/78 [34] • CD Single: 11/88 • CD Single: 2/96 [15] • Live: Killers • Bonus: World

  John’s standout track from News Of The World is one of the few connections between Queen past and Queen future: a piano rocker with a memorable chorus, as well as some remarkable guitar and drum work. Written about a drifter named Sammy who’s done nothing with his life, the song drives home a poignant message of expanding one’s comfort zone and searching for more in life than sweeping up a bar.

  The song was issued as a single in February 1978, peaking at a disappointing No. 34 in the UK. In the US, Elektra mistakenly assumed the song wasn’t commercial enough and instead issued ‘It’s Late’. The song was included in the set list between 1977 and 1979, but was dropped before the start of the 1980 Game tour. The introduction was reprised on a few occasions throughout the 1982 and 1984 tours, but never progressed beyond a rendition of the chorus.

  A far superior BBC take was recorded on 28 October 1977, taken at a slightly faster pace with a more aggressive guitar sound, and including a raucous up-tempo ending that was unfortunately not attempted on the album version. This arrangement was performed on the 1977 News Of The World North American tour, but the band reverted to the standard performance for the 1978 European leg of that tour, simply because the song had been released as a single there and so the band wanted to present it as faithfully as possible. The BBC version was finally released on the 2011 double-disc edition of News Of The World.

  STAND UP FOR LOVE (Taylor)

  • Album (The Cross): Shove • B-side: 7/88

  One of the better tracks from Shove It, ‘Stand Up For Love’ features a tenacious guitar riff and a prominent Hammond organ, played by Spike Edney, and contains a fairly typical lyric in which Roger proclaims the benefits of love. The song is raucous and rollicking, and if it hadn’t been for the typical late-1980s production, it may have become a hit. Unusually, female backing vocalists are featured in a call-and-response chorus, but the women are not credited; the same can be said of the mystery saxophone player, who adds embellishments throughout, including a disjointed solo.

  ‘Stand Up For Love’ became the closing track of The Cross’ 1988 tour, and was resurrected in 1992 for the series of festivals and parties at which The Cross performed, the most notable being at the December 1992 Christmas shows at The Marquee Club.

  STAR FLEET (Bliss/May)

  • A-side (Brian): 10/83 [65] • Album (Brian): Starfleet • CD single (Brian): 11/92 [19]

  “I used to get up with my little boy [Jimmy] and watch it religiously every Saturday morning,” Brian said of the original Star Fleet television series. “And he said, ‘Daddy, you should play that!’, and I thought, ‘Actually, that’s a rather good piece of music!’” Opening with Eddie Van Halen’s trademark finger-picked guitar, with Brian providing the lead in the background, the musicians take a few moments to come together. However, once Eddie and Brian lock into that crucial guitar riff nearly thirty seconds in, the band (also including bassist Phil Chen, drummer Alan Gratzer and keyboardist Fred Mandel) is down to serious business.

  Though the synthesizer dominates for the most part, Brian found a way to incorporate the instrument in a way that Hot Space couldn’t: instead of being so rel
iant on the instrument and featuring it prominently, it takes a backseat, though at times it almost sounds as if Brian is duelling with the synth. Truly an inspired decision, and there’s no doubt that had Hot Space sounded like this track, it would have been far better received.

  The words, which are not Brian’s, are spread out so far between instrumental interludes that the song would have survived without them. However, Brian interprets them well, and his vocal performance on this song is commendable. “‘Star Fleet’ is the theme tune for a superb TV sci-fi series broadcast in England for kids of all ages; Japanese visuals and a British soundtrack including music by Paul Bliss,” Brian explained in the liner notes for the Star Fleet Project mini-album. “The heroes pilot space vehicles which can assemble into a giant robot for land battles. The aliens fly fantastic insect-like craft which spawn similar fighting machines, all intent on possession of the secret of F Zero One – having been introduced to all this by my small boy, I became equally obsessed by it, and formed the idea of making a hard rock version of the title theme.

  “In ‘Star Fleet’, recorded on the first day, you can hear a kind of nervous exhilaration,” he continued. “The new situation [of recording with the four new musicians] produced a strange and different kind of energy ... I’ve attempted to hone [the song] into something like a ‘proper record’ – my thanks to Roger for helping me with the chorus vocals. But I haven’t messed one scrap with the tracking done on the day. The rest is simply mixed ‘naked’.”

