Special thanks to Irwin Fisch, NYU Steinhardt Professor

——————————————————

#Queen #BohemianRhapsody #Insider

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Why ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Is The Best Song Ever Written

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
Empty spaces – what are we living for?
Abandoned places – I guess we know the score, on and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for?
Another hero – another mindless crime
Behind the curtain, in the pantomime
Hold the line
Does anybody want to take it anymore?

[Chorus]
The Show must go on
The Show must go on
Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile, still, stays on

[Verse 2]
Whatever happens, I’ll leave it all to chance
Another heartache – another failed romance, on and on
Does anybody know what we are living for?
I guess I’m learning
I must be warmer now
I’ll soon be turning, round the corner now
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I’m aching to be free!

[Chorus]
The Show must go on
The Show must go on
I’ll face it with a grin
I’m never giving in
On with the show

[Bridge]
My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies
Fairy tales of yesterday, grow but never die
I can fly, my friends

[Chorus]
The Show must go on
The Show must go on
I’ll face it with a grin
I’m never giving in
On with the show

[Verse 3]
I’ll top the bill
I’ll overkill
I have to find the will to carry on
On with the show
Show must go on
Show must go on

“The Show Must Go On” is a song by the British rock band Queen, featured as the twelfth and final track on their 1991 album Innuendo. It is credited to Queen, but written mainly by Brian May. The song chronicles the effort of Freddie Mercury continuing to perform despite approaching the end of his life; he was dying from complications due to HIV/AIDS, although his illness had not yet been made public in spite of ongoing media speculation claiming that he was seriously ill.^[1] Mercury was so ill when the band recorded the song in 1990 that May had concerns as to whether he was physically capable of singing it. Recalling Mercury’s performance, May states; “I said, ‘Fred, I don’t know if this is going to be possible to sing.’ And he went, ‘I’ll fucking do it, darling’ — vodka down — and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal.”^[2]

It was released as a single in the United Kingdom on 14 October 1991 in promotion for the Greatest Hits II album, just six weeks before Mercury died. Following Mercury’s death on 24 November 1991, the song re-entered the British charts and spent as many weeks in the top 75 (five) as it did upon its original release, initially reaching a peak of 16. A live version with Elton John on vocals appeared on Queen’s Greatest Hits III album.

The song was first played live on 20 April 1992, during The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, performed by the three remaining members of Queen, with Elton John singing lead vocals and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi playing rhythm guitar.^[3] It has since been played live by Queen + Paul Rodgers with Rodgers citing one of the performances as the best of his career. Since its release, the song has appeared on television, film, and has been covered by a number of artists.

Songwriting and recording process

After listening to John Deacon and Roger Taylor playing the chord sequence that later on would be the basis for almost the entire song, Brian May sat down with Freddie Mercury and the two of them decided the theme of the song and wrote some lyrics. May wrote down the rest of the words as well as the melody, and added a bridge with a chord sequence inspired by Pachelbel’s Canon.

Demo versions featured May singing, having to sing some parts in falsetto because they were too high. When Brian May presented the final demo to Mercury, he had doubts that Mercury would be physically capable of singing the song’s highly demanding vocal line, due to the extent of his illness at the time. To May’s surprise, when the time came to record the vocals, Mercury consumed a measure of vodka and said “I’ll fucking do it, darling!” then proceeded to perform the vocal line.^[2]

For the record, May sang most of the backing vocals (including the very last line) and played Korg M1 synthesiser as well as guitar. Producer David Richards suggested the key-shift in the second verse.

“The Show Must Go On” came from Roger and John playing the sequence, and I started to put things down. At the beginning, it was just this chord sequence, but I had this strange feeling that it could be somehow important, and I got very impassioned and went and beavered away at it. I sat down with Freddie, and we decided what the theme should be and wrote the first verse. It’s a long story, that song, but I always felt it would be important because we were dealing with things that were hard to talk about at the time, but in the world of music, you could do it.^[4]

— Brian May – 1994

The lyrics are full of allusions, metaphors and other figures of speech, making it somewhat difficult to understand. Thinly disguised tragedy ahead is announced. In the end, the text refers to the determination, the furious desire to live (“I have to find the will to carry on with the show”) in spite of vanishing strength (“inside my heart is breaking”).^[5] From the perspective of harmony, the song begins in B minor; then there is a modulation to C# Minor as if the song implied a hope (an increase of tone); but eventually it falls back to B minor.^[6]

Jim Hutton, Mercury’s partner who was with him for the last 6 years until his death, mentions the lyric that refers to the use of make up^[7] during his last days:

To me, the most autobiographical line was: “My make-up may be flaking but my smile still stays on.” That was true. No matter how ill Freddie felt, he never grumbled to anyone or sought sympathy of any kind. It was his battle, no one else’s, and he always wore a brave face against the ever-increasing odds against him.^[8]

— Jim Hutton – 1994

Promotional video

Due to Mercury having contracted HIV/AIDS, his health started to rapidly deteriorate; as a result, no new footage of the lead singer was shot. The music video instead consisted of a montage of clips spanning Queen’s music videos from 1981 to 1991 (but does not include the ones from before 1981) as a precursor to the imminent release of the band’s Greatest Hits II album spanning that period.^[9] Footage from promo videos from the 1980s are shown in the montage, apart from “Under Pressure” and “Hammer to Fall“, including “I Want to Break Free“, “Friends Will Be Friends“, “I’m Going Slightly Mad“, “Radio Ga Ga“, “The Miracle“, “The Invisible Man“, “Headlong“, “Calling All Girls“, “Innuendo“, “Back Chat“, “Who Wants to Live Forever” and “One Vision“.^[9] This, along with the manner of the song’s lyrics, continued to fuel long-running media reports that Mercury was seriously ill, although it was still officially denied that anything was seriously wrong. The following month, Mercury finally announced that he was suffering from AIDS, and he died barely 24 hours after this announcement.

The music video was compiled and edited by Austrian director team DoRo, consisting of Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher.^[5]

Live recordings

• During the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, London in 1992, the surviving members of Queen along with Elton John and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath performed “The Show Must Go On”.^[3] The concert was later released on DVD in 2002 for the 10th anniversary.^[3]
• At the Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris in 1997, Queen performed the song with Elton John and the Béjart Ballet, which is available in Queen’s Greatest Hits III.^[5] This was also Queen’s last-ever event to include bassist John Deacon; he retired from music after this performance.
• The 2006 VH1 Rock Honors at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, featured Queen + Paul Rodgers performing “The Show Must Go On”, along with “Under Pressure“, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions” as a live broadcast.^[10]
• At the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards, Queen closed the awards ceremony, with Adam Lambert on vocals, performing “The Show Must Go On”, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions”.^[11]

Charts and certifications

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead vocals
• Brian May – electric guitar, keyboards, programming, backing vocals
• Roger Taylor – drums, backing vocals
• John Deacon – bass guitar

Celine Dion version

“The Show Must Go On”
Single by Celine Dion featuring Lindsey Stirling
Released	20 May 2016
Format	Digital download
Recorded	2016
Genre	Pop
Length	4:25 (Main Version) 3:30 (Radio Edit)
Label	Columbia
Songwriter(s)	Queen
Producer(s)	Humberto Gatica
Celine Dion singles chronology
“Hymn” (2016) “The Show Must Go On” (2016) “Encore un soir” (2016)
Lindsey Stirling singles chronology
“Dying for You” (2016) “The Show Must Go On” (2016) “The Arena” (2016)
Music video
“The Show Must Go On” on YouTube

Celine Dion recorded a studio version of Queen‘s “The Show Must Go On” and released it as a digital single on 20 May 2016. The track features Lindsey Stirling on violin.^[27]

Background and release

Dion performed “The Show Must Go On” live during her Taking Chances World Tour in 2008, paying tribute to Queen and Freddie Mercury. Her performance was released on Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert and Celine: Through the Eyes of the World in 2010. Since 2015, she has performed “The Show Must Go On” for her Las Vegas residency show, Celine.

On 20 May 2016, “The Show Must Go On” was released on iTunes, Amazon.com and other digital platforms, and became available on streaming services, including YouTube and Vevo.^[28]

Live performances

Besides Taking Chances World Tour in 2008, Dion performed the song during the 2016 Billboard Music Awards on 22 May 2016, where she received the Icon Award.^[29] It was her first performance outside the Colosseum at Caesars Palace since her husband, René Angélil died in January 2016.^[30][31] The performance received rave reviews.^[32][33][34] It was released on YouTube and Vevo on 3 June 2016.^[35] Dion also performed “The Show Must Go On” during her 2016 and 2017 tours.^[36]

Commercial performance

In France, “The Show Must Go On” debuted at number twenty-three, selling 1,000 copies in the first week.^[37] In Canada, it entered the Hot Digital Songs chart at number twenty-three as well.^[38] “The Show Must Go On” also debuted at number eighty-nine on the Canadian Hot 100.^[39] In Quebec, Dion entered the ADISQ chart at the top.^[40]

In the United States, “The Show Must Go On” entered the Pop Digital Songs chart at number forty-five.^[41] In Belgium Wallonia, it peaked at number forty-seven on the Ultratip chart.^[42]

Track listing

• Digital single^[43]

1. “The Show Must Go On” (featuring Lindsey Stirling) – 4:25

• US promotional single^[43]

1. “The Show Must Go On” (Main Version) – 4:25
2. “The Show Must Go On” (Radio Edit) – 3:30

Charts

Release history

Subscribe to the Official Queen Channel Here http://bit.ly/Subscribe2Queen

Taken from Innuendo, 1991.

