Queen: The Complete Works

by Georg Purvis

  The result was as haphazard yet special as the recording itself. With numerous scenes of pressure (traffic jams, buildings being blown up, unemployment, the stock market crashing and so forth) culled from old newsreel footage intercut with scenes from silent movies starring Greta Garbo, John Gilbert and even Max Schreck’s Nosferatu, the promo was a superb portrayal of the lyric and became Queen’s first video not to feature them in any visual form. Unfortunately, scenes of an IRA car bombing had to be edited out in order for the video to be played on Top Of The Pops, but it was a small price to pay.

  The single was released in October 1981 and became a smash, reaching No. 1 in the UK – Queen’s first since ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and Bowie’s first since ‘Ashes To Ashes’ the previous year – while peaking at a more modest No. 29 in the US. The song was re-released several times over the next two decades, never more famously than in November 1999 when a remix was included on the barrel-scraping Greatest Hits III album. Normally, remixes were something that fans tended to shy away from, but since this featured direct involvement from Brian and Roger (the latter was the prime mover in the remix), the results were more pleasing to the ear. Subtitled the ‘rah’ mix (which is what appears to be chanted following a brief, previously unreleased vocal improvisation from Bowie and Freddie about New York City), the song incorporated a more upbeat drum rhythm and some new guitar licks from Brian. Because its inclusion on the third greatest hits package was of little benefit, Parlophone reacted by releasing it as a single in support of the compilation, where it promptly reached No. 14 in the UK.

  Notoriously, the song was sampled heavily by Vanilla Ice in 1990, who incorporated the bass riff and piano into his hit single ‘Ice Ice Baby’. Brian said of the situation in 1991, “I first heard it in the Fan Club downstairs. I just thought, ‘Interesting, but nobody will ever buy it because it’s crap.’ Turns out I was wrong. Next thing, my son’s saying it’s big here: ‘And what are you going to do about it, Dad?’ Actually, Hollywood [Records] are sorting it out because they don’t want people pillaging what they’ve just paid so much money for. We don’t want to get involved in litigation with other artists ourselves; that doesn’t seem very cool, really. Anyway, now I think it’s quite a good bit of work in its way.” Vanilla Ice himself appeared to hold no grudges, but was bewildered as to why everyone was making a big fuss out of it. In a VH-1 special in the late 1990s, interview footage was shown from the time of the single’s release in which he explained how the two songs were completely different merely because he threw an extra bass note and sampled cymbal splash into the riff.

  ‘Under Pressure’ became an instant crowd favourite, and was first performed at the November 1981 We Will Rock You video shoot in Montreal, remaining in the set until August 1986. While Bowie didn’t incorporate the song into his own set list until 1995, the band embraced it, and it would often become one of the highlights of any given evening. The song would be given a rougher treatment, and the key lowered so that Freddie could sing both his own and Bowie’s parts (Roger would have the task of performing the higher-pitched vocals, naturally). A live version was included on the CD single of the ‘rah’ remix in 1999, while a superb version sung by Bowie and former Eurythmics vocalist Annie Lennox was performed at the Concert for Life on 20 April 1992.

  “It wasn’t the best recording ever made,” Roger stated contrarily in 2003, “but it was one of the best songs we ever did. It sort of endured quite well – I love the last section. I found it very invigorating and interesting – a successful collaboration.”

  UNIVERSAL THEME

  Another unknown track, ‘Universal Theme’ was likely an original track by Wreckage, and was performed on 31 October 1969 at Ealing College Of Art.

  UNTITLED

  Written and recorded by Brian in 2001, this track, with the unofficial title of ‘Untitled’, is an anthemic doodle, with keyboards and the Red Special duelling nicely, on top of a bed of programmed drums and piano, though what destination Brian had in mind for this recording is unknown. The song was premiered in 2010 at the Queen Fan Club convention.

  VAGABOND OUTCAST

  Much like ‘So Sweet’, authorship of ‘Vagabond Outcast’ is not known, although it’s likely that it’s an original written by Freddie. Indeed, on the only recorded performance of the song, coming from The Sink Club, Liverpool on 9 September 1969, Freddie introduces the song as “one of our own.” It’s an enjoyable, if slight, song; unfortunately, the quality of the tape leaves much to be desired, and the lyrics are indecipherable.

