Queen: The Complete Works (54 page)

• Live:
Magic, Wembley

Starting with a soaring guitar riff and melting into a poignant set of lyrics about friendship in tough times,
this collaborative effort between John and Freddie produced an unforgettable anthem much in the style of ‘We Are The Champions’. According to Peter ‘Phoebe’ Freestone, ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ was actually written by John but, with considerable input from Freddie, was co-credited as a Mercury/Deacon collaboration because of John’s generous demeanour and the vocalist’s final contribution – much like Roger’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and ‘
A Kind Of Magic
’, both of which were changed drastically from their original visions.

“Freddie’s written a song called ‘Friends Will be Friends’, and I think Freddie and John worked on it together,” Brian said in a 1986 Capitol Radio interview. “It’s something which I took to heart very much as well because it’s kind of [a] traditional Queen sound. It has this ... if you can remember ‘We Are The Champions’ or ‘Play The Game’, it’s in that kind of mould, it has all the Queen trademarks. And yet it’s a new song and a new idea, and that’s something I instantly related to. Very nice, very good track. It sounds very complete.”

Released as the second single proper from
A Kind Of Magic
, ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, backed with ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ because of its upcoming inclusion in the Magic tour set list, peaked at a modest No. 14 in June 1986. The song was extended for the 12” release, opening with the chorus instead of the guitar introduction and lengthening the song well past six minutes. According to Roger, it wasn’t the summer hit the band had hoped it would be, but the video, filmed on 15 May 1986 at JVC Studios in Wembley (during rehearsals for the
Magic
tour) and directed by David Mallet, is pleasant enough, showing the band on stage with legions of Fan Club members as an assembled audience. While it’s clear from the expressions on the band members’ faces that they’re all having a good time, as a video, it’s perfunctory, with the intent of getting something out there while the band is working on perfecting their live show.

The song was performed live between ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ on the Magic tour (though it wasn’t performed on the first show in Stockholm), albeit in an abridged version; only on the first two dates in Leiden did the band perform full versions.

FRIENDS WILL BE FRIENDS WILL BE FRIENDS

(Mercury/Deacon)

• Bonus:
AKOM

A pointless edit of the extended mix of ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, this was included on the European CD version of
A Kind Of Magic
; any fan would be well advised to stick to the original or the extended versions.

FUN IN SPACE
(Taylor)

• Album (Roger):
Fun
• B-side (Roger): 6/81

A sparse and fitting conclusion to Roger’s debut solo album, ‘Fun In Space’ is dominated by a relentless bass drum, representing the blips on a radar indicating signs of life, while a synthesizer swirls away (occasionally interrupted by drum beats and some twangy guitar licks) and Roger’s disembodied, echoed voice unfolds what is, on the surface, a lament of a failed space mission, but is actually a celebratory tale (“Our structure is battered, but the corridors ring / With little green stories, of this and these things”) and a plea for spacial jollification.

A rough mix of the song was premiered during a spring 1980 ‘Innerview’ with Jim Ladd; even at that early stage, Roger had already decided that the album was to be titled
Fun In Space
. Clocking in at a lengthy 6’20, making it the second-longest track on the album, it ended up as the B-side of ‘My Country’ (the other epic from
Fun In Space
, though it was edited down for radio consumption; ‘Fun In Space’ remained unscathed as the single’s flipside), but, like most of
Fun In Space
, received no live airing in any of Roger’s solo tours.

FUN IT
(Taylor)

• Album:
Jazz

Roger’s first of two songs for
Jazz
is this disappointing, funk-disco amalgamation. With a dodgy backing, complete with tinny drums, a fat bass and crunching rhythm guitars, the song is brought down by poor production and the inclusion of pointless Syn-drums. Roger’s use of such an instrument may have been inspired by The Cars, produced by none other than Roy Thomas Baker. The message is simple: when life’s problems get you down, just dance them away. (If only it were that easy.) For once, Roger was unimpressed, telling Mojo magazine in 2008, “My songs were very patchy. In fact, if you want my honest opinion,
Jazz
never thrilled me. It was an ambitious album that didn’t live up to its ambition.” For what little it might be worth, ‘Fun It’ has the distinction of being the first fully-fledged disco song to grace a Queen album, thus shattering the urban legend of John and Freddie being the heaviest into disco and funk.

