Queen E-Book

Andrew Wild

• Herausgeber: Sonicbond Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: On Track
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 295

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The first book to analyse every Queen song - giving equal weight to album tracks alongside the hits . * Includes analysis of about 20 classic songs using the original 24 track master tapes. * Queen remain ever popular and active, and continue to tour despite the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991. This book examines Queen's music, album by album, track by track, in detail. Where possible, recourse to the original multi-track master tapes has provided extra insight. Those familiar hits are revisited, but those classic album cuts - like `Liar', `March of the Black Queen', `Death on Two Legs', and `Dragon Attack', `are given equal precedence. The book also examines the changes that these same four musicians went through - from heavy and pomp rock to pop as the chart hits began to flow - with a keen and unbiased eye. Whether as a fan your preference is for the albums `A Night at the Opera', `Jazz' or `Innuendo' this detailed and definitive guide will tell you all you need to know. Queen had strength in depth. These are the songs on which a legend was built.

Andrew Wild is an experienced writer with several books to his credit. HIs previous works include official biographies of the bands Twelfth Night (Play On, 2009) and Galahad (One for the Record, 2012) and more recently Pink Floyd Song by Song (Fonthill 2017). His play The Difficult Crossing was published in 2016. He lives in Rainow, Cheshire

Leseprobe

Sonicbond Publishing Limited

www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

Email: [email protected]

First Published in the United Kingdom2018

First Published in the United States 2019

This digital edition 2022

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright Andrew Wild 2018

ISBN 978-1-78952-003-3

The rights of Andrew Wild to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Sonicbond Publishing Limited

Printed and bound in England

Graphic design and typesetting: Full Moon Media - www.fullmoonmedia.co.uk

Also by Andrew Wild:

108 Steps Around Macclesfield

(Sigma Press, 1994 / 2nd edition, Rumble Strips, 2018)

Exploring Chester

(Sigma Press, 1996 / re-publication, Rumble Strips, 2018)

Ever Forward

(MADS, 1997)

Play On

(Twelfth Night, 2009)

One for the Record

(Avalon, 2013 / 2nd edition, 2018)

The Difficult Crossing

(Stagescripts, 2016)

Pink Floyd Song by Song

(Fonthill, 2017)

The Beatles on Track

(Sonicbond, 2018)

For Stuart Nicholson, a fan and a pal

The ‘Thank You’ List:

To Stacy Doller and Mike Pollack, for filling the gaps in my collection – listen to their shows at www.progzilla.com;

To Peter Hince for his time in answering many email queries;

To Steve Pilkington, editor to the stars;

To Julian Cox, captain camera;

To Simon Godfrey, Andy Sears, Stuart Nicholson, Lee Abraham, Peter Munro, Kelvin Papp, Peter Jones and Lee Dudleyfor suggestions and support;

To Sam Smyth and Anthony Rowsick, my lovely proof-readers;

To Stephen Lambe, for patience, humour, boundless enthusiasm and ongoing belief in what we are trying to achieve;

To Huw Lloyd-Jones;

To Rosie and Amy;

And, of course, to Amanda, whose idea it was.

Contents

Introduction

What is included and what is not included

1970–1974: As It Began

Queen (1973)

Queen II (1973)

Sheer Heart Attack (1974)

1975–1978: We Are the Champions

A Night at the Opera (1975)

A Day at the Races (1976)

News of the World (1977)

Jazz (1978)

1979–1984: Staying Power

The Game (1980)

Flash Gordon (1980)

Hot Space (1981)

The Works (1984)

One Glorious Day – Live Aid

1985–1995: In the Lap of the Gods

A Kind of Magic (1986)

The Miracle (1988)

Innuendo (1991)

Made in Heaven (1995)

Epilogue: The Show Must Go On

Queen Rocks (1997)

Greatest Hits III (1999)

46664 (2003)

Queen + Paul Rodgers (2005-2008)

The Cosmos Rocks (2008)

Queen Forever (2013)

Bibliography

Recommended websites

The Perfect Queen Playlist

Also from Sonicbond Publishing

Would you like to write for Sonicbond Publishing?

Introduction

Queen. Love them or hate them, everyone has an opinion. Everyone knows their music. From the radio-friendly hit singles to the early prog rock epics, from the cod-heavy bombast to the jazz pastiches, from the introspective ballads to the thumping anthems, Queen’s music continues to be heard all around the world.