Queen – The Show Must Go On (promo video, 1991)

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

Taken from the 1991 ‘Greatest Flix II’ compilation.

Lyrics:

[Intro: Freddie Mercury]
Mmm num ba de
Dum bum ba be
Doo buh dum ba beh beh

[Verse 1: David Bowie & Freddie Mercury]
Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

[Bridge: Freddie Mercury]
Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da – that’s okay

[Chorus: David Bowie & Freddie Mercury]
It’s the terror of knowing what the world is about
Watching some good friends screaming
‘Let me out’
Pray tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people, people on streets

[Verse 2: David Bowie & Freddie Mercury]
Day day de mm hm
Da da da ba ba
Okay
Chipping around, kick my brains around the floor
These are the days it never rains but it pours
Ee do ba be
Ee da ba ba ba
Um bo bo
Be lap
People on streets
Ee da de da de
People on streets
Ee da de da de da de da

[Chorus: David Bowie & Freddie Mercury]
It’s the terror of knowing what the world is about
Watching some good friends screaming
‘Let me out’
Pray tomorrow gets me higher, high
Pressure on people, people on streets

[Bridge: David Bowie & Freddie Mercury]
Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don’t work
Keep coming up with love but it’s so slashed and torn
Why – why – why?
Love, love, love, love, love
Insanity laughs under pressure we’re breaking

[Verse 3: Freddie Mercury]
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can’t we give love that one more chance?
Why can’t we give love, give love, give love, give love
Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?

[Outro: David Bowie]
Because love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the (people on streets) edge of the night
And love (people on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

“Under Pressure” is a 1981 song by the British rock band Queen. The song was written and recorded in collaboration with the singer David Bowie. It was included on Queen’s 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band’s second number-one hit in their home country (after 1975’s “Bohemian Rhapsody“, which topped the chart for nine weeks). The song only peaked at No. 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and would re-chart for one week at No. 45 in the US following Bowie’s death in January 2016. It was also number 31 on VH1‘s 100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s.^[1]It has been voted the 2nd best collaboration of all time in a poll by the Rolling Stone magazine.^[2]It has since sold over 3.4 million copies worldwide.^[3]

The song was played live at every Queen concert from 1981 until the end of Queen’s touring career in 1986.^[4][5][6] It is recorded on the live albums Queen Rock Montreal and Live at Wembley ’86.^[7][8] The song was included on some editions of Queen’s first Greatest Hits compilations, such as the original 1981 Elektra release in the US. It is included on the band’s compilation albums Greatest Hits II, Classic Queen, and Absolute Greatest^[9] as well as Bowie compilations such as Best of Bowie (2002),^[10] The Platinum Collection (2005), Nothing Has Changed (2014) and Legacy (2016).

Creation

Queen had been working on a song called “Feel Like”, but was not satisfied with the result.^[11][12] David Bowie had originally come to Mountain Studios to sing back up vocals on another Queen song, “Cool Cat”, but his vocals were removed from the final song because he was not satisfied with his performance. Once he got there, they worked together for a while and wrote the song.^[13] The final version, which became “Under Pressure”, evolved from a jam session that Bowie had with the band at Queen’s studio in Montreux, Switzerland. It was credited as being co-written by the five musicians. The scat singing that dominates much of the song is evidence of the jam-beginnings as improvisation. However, according to Queen bassist John Deacon (as quoted in a French magazine in 1984)^[14], the song’s primary musical songwriter was Freddie Mercury – though all contributed to the arrangement. Brian May recalled to Mojo magazine, in October 2008, that, “It was hard, because you had four very precocious boys and David, who was precocious enough for all of us. David took over the song lyrically. Looking back, it’s a great song but it should have been mixed differently. Freddie and David had a fierce battle over that. It’s a significant song because of David and its lyrical content.”^[15] The earlier, embryonic version of the song without Bowie, “Feel Like”, is widely available in bootleg form, and was written by Queen drummer Roger Taylor.

There has also been some confusion about who had created the song’s bassline. John Deacon said (in Japanese magazine Music life in 1982) that David Bowie created it. In more recent interviews, Brian May and Roger Taylor credited the bass riff to Deacon. Bowie, on his website, said that the bassline was already written before he became involved.^[16] Roger Taylor, in an interview for the BBC documentary Queen: the Days of Our Lives, stated that Deacon did indeed create the bassline, stating that all through the sessions in the studio he had been playing the riff over and over. He also claims that when the band returned from dinner, Deacon, amusingly, forgot the riff, but fortunately Taylor was still able to remember it.^[17] Brian May clarified matters in a 2016 Mirror Online article, writing that it was actually Bowie, not Taylor, who had inadvertently changed the riff. The riff began as “Deacy began playing, 6 notes the same, then one note a fourth down”. After the dinner break, Bowie corrected (actually changed) Deacon’s memory of the riff to “Ding-Ding-Ding Diddle Ing-Ding”.^[18]

Music video

The video for the song features neither Queen nor David Bowie due to touring commitments.^[19] Taking the theme of pressure, director David Mallet edited together stock footage of traffic jams, commuter trains packed with passengers, explosions, riots, cars being crushed and various pieces of footage from silent films of the 1920s, most notably Sergei Eisenstein‘s influential Soviet film Battleship Potemkin, the silent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore, and F.W. Murnau‘s Nosferatu, a masterpiece of the German Expressionist movement.^[19][20] The video explores the pressure-cooker mentality of a culture willing to wage war against political machines, and at the same time love and have fun (there is also footage of crowds enjoying concerts, and lots of black and white kissing scenes).^[20] Top of the Pops refused to show the video due to it containing footage of explosions in Northern Ireland, so a choreographed performance was instead shown.^[21][22] In 2003, Slant Magazine ranked Under Pressure number 27 among the 100 greatest music videos of all time.^[23]

Track listing

7″: EMI / EMI 5250 (UK)

Side one

1. “Under Pressure” (Mercury, May, Taylor, Deacon, Bowie) – 4:08

Side two

1. “Soul Brother” (Mercury) – 3:38

7″: Elektra / E-47235 (US)

Side one

1. “Under Pressure” (Mercury, May, Taylor, Deacon, Bowie) – 4:08

Side two

1. “Soul Brother” (Mercury) – 3:38

1988 3″ CD: Parlaphone / QUECD9 (UK)

1. “Under Pressure” – 4:08
2. “Soul Brother” – 3:40
3. “Body Language” – 4:33

Personnel

• Original producers:
  • Queen
  • David Bowie

Musicians on original version:

• Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals, piano, Hammond organ, handclaps, finger snaps
• Brian May – electric guitar, handclaps, finger snaps
• Roger Taylor – drums, backing vocals, handclaps, finger snaps
• John Deacon – bass guitar, handclaps, finger snaps
• David Bowie – lead and backing vocals, keyboards, handclaps, finger snaps

Reception

The September 2005 edition of online music magazine Stylus singled out the bassline as the best in popular music history.^[24] In November 2004, Stylus music critic Anthony Miccio commented that “Under Pressure” “is the best song of all time” and described it as Queen’s “opus“.^[25] In 2012, Slant Magazine listed “Under Pressure” as the 21st best single of the 1980s.^[26]

Live performances

Although very much a joint project, only Queen incorporated the song into their live shows at the time. Bowie chose not to perform the song before an audience until the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, when he and Annie Lennox sang it as a duet (backed by the surviving Queen members).^[27] However, after Mercury’s death and the Outside tour in 1995, Bowie performed the song at virtually every one of his live shows, with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey taking Mercury’s vocal part. The song also appeared in set lists from A Reality Tour mounted by Bowie in 2004, when he frequently would dedicate it to Freddie Mercury. Queen + Paul Rodgers have recently performed the song; and in summer of 2012, Queen + Adam Lambert toured, including a performance of the song by Lambert and Roger Taylor in each show.^[28] While David Bowie was never present for a live performance of the song with Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor instead filled for backing vocals usually in unison with Mercury, as Mercury took over all of Bowie’s parts.

