Queen: The Complete Works

by Georg Purvis

  As if Queen hadn’t done enough in 1984, they ended the year with their first (and only) attempt at a Christmas single. The idea was conceived by Brian and Roger, which accounts for the joint composition credit. In fact, each had a go at writing a seasonal song separately; Brian’s far superior ‘I Dream Of Christmas’ was recorded but remained unreleased in favour of Roger’s ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’. With a hypnotic drum loop and pulsating bass guitar, the song was recorded in London in July 1984, just before the Works! tour started, with the lead vocal overdubbed by Freddie in Montreux.

  Issued in November 1984, the single replaced the original plan to issue ‘Man On The Prowl’ and ‘Keep Passing The Open Windows’ as a single; instead, these two songs were placed on the B-side of ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’. It peaked at No. 21 in the UK but received no US release, and was finally issued on CD on the 1999 compilation Greatest Hits III. It also appeared as the B-side of ‘A Winter’s Tale’ in 1995 and on the CD single of ‘Under Pressure (‘rah’ mix)’ in 1999.

  THANK YOU (Page/Plant)

  Shortly before Robert Plant’s interpretation of ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ at the Concert For Life, he and Brian appeared front stage to perform a touching one-verse acoustic rendition of his 1969 Led Zeppelin II track.

  THERE MUST BE MORE TO LIFE THAN THIS (Mercury)

  • Album (Freddie): BadGuy • Compilation (Freddie): Solo Collection

  Despite surfacing on Mr Bad Guy in April 1985, ‘There Must Be More To Life Than This’ dates back to the Hot Space recording sessions in 1981, but apparently remained unrecorded until 1983 when it was planned as the closing track on The Works. When Brian and Freddie wrote ‘Is This The World We Created...?’, this song was given the boot once again and instead became an album track on Mr Bad Guy. A shame, since this song is a highlight of Mr Bad Guy and shows Freddie’s concern with a world falling apart, predating the pacifist attitudes expressed in such songs as ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ and the whole Live Aid experience in 1985.

  “Basically, it’s just a song about people,” Freddie told Rudi Dolezal in 1985. “It’s basically another love song, but it’s hard to call it that ... It’s all to do with the fighting and basically it’s a love and peace song. But I really don’t like to write message songs, but this one just came out and it’s very generic. It’s all to do with, why do people get themselves into so many problems? It’s basically that, but I don’t want to dwell on that too much. It’s just one of those songs that I had for a while.”

  This was one of three tracks recorded with Michael Jackson in Los Angeles in early 1983, and is definitely a great outtake. While it would be difficult to imagine this in lieu of the released version, it is certainly a rare glimpse into the calibre of stars that Freddie befriended. An instrumental version was created for the box set in 2000, while an early take, recorded on 25 May 1984, has Freddie trying to make his way through several takes of the piano introduction. While not essential listening, it’s still interesting to hear the difficulty that Freddie had in getting the song right. It was also reported in 1996 that John Deacon had remixed the track for inclusion on a potential box set; to date, this version remains unreleased.

  THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES (Queen)

  • Album: Innuendo • AA-side: 12/91 [1] • EP: Five Live • Live (Q+PR): Return

  Written by Roger for the Innuendo album, this delicate ballad is a heartfelt tribute to Freddie, a precursor of the 1994 Roger song ‘Old Friends’. The song achieves poignancy in Freddie’s exquisite vocal performance, which is largely a solo affair except for a harmony vocal (also from Freddie) on the choruses. Roger was not normally known for expressing nostalgia, and the song is uncharacteristic yet appropriate. Whereas Brian immortalizes Freddie in most of his post-Innuendo songs, Roger is able to sum it up perfectly in ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’. Freddie was Roger’s closest friend within the band, so it’s no surprise that the drummer would offer something as gorgeous as this track.

  Issued as a double A-sided single with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in December 1991, the song went on to peak at No. 1 in the UK; it was also issued as a US single in September 1991, with ‘Bijou’ on the B-side, but failed to chart. ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ is accompanied by a touching video, filmed on 30 May 1991, which was the last time Freddie appeared in front of a camera. The video is decidedly low-key, in keeping with the nature of the song, but because Brian was in Los Angeles at the time of filming, he had to be edited in later. The video was then given to Disney animation studios, where it acquired a gorgeous animated sequence of two young lovers growing old together. This version was issued on the 1992 VHS compilation Classic Queen, but the original version remained unreleased in the UK until 1999, when it appeared on Greatest Flix III.

