Queen: The Complete Works (65 page)

KANSAS CITY
(Leiber/Stoller)

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s ‘Kansas City’, covered by The Beatles in 1964, was performed by The Cross at their final concert (with Roger Taylor) at the Gosport Festival on 29 July 1993.

KASHMIR
(Page/Plant/Bonham)

During Robert Plant’s performance of ‘
Innuendo
’ at the Concert For Life on 20 April 1992, the vocalist threw in a verse from Led Zeppelin’s classic ‘Kashmir’, an appropriate gesture since ‘
Innuendo
’ was partly inspired by the epic 1975
Physical Graffiti
track.

KEEP A-KNOCKIN’
(Penniman/Williams/Mays)

• CD single (Roger): 9/98 [45]

Recorded during sessions for Roger’s
Electric Fire
, this version of Little Richard’s ‘Keep A-Knockin” (which inspired Led Zeppelin’s ‘Rock And Roll’, a favourite of Roger’s) is enjoyable but clearly intended as a fun throwaway. Because of its scarcity, there aren’t any personnel listings, leaving the mystery of the great saxophone accompaniment unsolved – for the time being. This jolly recording was released as part of the ‘Pressure On’ CD single in September 1998.

KEEP ON RUNNING
(Edwards)

Recorded during sessions for Roger’s original vision of
Strange Frontier
in 1983, ‘Keep On Running’, first recorded by The Spencer Davis Group in 1965, is a great rendition that deserved to be released in some form. Roger already covered Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Racing In The Street’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters Of War’ as a pointed message of the withering American dream in the face of the Cold War, and, with two cover songs already on
Strange Frontier
, a third would have been overkill, but based on the outstanding vocal performance alone, ‘Keep On Running’ would have made a fine non-album B-side.

KEEP PASSING THE OPEN WINDOWS
(Mercury)

• Album:
Works
• B-side: 11/84 [21]

A standout track from
The Works
, Freddie’s ‘Keep Passing The Open Windows’ was originally written for the film
The Hotel New Hampshire
, the soundtrack of which the band had been working on simultaneously with
The Works
but eventually pulled out from when the producers opted to use a pre-recorded orchestral soundtrack to cut costs. While working simultaneously on two projects had kept the band’s creative juices charged in 1980, this time the inspiration hadn’t returned, so Queen were happy to focus instead on their next studio album. As Freddie told Rudi Dolezal in 1984, “When I write a song, I have in my head what the others can do and it’s used as reference. But sometimes I do it knowing that it’ll be difficult for everyone. It’s my challenge. For example, I had written ‘Keep Passing The Open Windows’ for the film
Hotel New Hampshire
but it was finally refused so I had to change it completely so it could be adapted to
The Works
.”

Updating Freddie’s earlier stance on suicide (see ‘Don’t Try Suicide’), the song chugs along at a rapid pace as Freddie implores the listeners to keep their heads held high, since everybody faces tough times and suicide is not the answer. The band turn in a truly fantastic performance, driven by a percolating bass line that would be used to greater effect on ‘
A Kind Of Magic
’. Everything melds together neatly, though the outro (with Freddie singing the title over and over again) drags on a bit. With some subtle synthesizer touches and a rock-steady rhythm, the song is a forgotten highlight on the second side of
The Works
.

‘Keep Passing The Open Windows’ was released as the B-side of the withdrawn ‘Man On The Prowl’ single in November 1984, before those two songs were used as the double B-side to ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’. An extended version, with a running time of just under seven minutes, was issued on 12” editions of that single, adding very little of substance to the original.

KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE
(May)

• A-side: 7/73 • Album:
Queen
• Bonus:
Queen, Opera
• B-side: 10/91 [16] • CD Single: 10/91 [16] • CD Single: 10/95 [2] • Live:
Killers, Montreal

Bearing the distinction of being the first song Brian played to Freddie and Roger in 1970, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ is a milestone in the formative years of Queen, and a true ‘sleeper’ hit: at the time of its original release it was a flop, but because of increased exposure in the live set, its momentum grew until it became an undeniable powerhouse, an early indicator of the sound that Queen would develop over their next few albums, even if the rest of
Queen
was unfocused. With its startling use of tape phasing and a mouthful of lyrics about an underachieving, fun-loving fella, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ is a prime example of the perfectionism that became the trademark of Queen’s future sessions: despite its live, off-the-cuff feeling, every note is considered and deliberately placed, with just enough calculated spontaneity to keep it fresh and exciting.