Live recordings

• Queen first recorded a live version of the song at The Montreal Forum in Canada on 24 November 1981. This was included in the concert films We Will Rock You and Queen Rock Montreal.^[29] Incidentally it is one of the few times in concert where Mercury used falsetto in the song on the line “these are the days it never rains but it pours”.
• A second live version of the song was recorded at Milton Keynes, England, in 1982. This was released in 2004 on the live album/DVD Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl. Prior to the concert, rumours circulated that Bowie would appear with Queen to sing his parts onstage, but it is probable that he did not even attend the concert.
• In September 1982 the band performed the song during an appearance on the eighth-season premiere of Saturday Night Live, which turned out to be Freddie Mercury’s final live performance with Queen in the United States.
• Later, Queen recorded a third live version of the song at Wembley Stadium, London, in 1986. This was released on the live album/DVD Live at Wembley Stadium. Another rendition from this same tour (from Queen’s concert in Budapest) appeared in edited form on the album Live Magic in 1986. A recording taken from Queen’s last gig in Knebworth Park in 1986, appears, albeit in remixed form, as a B-side from second CD single of “Rah Mix” version of this song, released in 1999. (See below)
• During the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, the surviving members of Queen along with Bowie and Annie Lennox (filling in for Mercury) performed the song.^[27] The concert was later released on DVD in 2002 for the 10th anniversary.^[27]
• A version recorded by David Bowie’s live band in 1995 was released on the bonus disc included with some versions of Outside – Version 2. This live version was also released on the single “Hallo Spaceboy” in 1996.
• Bowie’s DVD A Reality Tour (2004) and album A Reality Tour (2010) include a November 2003 live version from the A Reality Tour, recorded in Dublin, with Bowie’s bassist Gail Ann Dorsey singing Mercury’s parts.
• The 2006 VH1 Rock Honors at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, featured Queen + Paul Rodgers performing “Under Pressure” along with “The Show Must Go On“, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” as a live broadcast.^[30]

Remixes and other releases

Rah Mix

A remixed version (called the “Rah Mix”) was issued in December 1999 to promote Queen’s Greatest Hits III compilation, reaching No. 14 on the UK Singles Chart. The video for the Rah Mix was directed by DoRo and features footage of Freddie Mercury from the Wembley concert on 12 July 1986 and David Bowie at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert also at Wembley on 20 April 1992 spliced together using digital technology (and with Annie Lennox carefully edited out) and features on the Greatest Flix III compilation, the Rah Mix CD single (as an Enhanced CD video) and the 2011 iTunes LP edition of Hot Space.

Track listing

Two CD singles (one multimedia enhanced) released 6 December 1999 and 7″ picture disc released 13 December 1999. As “Bohemian Rhapsody” wins The Song of The Millennium award, this released as B-side under the title “The Song of The Millenium – Bohemian Rhapsody”.^[31]

CDS No. 1

1. “Under Pressure (Rah Mix)”
2. The Song of the Millennium – “Bohemian Rhapsody“
3. “Thank God It’s Christmas“

CDS No. 2

1. “Under Pressure (Rah Mix – Radio Edit)”
2. “Under Pressure (Mike Spencer Mix)”
3. “Under Pressure (Knebworth Mix)”
4. Enhanced section

7-inch single

1. “Under Pressure (Rah Mix)”
2. The Song of the Millennium – “Bohemian Rhapsody“

Other releases

• It was initially released in US on the Elektra Records US and Canadian versions of Queen’s Greatest Hits as a new track.
• It was released in UK on Queen’s (1991) Greatest Hits II (which would later be included in The Platinum Collection (2000, 2002 and 2011) removing the second time David Bowie sings, “This is our last dance.”
• It was released as a bonus track on the Virgin Records reissue of Bowie’s Let’s Dance in 1995.
• Hollywood Records remixed the song for their 1992 release, Classic Queen. This version features improved sound quality, but removes Mercury’s interjection “that’s okay!” at about 0:53.
• It also appeared on the Bowie compilation Bowie: The Singles 1969-1993 (1993).
• The original single version appears on disc three of Bowie’s The Platinum Collection (2005). This disc was later released separately as The Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 (2007).
• The original single version also appears on Bowie’s Nothing Has Changed (2014) and Legacy (2016).
• An instrumental version appears in the DVD menu for the Hot Space section of Greatest Video Hits 2.
• It has also been performed, but without the lyrics, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.^[32][33]
• It was featured nearly in its entirety in the 2010 film It’s Kind of a Funny Story, initially as a ‘cover’ by the patients in a music therapy class at a New York City psychiatric ward, which the film transformed into the authentic song ‘performed’ by the patients, dressed in glam, in a near music-video style imaginary sequence (with David Bowie and Queen’s original vocals and instrumentation).

Other remixes

Mr. Mixx Remix. Mr. Mixx of 2 Live Crew produced a hip-hop remix intended for inclusion as the fourth track on the cancelled 1992 Hollywood Records compilation BASIC Queen Bootlegs.

Lazy Kiss Edit. Released in October 2013 by Brazilian Electro-House duo, Lazy Kiss. This edit/mashup gained exposure through blog filter site, Hype Machine and the Italian music blog, Frequenze Indipendenti.^[34]

Mouth Pressure. Released in January 2017 as a part of the Neil Cicierega album Mouth Moods, “Mouth Pressure” pairs the instrumentals from “Under Pressure” with the vocals from Smash Mouth‘s “All Star“.^[35][36]

Charts

Original version

“Rah Mix”

Certifications

My Chemical Romance and the Used version

“Under Pressure”
Single by My Chemical Romance and the Used
from the album In Love and Death
Released	12 April 2005
Format	Digital download
Recorded	2005
Genre	Alternative rock[68]
Length	3:32
Label	Reprise
Songwriter(s)	Freddie Mercury Brian May Roger Taylor John Deacon David Bowie
Producer(s)	Howard Benson
My Chemical Romance singles chronology
“Helena” (2005) “Under Pressure” (2005) “The Ghost of You” (2005)
The Used singles chronology
“I Caught Fire” (2005) “Under Pressure” (2005) “The Bird and the Worm” (2007)

The song was covered in 2005 by American alternative rock bands the Used and My Chemical Romance for tsunami relief. The cover was originally released as an Internet download track but has subsequently been featured as a bonus track on the 2005 re-release of the Used’s second studio album In Love and Death, and received wide airplay in 2005.

On the Billboard charts, the single reached number 28 on Modern Rock chart and number 41 on the Hot 100.^[69]

Controversy

Controversy arose when Vanilla Ice sampled the bassline for his 1990 single “Ice Ice Baby“. Initially he denied the accusation and then said he had modified it^[70] but did not originally pay songwriting credit or royalties to Queen and Bowie.^[71][72] A lawsuit resulted in Bowie and all members of Queen receiving songwriting credit for the sample. Vanilla Ice later claimed that he purchased the publishing rights to “Under Pressure”.^[73][74] Vanilla Ice said buying the song made more financial sense than paying out royalties.^[73]

Subscribe to the Official Queen Channel Here http://bit.ly/Subscribe2Queen

Taken from Hot Space, 1982.

Queen – ‘Under Pressure’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘Under Pressure’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 2’.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You are so self satisfied I don’t need you
I have got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

[Verse 2]
I’ve fallen in love
I’ve fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it’s for real
I’ve fallen in love, yeah
God knows, God knows I’ve fallen in love

[Bridge]
It’s strange but it’s true, yeah
I can’t get over the way you love me like you do
But I have to be sure
When I walk out that door
Oh how I want to be free, baby
Oh how I want to be free
Oh how I want to break free

[Verse 3]
But life still goes on
I can’t get used to living without, living without
Living without you by my side
I don’t want to live alone, hey
God knows, got to make it on my own
So baby can’t you see?
I’ve got to break free

[Outro]
I have got to break free
I want to break free, yeah
I want, I want, I want, I want to break free

“I Want to Break Free” ( sample (help·info)) is a song by the British rock band Queen, originally from their eleventh album The Works (1984). Written by bass guitarist John Deacon, it was distributed as a single on 7-inch and 12-inch vinyl records and 3-inch and 5-inch CDs. The song has three versions: album, single and extended. It came to be included in most live concerts by the group, in several videos and in The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert where it was sung by Lisa Stansfield.

The song is largely known for its music video for which all the band members dressed in women’s clothes, a concept proposed by Roger Taylor, which parodied the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street. The second part of the video included a composition rehearsed and performed with the Royal Ballet and choreographed by Wayne Eagling. Whereas the parody was acclaimed in the United Kingdom, it was considered controversial in the United States and banned by MTV^[2] and other stations. After its release in 1984, the single of the song was well received all over Europe and South America, where it was listed within top ten and regarded as an anthem of the fight against oppression. The single reached only the 45th position in the US charts, but reached number 3 in the UK and was certified silver with 200,000+ copies sold.^[3]

Song

The song was written in 1983 by John Deacon and released at the beginning of April in 1984.^[4] The main idea of the song lies in its title, which is repeated through the text. A love theme is also present as the protagonist “has fallen in love”, “can’t get over the way you love me like you do” and “doesn’t want to live alone”. Most of the song follows the traditional 12 bar blues progression in E major. It has three verses with one bridge, no chorus and relatively little section repetition.^[5] There are three versions of the song: album, single and extended.

The album version is 3 minutes 20 seconds long. Its first 6 seconds repeat the basic rhythm played with the drums (Ludwig), an acoustic guitar (Gibson), a bass guitar (Fender) and an electric guitar (Fender Telecaster). This rhythm continues through most of the song, stopping only for its first line. The first verse ends at 0:37 and is followed by a very similar second verse, which is however shorter by one line. A stacked guitar accompaniment (Red Special) appears at the end of the second verse (1:03), and between 1:15 and 1:17 it is replaced by a synthesizer. A synthesizer solo starts at 1:33 and is assisted by a guitar. The last verse starts in the second minute, it additionally features a synthesizer and a Fender Stratocaster guitar. The song pauses at the final line “I’ve got to break free”, followed by the fade out. This version was released on the album The Works and on some singles.