Issued as the B-side of the US release of ‘Jealousy’ in April 1979, the “Don’t shun it / Fun it” line would occasionally be used as an intro to ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ on several of the 1978
Jazz
North American and 1979
Jazz
European and Japanese dates.

FUN VISION
: see
ONE VISION

FUNNY HOW LOVE IS
(Mercury)

• Album:
Queen2
• CD Single: 11/88

Serving as a light, refreshing dessert to the heavier main course of ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ (a tactic Freddie explored frequently, for example ‘Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon’ following ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to......’, ‘Funny How Love Is’ is a gleeful paean to free love striking in unexpected places and at unexpected times. Set to a bed of acoustic guitars played by Brian (not John, as previously believed; live group backing tracks were played at Fan Club conventions, with John on bass and Brian on acoustic guitar) and ringing percussion and drums from Roger, a youthful-sounding and double-tracked Freddie strains in the higher regions of his range, exuberantly extolling the virtues of love. It may have been a filler track compared to the other songs on Side Black, but it was at least a good filler track.

When sessions for the second album started in August 1973, a few of Freddie’s newest songs needed Robin Geoffrey Cable’s Phil Spector-inspired ‘wall of sound’ technique, and he was asked to assist with that approach. Cable had asked Freddie to contribute lead vocals to his reworkings of ‘I Can Hear Music’ and ‘Goin’ Back’ (see separate entries); this time, it was Freddie who asked Cable to help him out by adding his distinctive touch to this song, ‘Nevermore’ and ‘The March Of The Black Queen’.

Because of its complexity and dependence on atmosphere, ‘Funny How Love Is’ was never performed live. It was inexplicably included on the 1988 CD single version of ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ in a true stand-alone fashion: whereas the album version segues from ‘The March Of The Black Queen’, this version features a clean intro with strident acoustic guitar and piano chords.

FURIA THEME (OPENING TITLES)
(May)

• Soundtrack (Brian):
Furia

The first track on the soundtrack album to the French film
Furia
, ‘Furia Theme’ starts with a scrap of dialogue before an ominous keyboard and orchestra sequence leads into the beautifully performed main theme. The Red Special makes a welcome appearance midway through the song, though the programmed drums and upbeat sequence are awkwardly out of place. Regardless, it’s a fine overture, and serves as a fitting introduction to the little-seen film.

FUTURE MANAGEMENT
(Taylor)

• A-side (Roger): 3/81 [49] • Album (Roger):
Fun

A conspicuously jaunty reggae track sounding like a selection from the albums by new wave rockers The Police, Roger’s ambiguous ‘Future Management’ alludes to an Orwellian future (“Recycle your thoughts / I’ll rewire your mind”) with offers of mind control and thought reprogramming. Conformity was an issue that Roger disliked, even going as far as protesting the working title of
Play The Game
for their eighth studio album, insisting it be abridged so as not to promote following convention. ‘Future Management’ addresses this in a mechanical manner, the lobotomized chant of “You won’t need nobody else but me” as the song fades out chilling and spooky.

Released as the lead-off single from
Fun In Space
, ‘Future Management’ peaked at a disappointing No. 49 in the UK, but did mark Roger’s first appearance on
Top Of The Pops
which featured him playing a guitar next to a soft sculpture of the alien from the album sleeve. Reviews for the single were mixed;
Sounds
said, “It’s a reggaeish song which is bearable enough. A laudable attempt to step out of the shadow of the tooty one,” while
NME
panned it: “Roger does a [Todd] Rundgren and plays everything apart from Scrabble. A plodding regatta de blanc that drags rather than just lays back.”

THE GAME OF LOVE
(Ballard)

Originally performed by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, ‘The Game Of Love’ was played live by The Reaction.

GAZELLE
(Mercury)

• Compilation (Freddie):
Solo Collection

A short and strange drum-machine experimentation, featuring multi-tracked Freddies engaging in nonsensical vocalizations and repeated cries of the title, ‘Gazelle’ was recorded on 19 April 1984 at
Musicland Studios, and was never a serious contender for inclusion on
Mr Bad Guy
. It was ultimately issued on
The Solo Collection
.