Queen were already a hugely successful band when, in July 1985, they were the outstanding act at the Live Aid concert in London, surely the biggest popular culture event of the ‘80s and voted the greatest live performance of all time in 2005. Their subsequent tour – 26 massive shows to over a million people across Europe during summer 1986 – secured their legendary status. Yet, none of this would have happened without the writing and performing skills of Freddie Mercury. Even the most technically-adept musicians need a writer and front-man. And in Freddie Mercury – flamboyant, eccentric, enigmatic, literate, camp, colourful – Queen were blessed with one of the best performers in rock. Perhaps the best.

The two key elements for Queen’s unique sound should, at face value, be mutually incompatible. Firstly, Queen intelligently combined hard rock, prog rock, opera, music hall and power ballads with overblown vocal and guitar arrangements. In this respect they are a ‘clever’ band, an arty band, if you like. Secondly, Queen are accessible – their songs are short, often commercial and great to sing along with (witness all those hit singles), but can be unsubtle, direct, to-the-point. Almost artless. How can an ‘arty’ band be ‘artless’? You tell me, but they were.

Queen have never been ‘hip’ – they appealed to the masses and this makes rock critics unnecessarily snooty. Many contemporary reviews were savage, including one notorious write-up that compared ‘We Will Rock You’ with a Nazi rally cry:

This group has come to make it clear exactly who is superior and who is inferior. Its anthem, ‘We Will Rock You’, is a marching order: you will not rock us, we will rock you. Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band. The whole thing makes me wonder why anyone would indulge these creeps and their polluting ideas.

Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 8 February 1979

As Dominique Leone wrote in Pitchfork in 2011: ‘For all their reported bombast, pomp, and tendency to overshoot and double-slaughter any semblances of good taste, everything you’ve heard about them is still true. They’re one of the few phenomena who deliver on the hype, regardless of how you approach them.’

And it is easy and convenient to categorise Queen’s history into two eras: before Freddie Mercury’s death and afterwards. Whilst it’s true that, over the last 25 years or more, Brian May and Roger Taylor have very much capitalised on the music that Queen made between 1973 and 1991, that legacy is beloved still by millions of people.

This book examines Queen’s music, album by album, song by song, in detail. Where possible, recourse to the original multi-track master tapes has provided extra insight. The familiar hits are revisited, but those classic album cuts – ’The Night Comes Down’, ‘Liar’, ‘The March of the Black Queen’, ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Death on Two Legs’, ‘The Prophet’s Song’, ‘Love of my Life’, ‘You Take My Breath Away’, ‘The Millionaire Waltz’, ‘Dragon Attack’, ‘Bijou’, ‘Mother Love’, ‘My Fairy King’, ‘Nevermore’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘You and I’, ‘It’s Late’, ‘It’s a Beautiful Day’, ‘My Melancholy Blues’, ‘Is This the World We Created…?’ – are given equal precedence.

Queen had strength in depth. These are the songs on which a legend was built.

Andrew Wild

Rainow, Cheshire, 2018

andrewwild.progzilla.com

What is included and what is not included

This book revisits, examines, analyses and describes each track from Queen’s fifteen studio albums, from their self-titled debut released in 1973 to Made in Heaven in 1995. Any contemporary non-album tracks, B-sides and known unreleased songs are also included. Common variants such as single mixes, radio sessions and remixes are listed, along with live performance details. For details of Queen’s many live releases and DVDs, I recommend the excellent website www.ultimatequeen.co.uk.

Promo singles, international variants, bootleg recordings, unreleased demos of released songs and solo material are not included unless they have a specific impact on a released song by Queen – readers are directed to the exhaustive The Queen Chronology (Patrick Lemieux and Adam Unger, 2013) and to the websites www.queenvault.com, www.queenzone.com and www.ultimatequeen.co.uk for full details of these.

A concluding chapter discusses the post-Freddie years, including: new songs in 1997, 2003 and 2014; The Cosmos Rocks; and the band’s tours with Paul Rodgers and with Adam Lambert.