The regular single version lasts 4 minutes 21 seconds and differs from the album version by the 40-second introduction and a longer synthesizer solo which starts at 2:33. The introduction is played on an electronic keyboard and is assisted by cymbals, drums and a guitar (Red Special).

The extended version lasts 7 minutes 16 seconds and features longer introduction and ending. It lasts until 6:04, and the remaining minute contains fragments of other songs from The Works. The extended version was mostly distributed as 12-inch vinyl records and then reissued on the CD of The Works in 1991.

Besides The Works, the song was featured in the albums Greatest Hits II, Box of Tricks, Greatest Hits (1992 US ‘Red’ edition) and Absolute Greatest and in the box-sets The Complete Works and The Platinum Collection.^[6]

Charts and live performance

The single was received very positively over most of the world except for North America. In April 1984, it became number 3 in the United Kingdom, and was within the top 10 in many European and Latin American countries, but only peaked at number 45 on the US charts. The single was certified gold in the UK.^[21] The video for the song featured Mercury in a woman’s outfit with a thick moustache, and its ban by MTV and some other US stations played a role in the low US ranking.^[18] The ban was lifted in 1991 when the song was aired on VH1‘s My Generation two-part episode devoted to Queen hosted by guitarist Brian May. According to May in an interview about Queen’s Greatest Hits, whereas the video was understood and taken as a joke in UK, the US audience failed to see the soap-opera connection and might have interpreted the video as an open declaration of transvestism and Mercury’s bisexuality, which could explain why the video was banned in that country.^[22][23]

In some other countries, such as South Africa and in South America, the song was highly praised because it was seen as an anthem of the fight against oppression, whereas the reaction to the video was mixed.^[4][24] Illustrative in this regard was the live performance of the song in Rio de Janeiro in 1985. When Mercury appeared in front of an audience of 325,000 and started singing “I Want to Break Free”, stones were thrown at him. He quickly realised that his female outfit was the reason and removed his wig and false breasts, which calmed down the audience – they did not wish to see the song about freedom which they interpreted as “sacred” mocked. This incident however puzzled and disappointed the singer.^[25][26]

After the release of The Works, the song was performed at almost all of Queen’s live concerts. Spike Edney usually played the synthesizer introduction, after which Mercury appeared on stage, often in the outfit worn in the video – dark bobbed wig, pink blouse and false breasts – which he would remove later during the song.^[25][27] Brian May played the guitar solo on his Red Special. Some lines were sung by the audience, and “God knows” was chanted by the whole group. Live recordings of the song appeared on the concert albums Live Magic, Live at Wembley ’86 and Return of the Champions. In addition, the song was performed at several concerts which were then included in Queen’s videos such as Queen at Wembley, We Are the Champions: Final Live in Japan, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and Return of the Champions.^[28]

Lisa Stansfield led the song in The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.^[29] She appeared on stage dressed as a housewife with a vacuum cleaner, as in the original video. The song was also performed in many concerts of the project Queen + Paul Rodgers, where Paul Rodgers took vocals, Danny Miranda played the bass guitar and Spike Edney was at the keyboard.^[30]

Starting in July 2004, a remixed one-minute version of the song was featured in a Coca-Cola C2 video advertisement.^[31]

Music video

The video was directed by David Mallet. It was shot on 22 March and 4 May 1984 at Limehouse Studios^[32] and cost about £100,000.^[25] It was included on Greatest Video Hits 2. Footage from the video was later used for the song “The Show Must Go On“.

The first part spoofed the ITV soap opera Coronation Street, as proposed by Roger Taylor: “We had done some really serious, epic videos in the past, and we just thought we’d have some fun. We wanted people to know that we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, that we could still laugh at ourselves. I think we proved that.”^[33]

The video depicts Mercury as a housewife, loosely based on Bet Lynch, who wants to “break free” from his life. Although Lynch was a blonde in the soap opera, Mercury thought he would look too silly as a blonde and chose a dark wig. May plays another, more relaxed housewife based on Hilda Ogden. Deacon appears as a conservative “grandma”, while Taylor plays a schoolgirl, who like Mercury wants a different life.^[18][32]

At the beginning, during the synthesizer prelude, the clip shows a common British brick terraced house (as featured in Coronation Street) and then moves into May’s bedroom. May is woken up by a Teasmade. He gets up, dressed in a pink shirt, pink socks and pink bunny-shaped slippers, with hair rollers in his head. The camera moves to the living room and the kitchen where Mercury is vacuuming the floor with a 1950 Hoover 119 Junior.^[34] He wears a black wig, pink earrings, pink blouse with a sizeable false breast under it, black leather miniskirt, knee-high and heeled shoes. During the trials Mercury realised that he couldn’t walk freely in high-heeled shoes and settled on 2-inch ones.^[32] His own thick moustache remains in place (although he appears without it in the latter part of the video). May descends the staircase and goes to the kitchen. He passes Deacon, who is sitting on a couch, dressed in a black cloak, gloves, grey wig and a hat. Deacon reads a newspaper, constantly snorting and shaking his head. Taylor is busy with dishwashing in the kitchen, dressed as a stereotypical schoolgirl – blonde wig, white blouse, grey miniskirt, coloured tie and a straw hat behind his back. Mercury stops vacuuming and starts singing.^[25] Although he does not sing on the studio version of the song, Taylor can be seen lip-syncing some of the harmony vocals, which he did however perform in live performances.

During the first verse, Mercury opens the door of a storage room that briefly reveals a dark place, which is further used in the second verse; it appears to be a coal mine. There, the group features in their normal-life look (with Mercury naked above the waist that was common for his live and studio performances). It is surrounded by a crowd wearing black robes and miner’s helmets with headlamps. The crowd moves in sync with the music. The camera is constantly closing up on the musicians who are arranged in the same pattern as in the video for the song “Bohemian Rhapsody“. Mercury sings, while Deacon, May and Taylor just stand around him with their heads down. During the third verse, Mercury moves to another set and hides behind a big white box. In the beginning of the synthesiser solo, the box “explodes” and falls apart revealing a large stone. Mercury sits at the top of the stone, playing on a copper pipe, though the sound is of electric guitar. He is surrounded by two men and two women, all wearing the same spotty tights. In the second part of the solo, more people wearing the same outfit join in and together they perform a choreographic composition. In its first part, Mercury is carried through a row of people who pass his body over their heads. He then climbs the stone and dives in between two rows of people who catch him on the fly. After that, Mercury moves over a group of people who lie parallel on the ground and roll him over their bodies by turning around, as on a lineshaft roller conveyor. This part is finalised by a static scene of Mercury with a female dancer in a dry ice smoke.^[25]

The composition was choreographed by Wayne Eagling – a friend of Mercury who had helped him before with the choreography of the “Bohemian Rhapsody”.^[35] Eagling was then a leader of the Royal Ballet which was involved in the video^[36] (one of the dancers was Jeremy Sheffield). Specially for this part, Mercury shaved his trademark moustache to portray Vaslav Nijinsky as a faun in the ballet L’après-midi d’un faune. The shooting took much practice, especially the conveyor rolling episode.^[25] According to Eagling, despite being a natural performer on stage, Mercury could not stand performing any choreographed act himself, which is why he was mostly picked up and moved around in the ballet part of the video. The rehearsals with the Royal Ballet were organised by Eagling secretly from his superiors, something that placed him in serious trouble when discovered later.^[37]

The fourth verse, with the words “but life still goes on”, returns to the Coronation Street set of the first part, with some minor changes. May, Taylor and Deacon sit in the living room, reading newspapers and magazines, including a 1957 issue of the Daily Mirror; as May and Deacon read, Taylor is doing “her” school homework beside a table. Mercury walks around them and goes up the stairs, while singing. In the final, the action moves back into the coal mine set of the second part, but this time the miners surrounding the Queen musicians move erratically.

“MTV wouldn’t play ‘I Want to Break Free’,” complained Roger Taylor. “It was a very narrow-minded station then. It just seemed to be all fucking Whitesnake.”^[38]

Distribution

The song became the second single from the album The Works, after the song “Radio Ga Ga“. The single was released on 2 April 1984^[39] on 7-inch and 12-inch records and later as 3-inch and 5-inch CDs.^[40][41]

The 7-inch records were distributed in 16 countries. In most countries the other side of the disk contained the album version of the song “Machines (or ‘Back to Humans’)”, in the US and Canada there was an instrumental version of this song, and in Brazil the other side featured the song “It’s a Hard Life“. The label also depended on the country: Capitol Records in the US and Canada, Toshiba EMI in Japan, and EMI in other countries. In UK, US, Portugal and South Africa several records of the song were sold at the same time, differing only by covers. There were special editions, such as a record with empty side B in UK. The song title Argentina song on was “Quiero Ser Libre”.^[40][41]

In all countries except for US the A side contained the extended version of the song, side B featured “Machines” and the disk had EMI label. In the US, side B had either an instrumental version of “Machines” or the album version of “I Want to Break Free” and the label was from Capitol Records.^[40][41]

The single was also distributed on the 3-inch and 5-inch CDs. In the UK the 3-inch CD featured “I Want to Break Free” (album version), “Machines” and “It’s a Hard Life” and had a Parlophone Records label. In Germany, the 5-inch CD had an EMI label and contained “I Want to Break Free” and “It’s a Hard Life“, as well as the video of “I Want to Break Free”.^[40][41]