  The song was also performed by George Michael and Lisa Stansfield at the Concert For Life, and subsequently appeared on the 1993 EP Five Live. Roger also incorporated the song into his two major tours in support of Happiness? and Electric Fire, and it was fittingly introduced into the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour, with emotive lead vocals from Roger.

  ’39 (May)

  • Album: Opera • B-side: 5/76 [7] • Live: Killers • CD Single: 11/88 • Live (Brian): Brixton • Live (Q+PR): Return, Ukraine • Bonus: Opera

  Brian’s standout acoustic track from A Night At The Opera briefly turns Queen into a skiffle band, with a jaunty guitar intro giving way to John’s upright bass and Roger’s bass drum and tambourine. (Brian said he suggested the upright bass as a joke, but John took the instrument home and learned it.) Brian’s melancholy vocals are contrasted nicely by backing vocals from Roger and Freddie, who reach the higher registers of their ranges almost perfectly. Live versions, however, would prove comical as all three vocalists struggled to reach these notes!

  “‘’39’ is a science fiction story about someone who goes away and leaves his family,” Brian explained in 1975, “and because of the time-dilation effect, where the people on Earth have aged a lot more than he has when he returns, he’s aged a year and they’ve aged a hundred years. I felt that about my home at the time having been away and seen this vastly different world of rock music which was totally different from the way I was brought up.”

  Released as the B-side of ‘You’re My Best Friend’ in May 1976, the song became a live favourite soon after, was performed at every concert during the acoustic segment throughout 1976 and 1979, and was resurrected on a few occasions by Brian and Freddie in 1984 and 1986. A recording from Earl’s Court Arena on 7 June 1977 was released in 2011 on the deluxe edition of A Night At The Opera. The song was also performed by Brian, Roger, John and George Michael at the Concert For Life on 20 April 1992, and served as an introduction to ‘Let Your Heart Rule Your Head’ on Brian’s 1993/1994 tour; an example of the latter can be heard on Live At The Brixton Academy. The song was resurrected for the 2005/2006 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour, and Brian would perform it solo as a singalong with the audience during his acoustic segment, which also included ‘Love Of My Life’. The song was returned to on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour, this time as a nearly full-band performance (Paul was absent during the number), with Roger once again returning to bass drum and tambourine, Spike Edney on accordion, Jamie Moses on acoustic guitar, Danny Miranda on upright electric bass, and all five on backing vocals.

  THROUGH THE NIGHT (Rodgers/May/Taylor)

  • Album (Q+PR): Cosmos

  While most of the songs on The Cosmos Rocks are lyrically suspect, they at least have a plot to ponder, even if the writers of the songs might have momentarily lost their own. Not so on ‘Through The Night’, a clodhopping piano ballad buried at the end of the album, out of sight and out of mind. That’s not to say it’s a bad song: the performance is strong, with a mournful guitar melody wailing away along with Paul’s strong vocal delivery, but the words say a lot without actually saying anything at all. Much like the perplexed protagonist in the song, ‘Through The Night’ simply wanders, listles
sly coming to a close without making an impact.

  TIE YOUR MOTHER DOWN (May)

  • Album: Races • A-side: 3/77 [31] • CD Single: 11/88 • Bonus: Races • CD Single: 1/98 [13] • Compilation: WWRYHits • Live: Killers, Magic, Wembley, On Fire, Montreal • Live (Brian): Brixton • Live (Q+PR): Return, Ukraine

  Quoted by Brian as being the song he found easiest to play, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ has gone down in Queen history as the most raucous rocker ever released as a single by the band in any country. It’s also notable for being extremely enjoyable, and kicks off A Day At The Races perfectly. The band are on top form, turning in an early highlight on a pivotal album and proving that Queen were not a one-trick pony.

  Centred around a rousing guitar lick, the song opens dramatically with a spiralling guitar crescendo that bookends the album. “It’s an M. C. Escher painting,” Brian commented. “It was supposed to be the musical equivalent of that ridiculous staircase going around four sides of a square, and it seems to always be going upwards ... every part is going up, and each part fades into an octave below. It’s also backwards, because I played it all descending.” This was edited off the single release, while the remainder of the song remains unchanged.