  The song comes to a premature conclusion five minutes in, but Brian and Eddie clearly aren’t ready to end the party: the band continue jamming for a further three minutes, though the synth is now no longer part of the equation. The song comes to a definite close, followed by a snippet of undoubtedly good-natured, albeit incomprehensible, dialogue, and one of the most satisfyingly bizarre compositions related to Queen is over. It would be hard to imagine anyone within Queen taking the song seriously, but it’s a fun little excursion that deserves more attention than it’s been given over the years. Strangely, it lived on – at the conclusion of ‘One Vision’ on the 1986 Magic tour, the band launched into the ascending false conclusion before leading into ‘Tie Your Mother Down’.

  Despite only three songs appearing on the mini-album, EMI and Elektra nevertheless extracted a single, and the title track was clearly the most commercial of the bunch. To make it even more appealing, various edits were created: the first and standard edit ran 4’25 and featured a new keyboard introduction (it was this version that was released as the single in the UK), while the second and lesser-known edit ran only 3’03, albeit pitched slightly higher than normal, and was released as the US single. Both of these versions contained a leaner edit with less instrumental space between verses; perhaps realizing the strength of the instrumental segments, a separate edit was created and released as the B-side, titled ‘Son Of Star Fleet’. The single, released towards the end of October 1983, went on to peak at an unsurprising No. 65 in the UK, not charting at all in the US. Perhaps recognizing that Star Fleet Project had been out of print for nearly a decade, this song, along with ‘Let Me Out’, was placed on the first CD single issue of ‘Back To The Light’ in November 1992.

  A video was created for the single, and has gone down in Queen folklore as being simultaneously the strangest and scariest video created. With the decapitated head of Brian floating around periodically, lip-synching to the words, segments of the original cartoon series were also inserted, making for an unsettling viewing experience. Still, much like Brian’s other videos, it remains unfairly obscure, and deserves to be seen if only for its kitsch value.

  STATE OF SHOCK

  One of three tracks recorded with Michael Jackson in early 1983 at his home studio, ‘State Of Shock’ was later re-recorded with Mick Jagger on vocals and released as a single from The Jackson 5’s Victory album in 1984, but the original, unreleased version is great fun and deserves to be heard. With a strident guitar riff and a poppy drum-machine backing, the song sounds like an extension of ‘Staying Power’ in terms of lyrical matter, and wouldn’t sound out of place on either Mr Bad Guy or Michael Jackson’s own Thriller album.

  As of this writing in the summer of 2011, it’s been confirmed that Brian and Roger are sweetening up the original recordings, with the intent of releasing the three tracks – ‘Victory’, ‘There Must Be More To Life Than This’ and ‘State Of Shock’ – in some form.

  STAYING POWER (Mercury)

  • Album: Space • B-side: 8/82 [40] • Live: On Fire • Bonus: Space

  This abysmal attempt at funk opens up Hot Space, and it’s no surprise that the album received such a critical lambasting, considering that the song is about Freddie’s sexual prowess and, ahem, ‘staying power’. Featuring a cheesy brass section (arranged by Arif Mardin in Los Angeles) and dodgy synthesizer in place of Brian’s guitar, the song would take on a new life in the live setting, where it was transformed into a raging rocker, a perfect example of which is found at the 1982 Milton Keynes Bowl concert.

  Live, the song featured Morgan Fisher (or Fred Mandel, depending on the tour) playing synth bass while John took over rhythm guitar, allowing Brian to concentrate on solos and inject a rock feel into the song. The song was a mainstay of the 1982 Hot Space tour, and was even the only Hot Space song to remain in the set list beyond that tour, being performed on the first half of the 1984 Queen Works! European tour.

  Elektra issued the song as the final Hot Space single in the US in November 1982, more than two months after the Rock ‘n’ America tour had concluded. Unsurprisingly, the single didn’t chart, but was unique in that it offered the first extended remixes of the song and its B-side, John’s more commercial ‘Back Chat’. (The pairing was flipped in the UK, and released in August 1982.) An extended remix was also released, which turned the song into a full-scale disco workout; depending on your tastes, it’s an interesting version and arguably makes a weak track at least a bit more tolerable. Inexplicably, this extended remix wasn’t released on the 2011 reissue of Hot Space; in its stead was a live version from the Milton Keynes Bowl.