  VICTORY

  In early 1983, after concluding the final tour in support of Hot Space, Freddie and his assistant Peter Freestone stopped by old pal Michael Jackson’s home, where the two vocalists recorded three tracks together: Freddie’s 1981 composition ‘There Must Be More To Life Than This’ and two duets titled ‘State Of Shock’ and ‘Victory’. The latter became the title of the 1984 album by The Jacksons, though it’s not known if a version was recorded by them, and ‘Victory’ remains the only song recorded by Freddie and Michael that isn’t regularly available on the bootleg market.

  Apparently, a Queen version of ‘Victory’ exists, either from the 1982 Hot Space or 1983 The Works sessions (most likely the latter), with, according to Greg Brooks, Roger and Brian contributing backing vocals.

  VOODOO (Rodgers/May/Taylor)

  • Album (Q+PR): Cosmos

  With Paul Rodgers now teamed up with Brian and Roger, the possibilities for exploring new musical avenues were endless. The three musicians couldn’t have come from more contrasting backgrounds: Brian and Roger were well-versed in a mélange of styles, each of their albums shifting lanes with each song – and sometimes within a song – while Paul earned a pedigree in gritty blues rock, his early albums with Free a more straightforward alternative to Led Zeppelin. While Brian and Roger went to extensive pains to reassure fans and critics that Paul was one of Freddie’s favourite singers (despite there being no mention whatsoever of the vocalist in any interviews prior to Freddie’s death; even Paul was unconvinced, vaguely recalling that he maybe once ran into Freddie in the corridor of Peter Grant’s offices), the reality was that they came from different schools of thought and approach, and it was this creative uncertainty that created the best results on The Cosmos Rocks.

  Coming after the lightweight ‘Call Me’ is ‘Voodoo’, a song that, along with ‘Warboys (A Prayer For Peace)’, Paul had already written and performed on his 2007 solo tour, deeming it a worthy submission to the sessions. The three were messing around in the studio one day, jamming to ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ before they naturally progressed to ‘Voodoo’. As Paul told the Halesowen News, “I picked up an acoustic guitar and played it, then Roger came in on the drums, Brian then joined in, and we played through it. We recorded the second or third take. It ended up being quite a sparse song with not much instrumentation on it, and, dare I say it, very bluesy, very loose. We didn’t know what we were going to do or sound like, so we were just playing to see what came up.” Its spontaneity is the most invigorating aspect of it, sounding like an off-the-cuff, uncalculated blues jam, with Paul spinning the seductions of a black magic woman while Brian channels his inner Carlos Santana.

  In an attempt to expand the set list at a time when the Queen + Paul Rodgers association was coming to an end, ‘Voodoo’ was integrated into the repertoire on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour, only on a half dozen occasions throughout that November.

  VOODOO CHILD (SLIGHT RETURN) (Hendrix)

  Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 track (not to be confused with the epic jam ‘Voodoo Chile’) was performed live by Roger Taylor throughout his 1994/1995 Happiness? tour. More tellingly, it was also rehearsed by Queen on 18 September 1970, the day Jimi Hendrix died.

  VULTAN’S THEME (ATTACK OF THE

  HAWKMEN) (Mercury)

  • Album: Flash

  A pulsating composition from the Flash Gordon album, this piece chronicles Vultan’s attack on Ming and his henchmen in typical Queen f
ashion. Roger’s pounding drums over a funky bassline form the basic track, while Freddie lays down an anthemic synthesizer riff, making the song a perfect lead-in for the equally anthemic ‘Battle Theme’. ‘Vultan’s Theme (Attack Of The Hawkmen)’ was performed as part of the Flash Medley at four of the five Japanese concerts in 1981.

  WALKING THE DOG (Thomas)

  This Rufus Thomas-penned track, covered by many artists including The Rolling Stones, was played live by 1984.

  WALTZING MATILDA (trad)

  Another traditional song, Brian threw a snippet of this (along with a further traditional Australian song, ‘I Still Call Australia Home’) into his nightly guitar solo while on tour in Australia in 1998.