1970–1974: As It Began

Queen were never the most conventional of rocks stars. Brian May … the erudite, earnest and academic guitar virtuoso. John Deacon … the archetypal non-singing bassist who wrote both a four-to-the-floor disco-funk classic and one of the greatest karaoke anthems of the 20th century. The secret weapon in the band’s song writing arsenal. Roger Taylor … the dynamic drummer, singer of immense power and range, and the other secret weapon in the band’s song writing arsenal. And Freddie Mercury … the lead vocalist and front-man who provided the charisma, extravagance, swagger, musical chops and damn-it-all bravado. And who wrote hit after hit after hit.

Individually they were talented musicians and songwriters with rare depth, each with a keen ear for a catchy melody: all four of the band wrote top ten hit singles. Collectively, and especially on stage, Queen were an unstoppable force of nature.

Throughout their history, Queen operated exclusively on their own terms. That history starts in 1963, when 16-year old Brian May built a guitar with his father.

May (born 19 July 1947, Hampton, Middlesex), formed his first band in 1964 with schoolmate Tim Staffell. The band, blues-rock in style, was named 1984 and continued to perform after both May and Staffell left school and went to further education in London: May to Imperial College with a £75 per annum scholarshipand Staffell to Ealing College of Art, about 40 minutes on the Tube from central London. 1984 disbanded in spring 1968 when May graduated with a degree in physics. Their high point had been supporting the Jimi Hendrix Experience at Imperial College.

‘I was on the Entertainments Committee at Imperial College in West London who booked Jimi in May 1967,’ May told Loudersound in 2015. ‘It was a sort of ball: you had three or four groups playing in different parts of the building. We were playing in a room at the bottom, and Jimi was on in the main hall so, yes, in a sense, we supported him. I remember, we were stood in the little corridor backstage between the stage and Jimi’s dressing room – just kind of clumped outside waiting for him. Jimi came out of the dressing room and said: “Where’s the stage, man?” We just pointed [starstruck]. He was the coolest guy on earth. No doubt about it. We played ‘Purple Haze’ that night as a kind of tribute to Jimi, and it’s rumoured that he came down and saw me playing it. People have told me that he came in, stood at the back and watched. I had no idea.’

May and Staffell decided to form a new band, and an advertisement on the college notice board brought them medical student and drummer Roger Taylor.

Taylor (born 26 July 1949, King’s Lynn, Norfolk) had grown up in Cornwall, and formed his first serious band, Beat Unlimited, in 1963. Taylor played with many bands in Cornwall including the Cousin Jacks, and Johnny Quayle and the Reactions. He moved to London in October 1967. His flatmate studied at Imperial College and, in autumn 1968, saw a postcard pinned to a noticeboard: ‘Ginger Baker / Mitch Mitchell-style drummer wanted’.

May, Taylor and Staffell called their new band Smile, played their first gig in October 1968 and signed to Mercury records in 1969.

Tim Staffell was a student at Ealing with 22-year old Farrokh Bulsara. Bulsara, known to all as ‘Freddie’ had been born on 5 September 1946 in Zanzibar to Indian parents and had moved to Feltham, Middlesex, a few miles west of London, in 1964. He started at Ealing in 1966.

‘I went to Ealing Art School a year after Pete Townshend left,’ Freddie told Caroline Coon in 1974. ‘Music was a side-line to everything we did. The school was a breeding ground for musicians.’ 1

After becoming friendly with Staffell, Bulsara became a follower of Smile and made first contact with Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Smile recorded three tracks at Trident Studios that June. The resulting single, ‘Earth’ (Staffell) backed with ‘Step on Me’ (Staffell/May), failed to attract any attention. Through a sister of a girlfriend of a friend, Smile and their friend Freddie were introduced to a band from St Helens called Ibex. The core trio in Ibex – guitarist Mike Bersin, drummer Mick Smith and bassist John Taylor – had decided to try their luck in London and needed a singer. Keen to perform, and determined to succeed, Freddie joined Ibex in August 1969. His nickname in the band was Ponce.

Freddie in 1974: ‘I got my diploma and then I thought I’d chance it as a freelance artist. I tried. I did it for a couple of months, but I’d done it for so long I thought, “My God, I’ve done enough.” The interest wasn’t there. And the music thing just grew and grew. Finally, I said, “Right, I’m taking the plunge, it’s music.” I’m one of those people believes in doing those things which interest you. Music is so interesting, dear.’ 2

Ibex would play covers by bands such as Led Zeppelin, Cream, Muddy Waters, Yes and Jimi Hendrix. A live recording of the Beatles’ song ‘Rain’ was officially released on The Solo Collection in 2000.