Single covers contained pictures of the group from the cover of the album The Works. In countries where the single went in four different versions, each version had a picture of one Queen member, otherwise four images were placed together. The inscription “Queen. I Want to Break Free” was red, white, gold or black and the frame was red or white. The German 5-inch CD had the cover for the single of “Radio Ga Ga“. The reverse side was the same – a photo of the group on a red background, except for CDs which had a white background and no pictures.^{[40][41][42][43]}

Sales and certifications

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals
• Brian May – electric guitar
• Roger Taylor – drums
• John Deacon – bass guitar, synthesizer, acoustic guitar
• Fred Mandel – synthesizer solo

Rock Band music gaming platform

The song was made available to download on 7 December 2010 for use in the Rock Band 3 music gaming platform in both Basic rhythm, and PRO mode which allows use of a real guitar / bass guitar, and MIDI compatible electronic drum kits / keyboards in addition to up to three-part harmony or backup vocals.^[46][47]

In other media

In the episode “The Final Problem” of BBC‘s Sherlock, Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) is shown listening to “I Want to Break Free” while arriving on Sherrinford island.^[48]

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Queen – ‘I Want To Break Free’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘I Want To Break Free’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 2’.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
I’ve paid my dues
Time after time
I’ve done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
I’ve made a few
I’ve had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I’ve come through
(And the beat will go on and on and on and on)

[Chorus]
We are the champions, my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting…till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers cause we are the champions…
Of the world

[Verse 2]
I’ve taken my bows
And my curtain calls
You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it
I thank you all
But it’s been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And I ain’t gonna lose
(Where the beat just goes on and on and on and on)

[Outro]
We are the champions, my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting…till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers cause we are the champions…
Of the world
We are the champions, my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting…till the end
We are the champions, We are the champions
No time for losers cause we are the champions…

“We Are the Champions” is a song by the British rock band Queen, first released on their 1977 album News of the World.^[1] Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, it is one of Queen’s most popular songs, and one of rock’s most recognisable anthems.^[2]

The song was a worldwide success, reaching number two in the UK Singles Chart, and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.^[3][4] In 2009, “We Are the Champions” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame,^[5] and was voted the world’s favourite song in a 2005 Sony Ericsson world music poll.^[6] In 2011, a team of scientific researchers concluded that the song was the catchiest in the history of popular music.^[7]

“We Are the Champions” has become an anthem for victories at sporting events,^[2] including as official theme song for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, and has been often used or referenced in popular culture. The song has also been covered by many artists.

On 7 October 2017, Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World. It was made from previously unheard vocal and instrumental takes from the original multi-track tapes. It also presents for the first time the original recorded length of the track, which is two choruses more than the 1977 edited single.^[8]

Music

Written by Freddie Mercury, “We Are the Champions” was built on audience response, with Brian May stating, “We wanted to get the crowds waving and singing. It’s very unifying and positive.”^[9]

Musically, it is based on Mercury’s piano part, with Roger Taylor and John Deacon providing a drums and bass guitar backing. May overdubbed some guitar sections, initially subtle, but building to a “solo” played simultaneously with the last chorus. Mercury employed many jazz chords (major and minor 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th harmonies), and the choruses featured these voiced as 4 and 5-part vocal harmonies. The lead vocal is very demanding and strident (highest point is a C5 both belted and in falsetto), with one of Mercury’s most notable performances taking place at the Live Aid concert, at Wembley Stadium, London in 1985.^[10]

The single featured “We Will Rock You” as a B-side, and followed the song on the album. The two songs were often played consecutively at the close of Queen concerts, and are customarily played together on radio broadcasts (in album order).^[2] Keeping with tradition, it was also used to close the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert with all the show’s acts joining in behind the lead vocal of Liza Minnelli.^[2]

Music video

The video for the song was filmed at a special video shoot with fan club members at the New London Theatre Centre on 6 October 1977 and was directed by Derek Burbridge. An alternate version which starts in monochrome before blasting into colour as the drums and guitars kick in was broadcast on Top of the Pops 2 and comprises alternate footage shot on the same day.

Legacy

In 2011, a team of scientific researchers concluded that the song was the catchiest song in the history of pop music, despite its not hitting #1 in the charts in any major market. Dr. Daniel Mullensiefen said of the study, “Every musical hit is reliant on maths, science, engineering and technology; from the physics and frequencies of sound that determine pitch and harmony, to the hi-tech digital processors and synthesisers which can add effects to make a song more catchier. We’ve discovered that there’s a science behind the sing-along and a special combination of neuroscience, math and cognitive psychology that can produce the elusive elixir of the perfect sing-along song.”^[7]

In July 2016 the song was used to introduce Donald Trump to the first session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Queen immediately issued a statement denouncing Trump’s use of the song as not authorized by the band. (Licensing for public performance of the song is administered by the performing rights organization Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI).)^[11]

Chart performances

In 1977–1978, “We Are the Champions” was released as a single in many countries, reaching number 2 on the UK Singles Chart.^[3] number 4 on Billboard in the US.,^[4] the top 10 in Ireland, Netherlands, and Norway, and top 15 in Germany, Austria and Sweden.^[12][13]

In 1992, 1993 and 1998, the single was re-released in France, totalling 45 weeks on the chart and peaking respectively at #19, #14, and #10 during the 1998 FIFA World Cup.^[13]

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals, piano
• Brian May – electric guitar, backing vocals
• Roger Taylor – drums, backing vocals
• John Deacon – bass guitar

Track listings

Charts and certifications

Sales and certifications

Region Certification Certified units/Sales France (SNEP)[23] Gold + Gold 874,000[23] United Kingdom (BPI)[24] Gold 500,000^ United States (RIAA)[25] 1977 vinyl release Platinum 2,000,000^ United States (RIAA)[25] 2003 digital release 2× Platinum 2,000,000 Total certified sales: 5,374,000 ^shipments figures based on certification alone sales+streaming figures based on certification alone

Crazy Frog version

“We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)”
Single by Crazy Frog
from the album Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits
Released	5 June 2006
Format	CD single, Maxi single, Digital download
Recorded	2005
Genre	Dance, electronica
Length	3:03
Label	Ministry of Sound
Songwriter(s)	Freddie Mercury
Producer(s)	Erik Wernquist
Crazy Frog singles chronology
“Jingle Bells/U Can’t Touch This” (2005) “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (2006) “Last Christmas” (2006)

“We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” is a song from 2006 by Crazy Frog inspired by Queen‘s hit from 1977, “We Are the Champions”. It was released as a single on 5 June 2006. A cover of the 1977 song from Queen of the same name, it was released to coincide with the 2006 World Cup. Vocal arrangements include a sample portion of Queen’s original rendering.

Music video

The music video depicts Crazy Frog in bed dreaming that he is competing in a soccer match against Killbots. Though outnumbered, he easily defeats and humiliates them. One goal rebounds off the net knocking him out and causing him to briefly wake up. Having defeated his enemies he finds himself hovering in a soccer universe.

He happens to glance at hundreds of clones marching toward him. He panics and runs in fear. He reaches a tall stairway leading up to a giant gold trophy. Crazy Frog becomes exhausted near the top unlike his indefatigable pursuants. The trophy turns into a giant soccer ball that begins to roll rapidly down toward Crazy Frog.

Crazy Frog is crushed and falls with the ball all the way back to the ground, startling him enough to wake up. When the music video was originally released online, it appeared as it was released. However, the current version lacks the soccer ball being kicked and the accompanying sound effects.

After being internationally released, it was shown before the animated movie Cars.

Chart performances

The single had its greatest success in France. It went straight to #1 on 10 June 2006, and stayed at this position for five weeks. It remained for nine weeks in the Top 10, seventeen weeks in the top fifty, and twenty five weeks in the chart. On 30 August 2006, it was certified Gold disc two months after its release by SNEP, the French certifier, and became the fifteenth best selling single in 2006 in that country.

Track listings

CD single

1. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (radio edit) – 2:57
2. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (club mix) – 5:49

Maxi single

1. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (radio edit) – 2:57
2. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (house mix) – 6:04
3. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (club mix) – 5:51
4. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (club mix dub) – 5:17
5. “We Are the Champions (Ding a Dang Dong)” (video)

Certifications and sales

Charts

Other versions and samplings

• 2001: Robbie Williams on vocals with Queen (May/Taylor) for the soundtrack of the 2001 film A Knight’s Tale.^[35]
• It was used in season 1 of The Big Bang Theory.
• The song was used in an episode of Regular Show
• The song was used in Fox animated series The Simpsons in the episode “She Used to Be My Girl“.
• 2017: Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track in celebration of the album’s 40th anniversary. It was made from previously unheard vocal and instrumental takes from the original multi-track tapes. It also presents for the first time the original recorded length of the track, which is two choruses more than the 1977 edited single.^[36]

Live covers

• Liza Minnelli and other guest artists sang this song to close The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992.
• Green Day at Reading Festival 2004, and at Live 8 in 2005.^[37][38]
• Adam Lambert and Kris Allen, in the season 8 finale of American Idol, on 20 May 2009.^[39]
• In 2011, Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine & Blake Shelton covered the song at The Voice.^[40]
• In 2012, Katy Perry covered the song at Summertime Ball 2012 edition in front of 80,000 at the new Wembley Stadium, in London.^[41]
• During their 2014 tour, Monumentour, Fall Out Boy covered a short version of the song on stage before going into their title track ‘Save Rock and Roll’ off of the 2013 album.