  WARBOYS (A PRAYER FOR PEACE) (Rodgers/Taylor/May)

  • Album (Q+PR): Cosmos

  Written by Paul in 2006 after the tour with Brian and Roger came to an end, ‘Warboys (A Prayer For Peace)’ started off as a tense acoustic rocker, with a tentative version played on the tour that spawned Live In Glasgow the following year. “It’s been on the back-burner for a long time, actually,” Paul told Vintage Rock’s Junkman. “And I never really got it finished. There’s been a lot of wars, not just the current one. In between starting the writing of that song and its culmination right now, it just seems to be appropriate now. I was playing this for a wonderful lady friend of mine called Cynthia. And I was saying, ‘You know, I’ve got this song, and it just needs a middle eight and goes something like this...’ and I said, ‘That’s what it needs.’ And the song was finished right there, you know.”

  When brought to the Cosmos Rocks sessions in 2007, the song was given a heavier treatment, with Roger being a prime mover in its arrangement. The terse acoustic backing was retained, with military tattoo drumming from Roger giving way to a more conventional rock performance. Battle sounds are overlaid for good measure, while a wah-wahed Red Special represents further conflict, and while it’s a welcome rocker on The Cosmos Rocks, its message has been muddled, with Paul apparently under the belief that soldiers are little else than automata being used for politicians’ personal gains.

  “I called ‘Warboys’ as a sub-title ‘A Prayer To Peace’ because I wanted people to understand that it is a prayer for peace; it’s not a glorification of war in any way,” Paul told Junkman. “I’m of the opinion, when you look back through the history of mankind, there always seems to have been hardwired into us this need for warfare. I wish, I really truly wish, we could transcend that. And live and work the earth as if it was a garden. You know what I mean? And share things. It would be so cool if we were more spiritually aware.”

  ‘Warboys (A Prayer For Peace)’ was performed only three times on the 2008 Rock The Cosmos tour, beginning in Moscow on 16 September and removed after Berlin on 21 September.

  WAS IT ALL WORTH IT? (Queen)

  • Album: Miracle

  With an introduction reminiscent of ‘Ogre Battle’ from 1974 (only with fewer ogre screams), ‘Was It All Worth It?’ closes The Miracle in the most Queen-like manner possible. As Brian tears down the neck of his Red Special and starts pounding out the infectious riff (a commodity in short supply on the other songs from the album), the band all join together for a truly memorable conclusion.

  Freddie sings an almost autobiographical set of lyrics about Queen’s rise to fame and fortune, clearly describing what had definitely not been a “bed of roses.” Though suspicions have been raised over the years as to who wrote the song, this may be one of the few instances of a real collaboration. David Richards recalled that Freddie was the originator of the song, but that the lyrics were a true collaboration between all four (Roger threw in the line, “So mystic / Surrealistic”), while the instrumental arrangement and structure is a collaboration between Freddie and Brian. Indeed, Brian’s guitar is all over this song, but is balanced nicely by a sprightly piano line which echoes the riff and an atmospheric synthesizer drone in the backing, giving a nice structure to the steady rhythm that Roger and John lay down.

  The orchestra in the middle of the song wasn’t a live orchestra, but was programmed on the Kurzweil synthesizer, the same instrument Mike Moran used to create the musical backings for Freddie’s Barcelona album. “[It’s] all emulator and synthesisers,” David Richards told Sound On Sound magazine in 1989. “Originally the song didn’t go like that at all, but the band wanted that section added and then moved around two or three times. Because it was virtually a live recording there was no click track, so I had to insert a space on the master, time it, add an equal space on the slave, and then add timecode. So some parts of the song go to about ten generations of copying, but because we were working digitally there’s no loss of quality.” It was during these sessions that Brian created another idea that was ultimately unused, but stems from the same sort of arrangement; titled ‘Chinese Torture’, this composition was used as a bonus track on CD issues of The Miracle.