Smile recorded three more songs at De Lane Lea Studios in September 1969. Ibex, meanwhile, changed their name to Wreckage in October 1969 and recorded some demos at this time – one song called ‘Green’ has been officially released. Despite playing a few gigs at Ealing College, Wreckage would disband before the end of 1969. Freddie spent about eight weeks in another band called Sour Milk Sea in February and April 1970.

Frustrated by lack of progress, Smile broke up in late February 1970. Brian May and Roger Taylor, always ambitious, continued to plan future projects. Their close friend Freddie Bulsara was brought into the discussions.

Queen was formed in April 1970: Freddie Bulsara, Brian May, Roger Taylor and bassist Mike Grose, an old friend of Roger Taylor’s from Truro. Queen might well have been named Grand Dance (Brian’s suggestion), or the Rich Kids (Roger’s). Freddie’s suggestion, Queen, initially made the others laugh, then recoil in alarm. But then it was short and memorable. Queen it would be. Shortly afterwards Freddie Bulsara would rename himself Freddie Mercury: preposterous but somehow right.

The new band performed their first gig in Truro on 27 June 1970, billed as Smile, a long-promised charity fundraiser for Taylor’s mother. Their first concert as Queen took place at Imperial College in London on 12 July 1970. Early original songs include ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Liar’, ‘Son and Daughter’ and ‘Stone Cold Crazy’, with a few carried over from Ibex, Wreckage and Smile.

Mike Grose was replaced by Barry Michell (August 1970 to January 1971) and Doug Bogie (February 1971), then by nineteen-year-old John Deacon. Deacon (born 19 August 1951, Leicester) was a student at Chelsea College and had seen Queen perform in October 1970. He was introduced to May and Taylor by a mutual friend in early 1971, after Doug Bogie had left the band. By late February 1971 the pieces of the Queen jigsaw had found each other.

‘We certainly have an ingredient between the four of us otherwise it wouldn’t have worked, especially for this long,’ Freddie told Rudi Dolezal in 1984. ‘We all have a role to play, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. We’re diverse, we’re four different characters … no two of us are the same … we all like totally different things, but we come together, it’s a chemistry that works. It’s just something that seems to fit, and that’s what good bands are made of, you know? And we’re good.’

They would stay together for almost 21 years.

‘A simple plan,’ wrote Mike West in one of the earliest Queen histories. ‘To package good tunes with exciting playing and serve it up with flair and a fashionable image, thereby hitting the heavy rock fans squarely in the gut, the pop fans in the ear, and captivating the teenyboppers with flash and glamour.’ 3

Queen’s early years are particularly well-documented by Mark Blake in his excellent book Is This the Real Life? (2010).

Queen (1973)

Personnel:

Freddie Mercury: vocals, piano, Hammond organ

Brian May: guitar, piano, vocals

Roger Taylor (credited as ‘Roger Meddows-Taylor’): drums, percussion, vocals, lead vocals

John Deacon (credited as ‘Deacon John’): bass guitar

+ John Anthony: backing vocals on ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’.

Recorded in December 1971, and between June and November 1972 at De Lane Lea and Trident Studios, London. Produced by John Anthony, Roy Thomas Baker and Queen.

UK release date: 13 July 1973. US release date: 4 September 1973.

Highest chart places: UK: 24,US 83. 4

Queen, the band, had an extended false start. The band had been together for almost two years when they were invited to test out the recording facilities at De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley, London. Brian May had called an old contact Terry Yeadon, who had engineered the second Smile session in 1969. Yeadon had just relocated De Lane Lea from central London and wanted to test the studio. May’s fortuitous call, in around September 1971, resulted in an invitation to Queen to record a demo in a professional studio. That December Queen recorded sixteen-track demos of five songs: ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘The Night Comes Down’, ‘Great King Rat’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Liar’. All of these were released on the 2011 re-issue of Queen – they are remarkably polished.