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Taken from News Of The World, 1977.

Queen – ‘We Are The Champions’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘We Are The Champions’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 1’.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
Buddy, you’re a boy, make a big noise
Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday
You got mud on your face, you big disgrace
Kicking your can all over the place (singing)

[Chorus]
We will, we will rock you
We will, we will rock you

[Verse 2]
Buddy, you’re a young man, hard man
Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday
You got blood on your face, you big disgrace
Waving your banner all over the place

[Chorus]
We will, we will rock you (sing it out)
We will, we will rock you

[Verse 3]
Buddy, you’re an old man, poor man
Pleading with your eyes, gonna make you some peace someday
You got mud on your face, big disgrace
Somebody better put you back into your place

[Chorus]
We will, we will rock you (sing it)
We will, we will rock you (everybody)
We will, we will rock you
We will, we will rock you

Alright

“We Will Rock You” is a song written by Brian May and recorded by Queen for their 1977 album News of the World.^[2] Rolling Stone ranked it number 330 of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2004,^[3] and it placed at number 146 on the Songs of the Century list in 2001. In 2009, “We Will Rock You” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.^[4][5]

Other than the last 30 seconds containing a guitar solo by May, the song is generally set in a cappella form, using only stomping and clapping as a rhythmic body percussion beat. In 1977, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” were issued together as a worldwide top 10 single.^[6] Soon after the album was released, many radio stations began playing the songs consecutively and without interruption.^[7]

Since its release, “We Will Rock You” has been covered, remixed, sampled, parodied, referenced and used by multiple recording artists, TV shows, films and other media worldwide.^[8][9] Since its release, the song has become a staple at sports events around the world as a stadium anthem, mostly due to its simple rhythm.^[10][11]

On 7 October 2017, Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World. It features a radically different approach to the guitar solo and includes May’s count-in immediately prior to the recording.^[12]

Original Queen version

History

“We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” were written in response to an event that occurred during the A Day at the Races Tour.^[13] The band played at Stafford‘s Bingley Hall, and, according to Brian May:^[14]

We did an encore and then went off, and instead of just keeping clapping, they sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to us, and we were just completely knocked out and taken aback – it was quite an emotional experience really, and I think these chant things are in some way connected with that.

One version was used as the opening track on 1977’s News of the World. This consists of a stomp-stomp-clap-pause beat, and a power chorus, being somewhat of an anthem. The stamping effects were created by the band overdubbing the sounds of themselves stomping and clapping many times and adding delay effects to create a sound like many people were participating. The durations of the delays were in the ratios of prime numbers, a technique now known as non-harmonic reverberation.^[15] A tape loop is used to repeat the last phrase of the guitar solo three times as opposed to Brian May playing it three separate times on the recording.^[16] The “stomp, stomp, clap” sounds were later used in the Queen + Paul Rodgers song “Still Burnin’“.^[17]

When performed live, the song is usually followed by “We Are the Champions“, as they were designed to run together.^[6] The songs are often paired on the radio and at sporting events, where they are frequently played.^[6] They were the last two songs Queen performed at Live Aid in 1985.^[18]

Queen also performed an alternate version “We Will Rock You” known as the “fast version”, featuring a faster-feeling tempo and a full band arrangement. The band would frequently use this version to open their live sets in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as heard on the albums Live Killers (1979), Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl (2004), Queen Rock Montreal (2007), and the expanded edition of News of the World (2011). A studio recording of this version is also known to exist, recorded for John Peel‘s show on BBC Radio 1 in 1977. It is part of a longer cut that starts with the original version. In 2002, the fast version was officially released on a promo single distributed by the tabloid The Sun. The “fast” BBC studio version can also be found on The Best of King Biscuit Live Volume 4. Between the two versions, there is a brief cut of a woman discussing Brahmanism, used in a BBC Radio documentary. The fast version is also used as the curtain call music for the musical of the same title, after the finale, which is a pairing of the original “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.”

Since its release, the song has become a staple at sporting events around the world as a stadium anthem. It was the most played song during the 2008–2009 seasons of the National Football League, National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.^[11]

Five + Queen version

“We Will Rock You”
Single by Five + Queen
from the album Invincible
B-side	Megamix Keep on Movin’ (The Five-A-Side Mix)
Released	17 July 2000
Format	CD single cassette single
Length	3:08
Label	Sony BMG
Songwriter(s)	Brian May
Producer(s)	Richard Stannard Julian Gallagher
Five singles chronology
“Don’t Wanna Let You Go” (2000) “We Will Rock You” (2000) “Let’s Dance” (2001)
Queen singles chronology
“Under Pressure (Rah Mix)” (1999) “We Will Rock You” (2000) “Flash (Vanguard Mix)” (2003)
Invincible track listing
“Don’t Wanna Let You Go” (3) “We Will Rock You” (4) “Two Sides to Every Story” (5)
Music video
“We Will Rock You” on YouTube

In 2000, English boy band Five released a cover of “We Will Rock You”. It was released from their second studio album, Invincible (1999). Released on 17 July 2000, the song features two members of Queen: Brian May on guitar and Roger Taylor on drums; however, they do not sing any vocals on the track. Freddie Mercury had died in November 1991, nearly a decade before this version’s release, and John Deacon had retired from public life three years before its release.

The song charted at number one on the UK Singles Chart, making it Five’s second number-one single, and their ninth consecutive top-ten hit.^[19]

Track listing

UK CD1

1. “We Will Rock You” (Radio Edit) – 3:08
2. “Keep on Movin'” (The Five-A-Side Mix) – 3:32
3. “We Will Rock You” (Video) – 3:08

UK CD2

1. “We Will Rock You” (Radio Edit) – 3:08
2. “Invincible Megamix” (Including “We Will Rock You”) – 4:19
3. “Invincible Megamix” (Video) – 4:19

UK Cassette single

1. “We Will Rock You” (Radio Edit) – 3:08
2. “Keep on Movin'” (The Five-A-Side Mix) – 3:32
3. “Invincible Megamix” (Including “We Will Rock You”) – 4:19

European CD single

1. “We Will Rock You” (Radio Edit) – 3:08
2. “Invincible Megamix” (Without “We Will Rock You”) – 3:43
3. “We Will Rock You” (Video) – 3:08

Chart performance

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/Sales
Italy (FIMI)[52]	Platinum	30,000
United States (RIAA)[53]	4× Platinum	4,000,000
sales+streaming figures based on certification alone

Cover versions

1990s

• 1992: American glam metal band Warrant covered the song for the film Gladiator.^[54]
• 1992: Brazilian band Viper covered the fast version of the song in their third album Evolution,^[55] and later in a 1993 live album Maniacs in Japan.
• 1996: American recording artist Linda Ronstadt performed a soft lullaby version for her album Dedicated to the One I Love.^[56]

2000s

• 2000: American hip hop producer DJ Hurricane and vocalist Scott Weiland collaborated on a cover of the song for the album Don’t Sleep.^[57]
• 2003: A remix by KCPK, sung by a chorus of children, was released in a series of animated Evian adverts which aired in France, Germany and Belgium. The remix was later released as a single and entered the local charts.^[58]
• 2004: American pop singers Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Pink used this song in an international commercial Pepsi campaign and the song was released on Pepsi Music 2004: (Dare For More) CD.^[59]
• 2009: Australian Idol winner of season 7 Stan Walker did a cover on the show and recorded a version on his debut album Introducing Stan Walker (2010).^[60]
• 2013: American musical TV series Glee covered the song in the twentieth episode of their fourth season, “Lights Out“.^[61]

Live cover performances

1990s

• 1992: Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose performed the song with Queen at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.^[62][63]
• 1992: U2 used the song as a set list opener before they performed on stage during the Zoo TV Tour.^[64]
• 1993: Nirvana performed it in São Paulo, Brazil, changing the lyrics to “we will fuck you”.^[65]
• 1996: Alanis Morissette and her band ended the first encore of her “Can’t Not” Tour (following the song, “You Learn”) with a cover of the song, with Alanis playing the “stomp-stomp-clap” rhythm on drums.^[66]

2000s

• 2003: English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams performed the song live at Knebworth.^[67]
• 2007, 2010: Japanese pop singer Kumi Koda covered this in her a-nation ’07 performance, and three years later in a medley at her 10th anniversary concert at the Tokyo Dome.^[68]
• 2008: Canadian singer Celine Dion performed a Queen medley with “We Will Rock You” and “The Show Must Go On” in her Taking Chances World Tour.^[69]
• 2009: American guitarist Joe Perry from Aerosmith and singer Katy Perry covered the song at the MTV’s Video Music Awards 2009.^[70]

2010s

• 2011: American rock band My Chemical Romance performed the song with Queen guitarist Brian May at the Reading Festival.^[71]
• 2011: Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton covered the song on The Voice (U.S.).^[72]
• 2012: English pop singer Jessie J performed the song live with Brian May and Roger Taylor at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London on 12 August.^[73]
• 2012: English rapper Dappy covered the song live alongside Brian May for BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge. The song later appeared on UK chart-topping album BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge 2012.^[74]