  Misinterpreted as a song about performing bondage on one’s mother, the song is really about teenage lust and throwing caution to the wind, even if it means going against your parents’ wishes. Brian explained to Q in 1998 that “The genesis of the song goes back to when I was doing my PhD in astronomy I spent a few months in Tenerife, and every day when the sun went down I’d go to the top of a mountain and just play a lovely Spanish guitar I had back then – which I’ve subsequently lost. And I came up with this riff, which stuck in my head. When I played that riff I used to sing the phrase ‘Tie your mother down,’ just as a joke, really. Years later when we finally came to record the song properly, I fully expected this to be changed, but Freddie believed it to be perfect. I thought it was a crap title, but Freddie said it meant something to him, so he knows the answer, and who am I to argue?

  “Sometimes you get a little riff, and you just put some words with it, and then you don’t even think about what they mean ... Musically the riff was heavily influenced by Rory Gallagher who was an inspiration to me as a musician and a person, and because of the title it came to represent teenage angst, somebody who really wanted to tie their parents down. And because it’s so dramatic, it’s always been a good way to open or close a set. In fact, I visualized smoke bombs and lighting changes in the studio. It was that sort of song.”

  The visual element of the song was included in the accompanying promotional video, filmed in New York during a soundcheck for the A Day At The Races US tour in February 1977. Directed by Bruce Gowers, the promo was strictly a performance video, with a suitably over-the-top explosion that blasted Roger off his stool during one of the takes. Perhaps a bit too raucous for the average singles buyer, the song was nevertheless issued in March 1977, where it peaked at No. 31 in the UK but at a disappointing No. 49 in the US.

  The song was performed at every show between September 1976 and August 1986, as well as being played by Brian at almost every solo show. Brian and Roger have also played the song at most functions since Freddie’s death, the most notable being at the Concert For Life, with Def Leppard vocalist Joe Elliot singing lead. The song rightly regained the coveted spot of the opening song on the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour, after the short intro of ‘Reaching Out’, and remained in the set the following year and again on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour.

  TIME (Clark/Christie)

  • Soundtrack (Freddie): Time • A-side (Freddie): 5/86 [32] • B-side (Freddie): 5/86 [32] • Compilations (Freddie): Pretender, FM Album, The Solo Collection

  Along with ‘In My Defence’, Freddie was asked to provide vocals on the title track for Dave Clark’s West End musical, premiering on 9 April 1986 at London’s Dominion Theatre (which would later be home to Queen’s own We Will Rock You musical). A third track, ‘Born To Rock ‘n’ Roll’, was recorded as a demo but was ultimately unused, since Dave had promised Cliff Richard that song. Three months after his first contribution was recorded, Freddie returned to Abbey Road Studios in January 1986 with Mike Moran in tow to lay down a backing track. With Mike on keyboards, Ray Russell on guitars, Brett Morgan on drums, Alan Jones on bass and John Christie (who also co-wrote the song with Dave Clark) and Freddie’s friend Peter Straker on backing vocals, Freddie immaculately laid down one of his finest vocal performances of the period, second only to ‘In My Defence’.

  The lyrical matter wasn’t quite as personal to Freddie as his earlier contribution, though it would prove to be an eerie portent: the repeated chorus backing vocals of “Time waits for no one” would soon come true for Freddie. Set to a slower, ballad-like arrangement, the words are a depressing reminder that no one is impervious to the ravages of time, but there is a thinly veiled optimism in Freddie’s performance, substantiating Sir Laurence Olivier’s exclamation that Freddie was a true actor.

  Regarded as the most commercial song from the soundtrack album, ‘Time’ was released as a single in May 1986, just before Freddie joined the rest of Queen at rehearsals for their upcoming Magic tour. The single was backed with an instrumental version of the track, while two separate versions (essentially the main track split into two sections), titled ‘Time’ and ‘Time (reprise)’, were issued on the soundtrack. An extended version was also issued, adding nearly forty seconds of additional material, including a saxophone solo by an uncredited musician. The extended version is superior to the single mix, though the 1992 remix, by Nile Rodgers and appearing on The Great Pretender and The Freddie Mercury Album compilations, remains the finest version, adding a new dimension to an already strong track.