  Unbelievably, ‘Was It All Worth It?’ was destined to remain obscure, like most of Queen’s better and more underrated songs. Despite its length (nearly six minutes), the song could have benefited from a hefty bit of editing if the band had used it as a single, and would have been a better choice than ‘Scandal’ or even ‘The Miracle’. The song appeared on the February 2000 Dutch-only single release of ‘Princes Of The Universe’, though the reasoning for this inclusion is unknown.

  WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS (Mercury)

  • A-side: 10/77 [2] • Album: World • CD Single: 11/88 • B-side: 2/96 [15] • Live: Killers, Magic, Wembley, 46664, On Fire, Montreal • Live (Q+PR): Return, Ukraine

  “I was thinking about football when I wrote it. I wanted a participation song, something the fans could latch on to. It was aimed at the masses; I thought we’d see how they took it. It worked a treat. When we performed it at a private concert in London, the fans actually broke into a football chant between numbers. Of course, I’ve given it more theatrical subtlety than an ordinary football chant. You know me.”

  Freddie’s explanation to Circus in 1978 of his (arguably) most well-known composition belies any of the numerous over-analyzed and wrongly interpreted accounts that have materialised over the years. While Dave Marsh, in a 1978 review of Jazz in Rolling Stone, absurdly called Queen the first fascist band due to this song, others have called it pigheaded and arrogant, while some have even considered it an admission of Freddie’s sexuality. Of course, the last one is stretching it quite a bit, but the other descriptions all contribute to the legacy of a simple rock song that was intended to bring audience and band closer together.

  The history of ‘We Are The Champions’ is sadly unreported, due to Freddie’s insistence on not discussing his songs at length. The commonly accepted story is that, while Brian was off writing a football chant (‘We Will Rock You’), Freddie was coming up with his own football chant, though it would eventually become more of a winner’s song than anything. Freddie was notorious for being less-than-complimentary about the press around this time, but Freddie reacted against this in 1978, telling Circus, “I certainly wasn’t thinking about the press when I wrote it. I never think about the British music press these days ... I suppose it could also be construed as my version of ‘I Did It My Way’: we have made it, and it certainly wasn’t easy. No bed of roses as the song says. And it’s still not easy.”

  The song is a classic case of starting off with a whisper and ending with a scream. Opening with a delicate and subdued piano and vocal introduction, the track quickly escalates into a boisterous singalong, praising not only the band for being champions, but the audience too. “You’ve brought me fame and fortune / And everything that goes with it / I thank you all!”, Freddie sings, and, contrary to what more cynical journalists have said, he actually sounds genuinely thankful for his success. The resounding chorus of ‘We Are The Champions’ sounds almost like a mocking “na-na-nana-na” to anyone who doubted that Queen could pull it off. The song ends inconclusively, with the final “of the world” left unsung, but the message is cl
ear: without the audience, Queen wouldn’t have existed.

  “You know, songs aren’t always about what the words say,” Brian told Circus in 1978. “Messages in songs can appear different. I always see that as the difference between prose and poetry. Prose can mean exactly what it says, while poetry can mean the opposite. That goes for this song. Freddie’s stuff is often tongue-in-cheek anyway, as you know. This song is very theatrical. Freddie is very close to his art. You could say he’s married to his music, whether it’s ‘I Did It My Way’ or his ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’. I must say, when he first played it for us in the studio, we all fell on the floor with laughter. So many of the people in the press hate us because we’ve sidestepped them and got where we have without them.

  “But there’s no way the song says anything against our audiences. When the song says ‘we’, it means us and the fans. When we did that special concert [referring to the video shoot for ‘We Are The Champions’], the fans were wonderful. They understood it so well. I know it sounds corny, but it brought tears to our eyes.”

  It’s no surprise that the song was issued as the first single from News Of The World in October 1977. What isn’t quite as well-known is that, in the UK, ‘We Are The Champions’ was the A-side, while Brian’s ‘We Will Rock You’ appeared as the B-side; in the US, both songs were issued as a double A-side. The single peaked at an impressive No. 2 in Britain, despite the lack of a British tour until May 1978; in America, it reached No. 4, their highest-charting US single ever, backed by an extensive North American tour and heavy promotion of the single, both on radio and in the live set.