Remixes

• 1991: Rick Rubin produced remixes of “We Will Rock You”, for an EP released by Hollywood Records. The “Ruined Remix” also contains contributions by Flea and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.^[75]
• 2009: French electronic music duo Daft Punk mixed this song along with their own song “Robot Rock” for the game DJ Hero to create “We Will (Robot) Rock You”.^[76]
• 2011: Geddy (a.k.a. Armageddon), former member from hip hop group Terror Squad, mashed up “I Want It All” and “We Will Rock You” for the soundtrack to the 2011 film Sucker Punch^[77][78] and the videogame Madden NFL 12.
• 2012 : Helmut VonLichten (formerly of E.S. Posthumus) mixed this song with an orchestral version of “Posthumus Zone” for CBS’s Super Bowl 50 coverage.^[79][80] This mashup was later used for the 2015 film Pixels.
• 2014 : Canadian dubstep producer Excision and downlink remixed this song in the track Rock You.^[81]

Sampling

• 2011: American pop singer Katy Perry uses the “stomp-stomp-clap” beat in her song E.T.^[82]
• 2011: Beyoncé uses the “stomp-stomp-clap” beat in her song “Dreaming”, featured on the Japanese edition of her 4th album 4.^[83]
• 2011: Lady Gaga sampled the “stomp-stomp-clap” in her song “You and I“, which also features the band’s guitarist Brian May, from Gaga’s album Born This Way.^[84]
• 2012: One Direction sampled the “stomp-stomp-clap” and references “Rock” in their song “Rock Me” featured on their second album Take Me Home.^[85]
• 2012: Kesha sampled the “stomp-stomp-clap” in her song “Gold Trans Am”, featured on the deluxe edition of her second album, Warrior.^[86]

Parodies and references to the song

• 1987: Henry Rollins did a parody of “We Will Rock You” titled “I Have Come to Kill You“.^[87]
• 2010: The cast of the Off-Broadway musical Avenue Q performed covers of “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” in a video spoof of the Muppets’ “Bohemian Rhapsody”.^[88]
• 2012: In the edition of WWE Raw of 12 March, The Rock performed his version during the Rock Concert segment by adding references to Team Bring It and fans chanting “Cena Sucks” in the chorus while taking aim at John Cena before they square off at WrestleMania XXVIII.^[89]
• 2014: Indonesian singer Ahmad Dhani made a video with three Indonesian Idol contestants for supporting the Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo-Hatta. Dhani wears a Nazi costume. It was noted as one of the worst political campaigns ever.^[90]
• 2015: In The Big Bang Theory episode “The Bachelor Party Corrosion” Raj, Howard and Leonard sing a modified version of the song called, “We Will Percussive Shock You” and Sheldon burst out singing the first verse of the original song, which he then credited to his eidetic memory, mentioned that in this instance it was a ‘curse.’^[91]

See also

• List of number-one singles of 1978 (France)
• List of UK Singles Chart number ones of the 2000s

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Taken from News Of The World, 1977.

Queen – ‘We Will Rock You’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘We Will Rock You’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 1’.

Lyrics:

{Intro}

This thing called love, I just can’t handle it
This thing called love, I must get round to it
I ain’t ready
Crazy little thing called love

This thing (this thing)
Called love (called love)
It cries (like a baby)
In a cradle all night
It swings (woo woo)
It jives (woo woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love

There goes my baby
She knows how to rock ‘n’ roll
She drives me crazy
She gives me hot and cold fever
Then she leaves me in a cool cool sweat

{Break}

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
And get on my tracks
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motorbike
Until I’m ready
Crazy little thing called love

{Bridge}

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
And get on my tracks
Take a back seat (ah hum), hitch-hike (ah hum)
And take a long ride on my motorbike
Until I’m ready (ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love

This thing called love, I just can’t handle it
This thing called love, I must get round to it
I ain’t ready
Ooh ooh ooh ooh

Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love, yeah, yeah
Crazy little thing called love, yeah, yeah
Crazy little thing called love, yeah, yeah
Crazy little thing called love, yeah, yeah…

“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is a song by the British rock band Queen. Written by Freddie Mercury in 1979, the track is featured on their 1980 album The Game, and also appears on the band’s compilation album, Greatest Hits in 1981. The song peaked at number two in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, and became the group’s first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US in 1980,^[4] remaining there for four consecutive weeks.^[5][6] It topped the Australian ARIA Charts for seven weeks.^[7]

Having composed “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on guitar, Mercury played rhythm guitar while performing the song live, which was the first time he played guitar in concert with Queen.^[8] Queen played the song live between 1979 and 1986, and a live performance of the song is recorded in the albums Queen Rock Montreal, Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl , Live at Wembley ’86 and Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest ‘.^[9][10] Since its release, the song has been covered by a number of artists. The song was played live on 20 April 1992 during The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, performed by Robert Plant with Queen.^[11] The style of the song was described by author Karl Coryat as rockabilly in his 1999 book titled The Bass Player Book.^[12]

Composition

As reported by Freddie Mercury in Melody Maker, 2 May 1981, he composed “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on the guitar in just five to ten minutes.^[13]

‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ took me five or ten minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.

— Freddie Mercury

The song was written by Mercury as a tribute to Elvis Presley.^[14] Roger Taylor added in an interview that Mercury wrote it in just 10 minutes while lounging in a bath in the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich during one of their extensive Munich recording sessions.^[15] Mercury took it to the studio shortly after writing it and presented it to Taylor and John Deacon.^[8][16] The three of them, with their then new producer Reinhold Mack, recorded it at Musicland Studios in Munich. The entire song was reportedly recorded in less than half an hour (although Mack says it was six hours).^[17] Having written “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on guitar and played an acoustic rhythm guitar on the record, for the first time ever Mercury played guitar in concerts, for example at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium, London in 1985.^[8][18]

Music video

The music video for the song was filmed at Trillion Studios in September 1979 and directed by Dennis De Vallance featuring four dancers and a floor of hands. An alternate version featuring alternate angles, out-takes and backstage footage from the original video shoot was included on the Days Of Our Lives DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Live performances

In reaction to the success of the single the band embarked on a mini UK tour entitled the Crazy Tour.^{[citation needed]}

Whenever the song was played live, the band added a solid rock ending that extended the under-three-minute track to over five minutes, with May and Mercury providing additional guitars and vocals. An example of this is on the CD/DVD Set Live at Wembley ’86, where the song runs over six minutes.

Single release

The “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” single hit number two in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, and became the first US number-one hit for the band, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. It was knocked out of the top spot on this chart by Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II“.^[5][6] The song also topped the Australian ARIA charts for seven consecutive weeks from 1 March to 12 April 1980.^[7] The UK release had “We Will Rock You (live)” as the b-side and America, Australia, Canada had “Spread Your Wings (live)”.

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar, handclaps
• Brian May – electric guitar, backing vocals, handclaps
• Roger Taylor – drums, backing vocals, handclaps
• John Deacon – bass guitar, handclaps

Although Mercury would play an acoustic-electric twelve-string Ovation Pacemaker 1615 guitar and later on an electric six-string Fender Telecaster, both owned by May, in the studio he recorded it with a six-string acoustic with external mics. Mercury also played the original guitar solo on a version which has been lost.^[19]

Charts

Certifications

Dwight Yoakam version

“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
Single by Dwight Yoakam
from the album Last Chance for a Thousand Years: Dwight Yoakam’s Greatest Hits from the 90’s
B-side	“Let’s Work Tegether”/”Doin’ What I Did”
Released	19 May 1999
Format	CD single
Genre	Country
Length	2:22
Label	Reprise
Songwriter(s)	Freddie Mercury
Producer(s)	Pete Anderson
Dwight Yoakam singles chronology
“These Arms” (1998) “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (1999) “Thinking About Leaving” (1999)

American country music singer Dwight Yoakam included a cover of the song on his 1999 album Last Chance for a Thousand Years: Dwight Yoakam’s Greatest Hits from the 90’s.^[38] Yoakam’s version was released as a single. It debuted at number 65 on the US Billboard “Hot Country Singles & Tracks” chart for the week of 1 May 1999, and peaked at number 12 on the US country singles charts that year. It was also used in a television commercial for clothing retailer Gap at the time of the album’s release. The music video was directed by Yoakam. This version appears in the movie The Break-Up (2006), starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.

Charts

Other cover versions

• A Spanish cover titled Casi Loco Por Tu Amor, performed by the Venezuelan rock singer Pablo Dagnino, was included in the album Tributo a Queen: Los Grandes del Rock en Español (1997).^[45]
• In October 1999 by American country-rock singer Juice Newton on her album American Girl.^[46]
• Canadian pop/big band singer Michael Bublé covered the song for his self-titled 2003 debut album.^[47]
• The Brian Setzer Orchestra put a faster tempo, neo-swing version on their 2003 album Jump, Jive an’ Wail.^[48]
• British pop rock/pop punk band McFly covered the song for their “Room on the 3rd Floor” single.^[49] (2004)
• American singer Josh Kelley recorded a cover for the 2005 album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen.^[50]
• Diana Ross covered the song on her 2007 album I Love You. Brian May plays guitar on this version.^[51]
• American pop rock band Maroon 5 covered the song and it came out as a bonus track in some versions of the 2010 album Hands All Over.^[52]
• Cris Delanno (pt) covered the song on her 2013 album Relaxing Bossa Lounge.^[53]
• Drake Bell covered this song in his 2014 album Ready, Steady, Go!.^[54]

See also

• List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 1980

Subscribe to the Official Queen Channel Here http://bit.ly/Subscribe2Queen

Taken from The Game, 1980 and Forever, 2014.