Still keen to sign a decent record deal, the band used the tape to entice record companies. Eventually, they were given a break by Barry and Norman Sheffield, owners of Trident Studios in Soho. Previous customers at Trident included the Beatles (‘Hey Jude’ and parts of the White Album), George Harrison (All Things Must Pass) and David Bowie (Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust). The Sheffields had been alerted to Queen by John Anthony, who had been Smile’s A&R manager at Mercury Records.

‘I was sitting in my office one day in 1971,’ wrote Norman Sheffield in his memoirs, ‘when I got a call from my brother Barry down in the studio. ‘Norman, come down and have a listen to something,’ he said. John Anthony, Trident’s A&R man, had discovered a band called Smile. At the start, the lead guitarist was an astrophysics student from Imperial College called Brian May, the bassist and singer was an art student called Tim Staffell, and the drummer was a biology student called Roger Taylor. It turned out that they’d now reshaped the band. Staffell had been replaced by this little Indian-looking guy with a big, operatic voice and they had a new bass player. John had asked for their demo. It was raw but there was definitely something there.’

The band were duly signed to a management deal with Trident and, without a record deal yet, they commenced the recording of their debut album over six months from June to December 1972.

‘I agreed to offer the Queenies, as we christened them, a loose kind of arrangement,’ wrote Norman Sheffield. ‘There were times when the studio was ‘dark’, usually at 2am. So, we said: ‘We’ll give you this downtime in the studio to see what you can do.’ They turned out to be every bit as good – and demanding – as we’d anticipated. Things had to be one hundred per cent right, otherwise they wouldn’t be happy. They’d spend days and nights working on the harmonies.’

‘‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Liar’, ‘Great King Rat’, and the other numbers are songs that we just used to play,’ John Deacon told Innerview in 1977. ‘And we just went in and recorded them. And there were one or two numbers on that first album which were more sort of that first sort of sign of getting interested in doing things in the studio.’

The album was co-produced by John Anthony with Trident colleague Roy Thomas Baker. Baker would become an important part of the Queen sound, co-producing five of their albums in the 1970s.

Trident eventually found British and American record labels who were interested in the band several months after album was completed. Queen were finally signed by EMI in March 1973, and by Elektra Records soon afterwards.

‘I heard the [first] Queen album and I absolutely loved it,’ says Electra boss Jac Holzman. ‘It was like a beautifully cut jewel, landing in your lap, ready to go.’

Queen’s debut album was released in mid-July 1973, seven months after its completion.

Brian May’s view, in August 1973: ‘We like some of the stuff on it, but we sometimes fell into the trap of over-arrangement. You know, the songs changed over the years and some of them probably evolved too much. You can get so far into something that you forget what the song originally was. On a personal level, it was frustrating for me to take so long to get to this point. I wanted to record things with, for instance, tape echoes and multiple guitars five years ago. Now I’ve finally done it, but in the meantime so have other people! Which is a bit disappointing.’ 5

Almost immediately after the release of the album, Queen went back into Trident Studios to record its follow-up.

This remarkable debut album stands out, in total, as a very bold move. Once you get past the Led Zeppelin-isms and push your tongue firmly into your cheek, here is a band with a very clear vision of what they wanted to say, and how they wanted to be heard. The confidence shines out.

Queen was ridiculous, catchy and a whole lot of fun.

‘Keep Yourself Alive’ (Brian May)

Released as a single a-side, 6 July 1973 (UK) and 9 October 1973 (US), b/w ‘Son and Daughter’. Released as a single b-side, 14 October 1991, b/w ‘The Show Must Go On’.

Queen’s sturdy first single displays the hallmarks of the classic Queen sound: Mercury’s exuberant vocals, May’s multi-tracked, effects-laden guitars, Taylor’s pounding drums, the stacked vocal harmonies. ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was written during the short tenure of bassist Barry Michell (August 1970 to January 1971).

May’s heavily phased and echoed guitars open the track and the arrangement builds with instruments entering in turn: 2nd guitar, lead guitar, high-hat, drums and bass, vocals. This was a trick used to great effect in ‘Day Tripper’ and ‘Smoke on the Water’. Both may well have looked back to the awesome ‘Tequila’ by the Champs, released in 1958.

Freddie’s heavily echoed vocals overlap through the verses and are double-tracked at the end of the second chorus. Queen’s trademark harmonies ring through. There’s even a drum solo. How very 1973.