GET DOWN, MAKE LOVE
(Mercury)

• Album:
World
• Live:
Killers, On Fire, Montreal

By 1977, Freddie had become a self-proclaimed sex addict. Gone were the days of the vocalist timidly singing of faeries, ogres and other mythical creatures: this was a changed man, revelling in his leather phase. As he once said, “I quite like leather. I fancy myself as a black panther.” However, he became more promiscuous in his sex life, as his 1977 proto-funk composition, ‘Get Down, Make Love’, celebrates. Set to a sleazy bass backing, Freddie moans and groans his way through the suggestive lyrics, crying “You say you’re hungry / I give you meat!” and “I suck your mind / You blow my head” with unrestrained glee. Freddie’s sexuality by this time was still a closely-guarded secret, though he was frank in interviews and all but confirmed his leanings with deliberately coy one-liners as “I’m as gay as a daffodil, darling!” It just didn’t seem to matter much at the time, considering his early involvement in the blossoming glam-rock scene, where sexual ambiguity wasn’t just promoted but embraced freely. Freddie simply evolved, and channelled his championing of carnal desires into song.

The middle portion of the song draws heavily from Led Zeppelin’s 1969 classic ‘Whole Lotta Love’: whereas Robert Plant duelled against Jimmy Page’s theremin on that recording, here Freddie squeals while Brian feeds The Red Special through a harmonizer. “I’ve used [that] really as a noise more than a musical thing,” Brian explained in a 1983 BBC Radio One interview. “It’s controllable because I had a special little pedal made for it, which means I can change the interval at which the harmonizer comes back, and it’s fed back on itself so it makes all swooping noises. It’s just an exercise in using that together with noises from Freddie – a sort of erotic interlude.”

Industrial band Nine Inch Nails recorded a deconstructed version of the song for their 1989 album
Sin
, bringing the song to a much wider audience. Much like Nirvana’s acoustic reading of David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, Nine Inch Nails’ rendition has gained accolades and is considered a triumph by Trent Reznor and company. It was this recording that was brought to Queen Productions’ attention, who asked him to remix ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Stone Cold Crazy’, and ‘Spread Your Wings’ for their respective reissues, although the third title remains unreleased.

Queen included the song in the set list between 1977 and 1982, allowing Freddie the opportunity to get lost within a blanket of darkness, dry ice, and flickering lights. Live versions can be found on
Live Killers
and
Queen On Fire: Live At The Bowl
, though something is definitely lost in translation without the assistance of the stunning visuals.

GIMME SOME LOVIN’
(Winwood/Winwood/Davis)

• Live:
Wembley

Queen performed a cover version of the 1965 Spencer Davis Group hit single a few times throughout the
Magic
tour in 1986, and the version released on
Live At Wembley Stadium
is a loose interpretation at best. That Freddie sings the wrong words is a further indication of the spontaneity.

GIMME THE PRIZE
(KURGAN’S THEME) (May)

• Album:
AKOM
• CD Single: 1/98 [13]

The 1980s had been a difficult period, musically, for Brian: lost in a fog of funk and pop, the band members of Queen were pulling in different directions, and the guitarist was often on the losing end. He tried his best to keep the rock alive, but his songs were often passed over in favour of the chart-friendly ones, such as ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘
A Kind Of Magic
’. ‘Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)’ channels the guitarist’s frustrations into four minutes of neo-metal, showcasing The Red Special more than it does Freddie. Structurally reminiscent of ‘Brighton Rock’ (which focuses more on instrumental prowess than its lyrical construction), the song is subtitled ‘Kurgan’s Theme’, the villain from the
Highlander
movie, but the words aren’t reliant to the plot, instead boasting of wartime pigheadedness and braggadocio: “Give me your kings, let me squeeze them in my hands / Your puny princes, your so called leaders of your land / I’ll eat them whole before I’m done / The battle’s fought and the game is won”. The guitar solo is heavily inspired by the Scottish theme of the film, with Brian likening his sound to that of bagpipes.

Because of John’s and Freddie’s dislike for the track, which Brian revealed shortly after the album’s release, ‘Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)’ wasn’t
a contender for inclusion on the Magic tour set list, despite its built-in guitar extravaganza. Due to its similarities with the stronger ‘Princes Of The Universe’, it was overlooked, too, as a single track, but was issued as the B-side to the US ‘
A Kind Of Magic
’ in June 1986. The track was remixed for the 1998 computer game Queen: The eYe, in which it was presented as a completely instrumental remix without dialogue. This version was issued on the CD single of ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ in January 1998.