  A video was shot at the Dominion Theatre on 22 May 1986 at ten o’clock in the morning, an absurdly early yet necessary time to start filming. The theatre was booked for evening performances, and the film crew had until 3:00 pm to film the performance, which was done as economically as possible. For the first – but certainly not last – time, a group of youngsters was used as extras, adding a certain degree of sentiment and poignancy to the video, and it remains a wonderful, albeit little-seen, performance.

  Later that night, Freddie attended the performance of the show at the Dominion, where he hatched up the crazy scheme to become a pre-show ice-cream vendor, giving rise to one of the more memorable Freddie legends. Decked out in the full uniform, he remained anonymous at first, dutifully handing out the ice creams, but started to grow impatient – not only that, he had no idea how much to charge – and started to throw the frozen treats into the audience until his supply ran out. Once the crowd had figured out who the prankster was, Freddie left to rapturous applause, paying for the freebies he had just given away.

  TIME TO SHINE (Rodgers/May/Taylor)

  • Album (Q+PR): Cosmos

  When recording sessions began for The Cosmos Rocks, Paul came armed with a handful of songs he felt were worthy, though two of them had been written and performed on his 2007 UK solo tour. ‘Time To Shine’ was the first completely new song he submitted for The Cosmos Rocks, and, as Brian commented in Rolling Stone, “That ... was the first time we thought, ‘Ooh, we have a record here; this actually sounds like us.’” While Brian and Roger would write songs specifically for Paul’s voice, attempting to suit his blues rock swagger, Paul wrote ‘Time To Shine’ as an attempt to ape Queen’s style, and largely succeeds, despite its ricky-ticky U2 guitar riff. Roger agreed, telling Rolling Stone, “It was very suitable for us – quite grand and big.”

  Unfortunately, the words are to the detriment of the song, alluding to Paul’s credit in The Cosmos Rocks booklet: “May the force be with you (seriously!)”. ‘Time To Shine’ is a song of spiritual harmony, an urging to find one’s inner peace and serenity through adversity, and comes off sounding cheesy and laughter-inducing in the process. What saves the song is a soaring instrumental backing and Paul’s tran
scendental vocal delivery, eclipsing most of the other songs on The Cosmos Rocks.

  The song was performed only once on the 2008 Rock the Cosmos tour, on 23 September in Antwerpen, but it failed to get moving after a mistimed cue into the first chorus, and what could have been a noteworthy inclusion into the set was removed the following night.

  TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR (Bach)

  Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Toccata And Fugue In D Minor’ was performed live by Smile in 1968 and 1969.

  TONIGHT (Taylor)

  • B-side (Roger): 9/98 [45] • Album (Roger): Electric • CD single (Roger): 3/99 [38]

  Upon first listen, ‘Tonight’ sounds like a simple love song, the only song from Electric Fire to feature an acoustic guitar so prominently. In fact, it’s a celebration of love, be it platonic or romantic, and may contain an underlying tribute to Freddie. With a gorgeous melody, including an absolutely sublime acoustic guitar solo from Jason Falloon, ‘Tonight’ chugs away with the double-drum action of Roger (providing the rhythm) and Keith Prior (providing the brushed snare) and comes to a close by recalling the mood and feel of ‘Who Needs You’ from 1977.

  The song was premiered at the Cyberbarn gig on 24 September 1998, and it was this version that appeared on the CD single of ‘Surrender’ in March 1999. An earlier remix, given the subtitle of ‘Dub Sangria’, emphasized the pseudo-Latin rhythm (excising most of the words to become a semi-instrumental) and was released as the B-side of ‘Pressure On’ in September 1998. ‘Tonight’ was also performed live on the 1999 Electric Fire tour, making little attempt to recreate the backing from the album, instead giving the song a more conventional approach that dulled its impact significantly.

  TOO MUCH LOVE WILL KILL YOU (May/Musker/Lamers)

  • A-side (Brian): 8/92 [5] • Album (Brian): BTTL • B-side (Brian): 6/93 [23] • Live (Brian): Brixton • Album (Queen): Heaven • A-side (Queen): 2/96 [15]