The chorus is very commercial, but the song is less high-spirited in the verses and bridge and does take a while to get going. This imbalance is perhaps why ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ didn’t trouble the charts. More and better was to come, but here was a band, and a singer, that thoroughly demanded attention.

‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was part of Queen’s set from the very early days, and was performed throughout the 1970s, through to the conclusion of their tour to promote The Game, which ended in November 1981. On the 1980 and 1981 tours, the song would begin with a full-band improvisation jam and segue into Taylor’s drum solo. ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was performed as part of a medley of older songs in 1984, and, to great effect, with Adam Lambert.

The 2011 release of Queen includes the band’s original demo of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, recorded in December 1971, several months before the formal sessions for Queen. This is taken from Brian May’s own acetate.

‘My favourite gem,’ he says, ‘is the original acetate which has on it all the demos we made prior to signing with Trident in the very beginning. Nobody has ever heard these recordings before – I think I’m the owner of the only acetate in the world! It includes a version of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ which is something very special. You’re hearing Queen before anybody touched us or tried to mould us. 6

The song was recorded twice for the BBC: on 5 February 1973 and 25 July 1973. Both have been released on On Air.

‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was re-recorded in June 1975 during sessions for A Night of the Opera. The 1975 version was planned as a US-only single but was shelved and remained unheard until 2011 when it was included on a re-issue of A Night of the Opera. It sounds very much like the 1972 version but with a fuller sound – more guitars here and there and added punctuations in the drum arrangement.

‘Doing All Right’ (Brian May / Tim Staffell)

A song from the Smile days, written by Brian May and Smile bassist Tim Staffell. It was recorded by Smile in June 1969 at Trident Studios. In the Queen version, a song of two halves, May plays acoustic guitar and piano before a loud rock section takes the listener by surprise.

The arrangement is fussy and too clever by half, but it’s very progressive for 1969. Almost fifty years on this song still sounds fresh and new: Mercury sings it with real conviction. The combination of a slow ballad section and a loud rock interlude was a technique revisited in ‘The March of the Black Queen’ and perfected in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

‘Doing All Right’ was added to Queen’s set in 1974 and was performed regularly until summer 1976. The song was recorded 5 February 1973, London, for the BBC and released on Live at the Beeb, the ‘Let Me Live’ CD single, and on On Air.

‘Great King Rat’ (Freddie Mercury)

Freddie Mercury’s first song for Queen, if you listen to the albums in order, is ‘Great King Rat’. It is quintessential early Queen: a dense, lithe composition with many changes in metre. Although mostly in 4/4, ‘Great King Rat’ has occasional measures of 5/4 and 7/4. There is also a long Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar solo.

From the beginning, Mercury’s songs were unlike anyone else’s – a unique combination of progressive rock, glam rock, fantasy and pop. ‘Great King Rat’ was written on guitar, mostly in A minor. Mercury’s inexperience on the instrument gives the basis of the song an appealing simplicity. Mercury’s Queen bandmates, right from the first album, were able to stamp their sound and add their style onto songs such as ‘Great King Rat’ – no-one else sounded like Queen in 1973. It took listeners a while to catch up.

‘Great King Rat’ was performed in 1973 and during the first half of 1974, promoting Queen and Queen II. The De Lane Lea demo, recorded December 1971, has been released on the 2011 re-issue of Queen. Two versions were recorded for the BBC: 5 February 1973 and 3 December 1973 both on On Air.

‘My Fairy King’ (Freddie Mercury)

‘My Fairy King’ is set in Rhye, a fantasy world created by Freddie Mercury and featured, notably, in ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’. One of the songs that builds on the Led Zeppelin template but adds elements of progressive rock, ‘My Fairy King’ has nonsense lyrics, splashes of vocal harmonies, a harmonic multi-track guitar introduction that foreshadows ‘Brighton Rock’, Freddie’s distinctive percussive piano sound and shifting sections including an exciting guitar-led ending which resolves to a slow, bluesy finale. Its inventive sound palette and complex structure point towards ‘The March of the Black Queen’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

The line ‘Mother Mercury, look what they’ve done to me’ is said to have trigged Freddie Bulsara to permanently adopt a new name.