Queen – ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 1’.

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Lyrics:

[Intro: Queen]
Are you gonna take me home tonight
Oh down beside that red firelight?
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rockin’ world go round

[Verse 1: Freddie Mercury]
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat Fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Hey big woman you made a bad boy out of me

[Verse 2]
I’ve been singing with my band
Across the wire, across the land
I seen every blue-eyed floozy on the way
But their beauty and their style
Went kind of smooth after a while
Take me to them lardy ladies every time
Come on

[Chorus: Queen]
Oh won’t you take me home tonight
Oh down beside your red firelight?
Oh and you give it all you got
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rocking world go round
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rocking world go round

[Verse 2: Freddie Mercury]
Hey listen here
Now your mortgages and homes
I’ve got stiffness in my bones
Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality
I tell you
Oh but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure
Hey big woman you gonna make a big man of me
Now get this

[Chorus: Queen]
Are you gonna take me home tonight (please)
Oh down beside that red firelight?
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rocking world go round (yeah)
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rocking world go round

Get on your bikes and ride

[Outro]
Ooh yeah
Oh yeah
Them fat bottomed girls
Fat bottomed girls
Yeah yeah yeah
Alright
Ride ’em cowboy
Fat bottomed girls
Yes, yes

“Fat Bottomed Girls” is a song by the British rock band Queen. Written by guitarist Brian May, the track featured on their 1978 album Jazz, and later on their compilation album, Greatest Hits.^[2] When released as a single with “Bicycle Race,” the song reached number 11 in the UK Singles Chart, and number 24 in the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.^[3][4]

The song is formed around an open bluesy, metallic guitar tuning, with the tune opening with its chorus.^[5] It was one of the few Queen songs played in an alternative guitar tuning, being played in drop D tuning.^[6] The song’s music video was filmed at the Dallas Convention Center in Texas in October 1978.^[7]

Song and lyrical content

Near the end, the song references the band’s song “Bicycle Race” with Mercury shouting, “Get on your bikes and ride!” “Bicycle Race” reciprocates with the lyric, “fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today”. The two songs were released as a double A-sided single.

Live performances

Queen performed “Fat Bottomed Girls” in concert from 1978 to 1982.^[8][9][10] Since its release, the song has appeared on television and film, and has been covered by a number of artists.^[7]

The song was performed on the setlists of their Queen + Adam Lambert tours in 2012, 2014-2015, 2016 & 2017-2018 featuring Adam Lambert ^[11] and at the iHeartRadio Music Festival 2013 as Queen + Adam Lambert featuring Fun ^[12] It was also performed during the Return Of The Champions Tour and the Rock the Cosmos Tour, both tours by Queen + Paul Rodgers.^[13]

Versions

The song featured a different vocal arrangement from the studio recording when performed live. In live performances, the lead vocals during the chorus were sung by Freddie Mercury and harmonised with an upper voice (Roger Taylor) and a lower voice (Brian May). In the studio version, there is no higher harmony. The lead vocals on the verses are sung by Freddie Mercury, while Brian May sings the lead vocals on the chorus.

The single version (which can be found on Greatest Hits) omits the extended guitar interludes between the verses as well as fading out before the ending.^[14]

In the US, the 1991 Hollywood Records reissue of Jazz included a bonus remix by Matt Wallace.

In 1992, Organized Konfusion remixed the track for inclusion on the later-cancelled BASIC Queen Bootlegs compilation. This version included an alternate vocal track by Mercury, as well as hip-hop production and added rap verses.

“Fat Bottomed Girls” was released as a double A-side with the song “Bicycle Race“, and includes the line “Get on your bikes and ride”.^[14] “Bicycle Race” contains the lyrics “Fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today/So look out for those beauties, oh yeah”,^[15] completing a double cross-reference between the two songs.

Sales and certifications

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals
• Brian May – electric guitar, lead chorus and backing vocals
• Roger Taylor – drums
• John Deacon – bass guitar

Live recordings

• Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl
• Return of the Champions
• Super Live in Japan
• Live in Ukraine

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Subscribe to the Official Queen Channel Here http://bit.ly/Subscribe2Queen

Taken from Jazz, 1978.

Queen – ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 1’.

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
She keeps Moet et Chandon
In her pretty cabinet
‘Let them eat cake’ she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
A built-in remedy
For Khrushchev and Kennedy
At anytime an invitation
You can’t decline
Caviar and cigarettes
Well versed in etiquette
Extraordinarily nice

[Chorus]
She’s a Killer Queen
Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime

[Post-Chorus]
Recommended at the price
Insatiable an appetite
Want to try?

[Verse 2]
To avoid complications
She never kept the same address
In conversation
She spoke just like a baroness
Met a man from China
Went down to Geisha Minah
(Killer, killer, she’s a killer Queen)
Then again incidentally
If you’re that way inclined
Perfume came naturally from Paris (naturally)
For cars she couldn’t care less
Fastidious and precise

[Chorus]
She’s a Killer Queen
Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime

[Guitar Solo]

[Bridge]
Drop of a hat she’s as willing as
Playful as a pussy cat
Then momentarily out of action
Temporarily out of gas
To absolutely drive you wild, wild
She’s all out to get you

[Chorus]
She’s a Killer Queen
Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime

[Outro]
Recommended at the price
Insatiable an appetite
Want to try?
Want to try?

“Killer Queen” is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was their first big international hit, reaching number two in the UK and becoming their first US hit.^[3] Written by lead singer and pianist Freddie Mercury, the track was recorded for their third album Sheer Heart Attack.

The song is about a high-class call girl.^[3] It has been characterised as “Mercury’s piano-led paean to a Moët-quaffing courtesan“.^[4]

Background and release

When released as a single, “Killer Queen” was Queen’s explosive breakthrough hit, reaching number two in the United Kingdom and number 12 in the United States.^[5][6] It was released as a double A-side in the UK, the US and Canada (where it reached number 15 in the RPM 100 national singles chart),^[7] with the song “Flick of the Wrist“. In 1986, it was featured as the B-side to “Who Wants to Live Forever“.^[8] The song marked a departure from the heavier material of the band’s first two albums, as well as the beginning of a more stylistically diverse approach in songwriting. At the same time, “Killer Queen” retained the essence of Queen’s trademark sound, particularly in its meticulous vocal harmonies.

Mercury commented that he wrote the lyrics before the melody and music, whereas he would typically do the opposite. The recording features elaborate four-part harmonies (particularly in the choruses, and also providing backing parts in the verses), and also a multitracked guitar solo by Brian May which makes use of the “bell effect“. The song’s first verse quotes a phrase widely attributed (falsely) to Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake,” she says, Just like Marie Antoinette.

Recording sessions

Besides using his grand piano as usual, Mercury overdubbed the song with an upright piano to give the track a vaudeville sound. At one point there are two distinct bass guitar lines, one of which diverges into a descending run. Unlike the first two Queen albums, this song was partly recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales.^[9]

Queen on the record

Freddie Mercury:^[10]

Brian May:

Live performances

The song was regularly performed between 1974 and 1981 as part of a medley.^{[11][12][13][14]} In 1974–75, the song was played following “In the Lap of the Gods“,^[11] and in 1975–76, the song followed “Bohemian Rhapsody“.^[12] In 1984 and 1985, during The Works Tour, it was reintroduced in a medley following a truncated version of “Somebody to Love“.^[15]

The third verse and chorus of the song were never performed live.

Critical acclaim and legacy

The song won Mercury his first Ivor Novello Award.^[16]

“Killer Queen” has been described by AllMusic as the true beginning of Queen’s “radio sound” and “recalls the cabaret songs of yesteryear, but also shows how Queen was fast becoming a master of power pop“.^[3] Rock historian Paul Fowles wrote that “Killer Queen”, with its “sleazy Parisian imagery”, allowed “free rein” to Mercury’s “unique brand of rock theater”.^[17]

American pop singer Katy Perry cites “Killer Queen” as an important influence on her. She said: “Queen’s track ‘Killer Queen’ made me discover music and helped me come into my own at the age of 15. The way Freddie Mercury delivered his lyrics just made me feel like a confident woman.”^[18]

Chart performance

Year-end charts

Sales and Certifications

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead vocals and backing vocals, Grand piano, Upright piano, Finger snapping
• Brian May – electric guitar, backing vocals
• Roger Taylor – drums, triangle, chimes, backing vocals
• John Deacon – bass

On some performances Deacon provided backing vocals and played the triangle.

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Taken from Sheer Heart Attack, 1974.

Queen – ‘Killer Queen’

Click here to buy the DVD with this video at the Official Queen Store:
http://www.queenonlinestore.com

The official ‘Killer Queen’ music video. Taken from Queen – ‘Greatest Video Hits 1’.