  THE STEALER (Rodgers/Fraser/Kossoff)

  First recorded by Free and released on their 1970 album Highway, ‘The Stealer’ was a staple of AM radio, and a favourite of The Faces, who incorporated it into their set lists at the time. The same couldn’t be said of Queen + Paul Rodgers, who performed it live only once on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour, in Zürich on 29 September.

  STEALIN’ (Queen)

  • B-side: 6/89 [7]

  An interesting leftover from the Miracle sessions, ‘Stealin” evolved from a jam dominated largely by Freddie. The original recording ran at a lengthy twelve minutes, and contained an amusing interchange between several multi-tracked Freddies, and at times it sounds as if he’s arguing with himself. Mostly a throwaway, but still a compelling listen, four minutes were chopped off that version and re-edited for official use, when it appeared as the B-side of ‘Breakthru’ in June 1989. While not the strongest track ever written by Queen, it certainly would have made for a nice diversion on The Miracle, if only for its prominent use of twelve-string acoustic guitar.

  STEP ON ME (May/Staffell)

  • Compilation (Smile): Ghost Of A Smile

  Recorded during the June 1969 sessions at Trident Studios, with future Queen one-time co-producer John Anthony at the controls, ‘Step On Me’ is one of the most Queen-like tracks to be written and recorded by Smile. That’s no surprise, since it was largely written by Brian, even featuring the guitarist on complex harmonies and piano. Telling the story of a manipulative girlfriend, ‘Step On Me’ is a jaunty and enjoyable track with great vocals and arrangements, and may be the highlight of the sessions. Chosen as the B-side to ‘Earth’ in August 1969, the song was performed semi-regularly in the live set list, but the studio version remained unreleased until the 1982 Gettin’ Smile album and again in 1998 on the Ghost Of A Smile compilation.

  STILL BURNIN’ (May/Rodgers/Tay
lor)

  • Album (Q+PR): Cosmos

  In the years following Brian’s semi-retirement from a solo career, he immersed himself in a variety of projects that were as far removed from music as could be: he rekindled an interest in stereo photography, compiling a book of photographs by T. R. Williams as A Village Lost And Found: Scenes In Our Village; finished his PhD degree by publishing his astrophysics thesis, ‘A Survey Of Radial Velocities In The Zodiacal Dust Cloud’, and an all-encompassing book, Bang! The Complete History Of The Universe; and became a social activist, joining Nelson Mandela’s 46664 AIDS awareness campaign and later forming his own, Save Me, to protect all animals against cruel and unnecessary treatment. He somehow was able to work on the We Will Rock You musical, appearing at each country’s opening nights since it started in 2002, and produce Kerry Ellis’ debut EP, Wicked In Rock, and her first album, Anthems, all while preserving and producing Queen’s back catalogue. The farthest thing from his mind was to be an active musician again, evident in his reluctance to tour and paucity of newly-written songs, which can be counted on one hand since the beginning of the 2000s.

  So it’s surprising that Brian would be the fomenter of ‘Still Burnin”, a flaccid blues stomper that extols the wonder of creativity in a performer. The precious opening moments, where Roger’s drums kick up some dust and Brian gets the feel of the sound before locking into the groove, intimates the song’s spontaneity, but when it finally does get moving, the results are underwhelming. “Music lights this flame in me,” Paul bellows, before reassuring listeners, “Don’t think for a moment that my heart went cold,” but it all rings hollow. Brian may indeed have felt reinvigorated by his association with Paul Rodgers, but it doesn’t show in his three contributions to the album; only on ’Some Things That Glitter’ does the traditional May spark ignite, but by then the impact is gone. With an expected burst of ‘We Will Rock You’ – the message of which is either to remind everyone that Queen has a musical, or that Brian is keen on relying on past glories – following a gritty, wah-wah’d guitar solo, ‘Still Burnin” doesn’t so much rage as it does fan the cooling embers.