‘My Fairy King’ is known to have been performed in concert by Queen only a very few times, always as a tease or on-the-spot improvisation by Freddie Mercury: once in 1982, three times in 1984 during a run of gigs in Sun City and once in Japan in 1985.

‘My Fairy King’ was also recorded for the BBC on 5 February 1973 and released on Live at the Beeb, on the ‘Let Me Live’ CD single, and on On Air.

‘Liar’ (Freddie Mercury)

Released a single a-side, 11 February 1974 (US), b/w ‘Doing All Right’.

Although credited to Freddie Mercury, ‘Liar’, an important early song, was based on a riff from an old Ibex song called ‘Lover’, re-worked by Brian May with lyrics by Mercury. ‘Liar’ is experimentation from start to finish: the obligatory heavy riffs alternate with folky verses, a call-and-answer vocal section and a pop-rock chorus. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Ramble On’ meets Steeleye Span meets Argent. There was certainly no lack of self-confidence in Queen.

‘Liar’ was Queen’s regular set-closer until 1974 and stayed in the set until the end of 1977.

The De Lane Lea demo, recorded December 1971, was released on the 2011 re-issue of Queen. A US single chops up the song with many edits to just under three minutes in length. A remix released on the 1991 re-issue of Queen has louder percussion. An edited version, just the introduction, was released as part of The eYe video game. Also recorded twice for BBC: 5 February 1973 released on Live at the Beeb, on the ‘Let Me Live’ CD single, and on On Air; 25 July 1973, released on On Air.

‘The Night Comes Down’ (Brian May)

When Queen went into Trident Studios to record their debut album in summer 1972, they recorded a version of this Brian May song, one of the first he wrote for Queen. A full version was completed, but the band thought that they hadn’t improved on their original demo from late the previous year. The demo version was used on the finished album, and the 1972 version remains unheard.

The first two Queen albums build the foundations of the sound that would make Queen great – Freddie Mercury’s soaring vocals, Brian May’s multiple guitar work and songs that are as a curious mixture of heavy metal, prog rock, glam and a masterful pop touch. ‘The Night Comes Down’ is an early indication of the kind of epic operatic rock that would become Queen’s signature sound in the second half of the 1970s.

There is a nod to The Beatles in the lyric: ‘When I was young it came to me / And I could see the sun breaking / Lucy was high and so was I’. There is a touch of 1967 phasing on the drums at this point in the song.

With complex time signatures, closely-miked acoustic guitars and drums, and a gorgeous Freddie vocal showing his full range, ‘The Night Comes Down’ stands out amongst a debut album laden with pop-tinged glam/metal: this is a song with real substance. The confidence is growing, but in ‘The Night Comes Down’ there is a still a sensitivity that was sometimes lost in their later work.

There is only one confirmed live performance: in London in March 1972. No doubt the song was performed at other concerts around this period.

The De Lane Lea demo, recorded December 1971, was released on the 2011 re-issue of Queen. Thisis the same recording as we hear on Queen, but with a different drier mix – the drums especially are less up-front. An edited version, just the introduction, was released as part of The eYe video game.

‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (Roger Taylor)

Roger Taylor’s songs always provided a change of pace within a Queen album. ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ is a fast blues with a churning guitar riff, driving rhythm section, pumping piano and a typically powerful lead vocal from Taylor. Think of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Rock and Roll’ or ‘Communication Breakdown’ on helium. It’s very fast and very short.

‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was performed on occasion in 1973, then a set regular until mid-1975, usually as part of the encore, with infrequent outings through mid-1976.

‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was recorded at three of the band’s BBC sessions: 5 February 1973, 3 December 1973 and 3 April 1974. These are all on On Air. There is also an instrumental version released as part of The eYe video game.

‘Son and Daughter’ (Brian May)

Released as a single b-side, 6 July 1973, b/w ‘Keep Yourself Alive’.

‘Son and Daughter’, written around May’s catchy guitar riff – borrowed from Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker’ – is typical of the blues rock that Queen performed in the early days. Its lumbering pace, syncopated bass/guitar riffs and Freddie’s low-range, almost distorted, vocals suggest Black Sabbath crossed with the Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ – only bursts of harmony backing vocals and those Brian May guitar squalls lift this above almost generic heavy metal.

‘Son and Daughter’ was performed in concert from the earliest concerts (at a much faster tempo) through to the end of the A Night at the Opera tour in April 1976. Only one verse was performed from November 1975 onwards. Three versions of ‘Son and Daughter’ were recorded for the BBC:on 5 February 1973, 25 July 1973 and 3 December 1973. All were released on On Air in2016. Early performances include an embryonic version of the guitar solo later to grace ‘Brighton Rock’.

‘Jesus’ (Freddie Mercury)

‘Jesus’ is a psychedelic rock song, laden with May’s heavily-treated guitars, a very clear and powerful lead vocal and somewhat corny and overstated lyrics.

‘Packed with enough religious fervour to bore a Pope,’ suggests Martin Power in The Complete Guide to the Music of Queen.

Or, as Mark Blake suggests, ‘The fervent ‘Jesus’ [is] an early example of Mercury’s lyrical ambition: like a Cecil B. De Mille biblical epic condensed into three and a half minutes, or Freddie’s art A-Level crucifixion painting set to music.’

The long instrumental break perhaps takes the song beyond its natural conclusion. The song is known to have been performed by Queen only on two occasions, both in 1972. The De Lane Lea demo, recorded December 1971, was released on the 2011 re-issue of Queen.

‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ (instrumental version) (Freddie Mercury)

An instrumental teaser, slower than the remake for Queen II. They were right to wait until the song was ready as the full version would be their first hit single.

‘There is a little fragment on our first album,’ says Brian May. ‘Freddie has this idea, but it wasn’t developed, so we just put down what we had. We [later] thought that it would be a good basis for a single.’ 7

Other contemporary songs

‘Polar Bear’

A slow, bluesy Smile song recorded by them in September 1969. The song was also performed by Queen in their early sets and was recorded for Queen in 1972; a high-quality studio outtake exists but Freddie’s heart isn’t really in it.

‘Feelings’

A demo of this song is known to exist – it’s an early version of ‘Feelings, Feelings’ which the band would record in 1977 but not release until 2017.

‘Silver Salmon’

Another Smile song, possibly written by Tim Staffell and recorded by Queen as a demo in 1972 but not taken further.

‘Hangman’

An early Freddie Mercury original, sub-Black Sabbath heavy metal. It probably dates from the Ibex / Wreckage days but was certainly performed by Queen in their earliest concerts and occasionally as late as 1976. Several in-concert recordings have surfaced over the years: two of these have been officially released as part of the band’s Top 100 Bootlegs project recorded at Colston Hall, Bristol on 29 November 1973 and the Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan on 1 May 1975. It has never officially been taken into the studio, but a private collector has claimed that he owns an acetate of a studio recording. If so, he’s hanging onto it.

‘Hangman … was very much based on Free,’ Roger Taylor told Q magazine in 2005. ‘It had that spare blues riff thing that was very much Free’s forte.’

‘Mad the Swine’

‘Mad the Swine’ dates from the early sessions for the album and was planned as the fourth track on Queen, between ‘Great King Rat’ and ‘My Fairy King’. The arrangement suggests that the song was composed on guitar. The song was first released in May 1991 on a CD single with ‘Headlong’ and ‘All God’s People’, and later on the 2011 re-issue of Queen.

‘Rock and Roll medley’

A reliable encore from the earliest concerts, right through the ‘70s. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was a regular, along with ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’, ‘Stupid Cupid’, ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ and ‘Lucille’ and others. A studio version is rumoured to exist. In later years, the medley would provide a change of pace within the set. A version of this was released on Live at Wembley ‘86, consisting of ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, ‘Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)’, ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’.

‘I Can Hear Music’, ‘Goin’ Back’

The a-side and b-side of a 1973 single credited to Larry Lurex, recorded during sessions for Queen. Three out of the four members of Queen took part (Mercury, May and Taylor).

Queen II (1973)

Personnel:

Freddie Mercury: lead vocals, backing vocals, piano, harpsichord

Brian May: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals, bells, piano

Roger Taylor (credited as ‘Roger Meddows-Taylor’): drums, backing vocals, lead vocals, gong, marimba, percussion

John Deacon: bass, acoustic guitar

+ Roy Thomas Baker: castanets on ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke’, stylophone on ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’.

Recorded in August 1973 at Trident Studios, London. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker, Geoffrey Cable and Queen.