The song was first recorded between September
and December 1971, along with ‘Great King Rat’, ‘Jesus’, ‘Liar’ and ‘The Night Comes Down’, at De Lane Lea Studios as part of Queen’s first recording session. Initially, the multi-tracked guitar intro was performed on an acoustic guitar, with the main riff overdubbed on electric, mirroring a similar tactic used on The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’ from 1969. This rawer version is a revelation, with a more tentative vocal from Freddie and a busier drum arrangement; Brian certainly preferred it over the re-recorded studio version, telling BBC Radio One in 1983, “The first recording of it ever was in De Lane Lea when we did it ourselves and I’ve still got that recording and I think it’s very good and has something which the single never had. But THEY pressurized us very strongly to redo all the tracks and we redid ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ with Roy and it was pretty awful, actually. I thought it was terrible and I was very unhappy about it and I thought the De Lane Lea one was better and I eventually managed to persuade Roy that it was better as well. So, we went back in and did it again in a way that was a bit more true to the original. But there is no way that you can ever really repeat something. I have this great belief that the magic of the moment can never be recaptured and, although we ended up with something that was technically in the playing and perhaps even in the recording a bit better than the De Lane Lea thing. I still think that the De Lane Lea one had that certain sort of magic, so I was never really happy. As it turned out no one else was ever really happy either and we kept remixing it. We thought that it’s the mix that’s wrong, we kept remixing and there must have been, at least, seven or eight different mixes by different groups of people. Eventually we went in and did a mix with Mike Stone, our engineer, and that’s the one that we were in the end happiest with. That’s the one we put out. But, to my mind ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was never really satisfactory. Never had that magic that it should have had.”

The song was re-recorded properly in 1972, with a stricter and more conservative arrangement including all the elements that would become trademarks of the band: complex vocal harmonies, intricate guitar arrangements, a sturdy rhythm section and an eccentric lead vocal performance. Brian explained further in 1998, “As far as arranging the guitar harmonies, it wasn’t that difficult – I was always able to hear in my head what was going to work. As a result, my guitar orchestrations were mostly intuitive and worked out on the spot, such as the harmonized solos on ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. It was afterwards that I actually analyzed why a certain arrangement I came up with worked.”

“That was real tape phasing,” Brian told
Guitar Player
in 1983. “This was in the days when you took the tape off the synch head, put it through a couple of other tape delays, and then brought it back with the play head. There is no processing whatsoever on the solo in that tune, as far as I remember. I used John Deacon’s small amplifier and the Vox AC-30 to do that little three-part chorus thing behind, as well as the fingerboard pickup on the guitar. There is a bit more tape phasing on the end of that track.”

The song marks the first and only instance of Brian, Roger and Freddie singing lead vocals together on a Queen song until 1995’s ‘Let Me Live’. While Freddie sings the majority of the song, Roger and Brian engaging in a bit of call-and-response in the bridge, with the drummer asking, “Do you think you’re better every day?”, answered by the guitarist, “No, I just think I’m two steps nearer to my grave.” This would mark the first lead vocal appearance of Brian on a Queen song, though he wouldn’t sing a complete song on the first album, finally tackling ‘Some Day, One Day’ on
Queen II
. Roger sang ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’, which appeared later on the debut album.

The final version was released as a predecessor to
Queen
in July 1973, two weeks before the album hit the shops. With Brian’s suggestive ‘Son And Daughter’ on the B-side, the single was considered too long to get going (with a twenty-second guitar-only intro, and a further fifteen seconds of instrumental jamming before the verse finally starts) and flopped in the charts, becoming the first and only UK Queen single not to reach the charts. The song was rejected by BBC’s Radio One DJs five times, though the song actually achieved ‘hit’ status in parts of New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.) and Japan.

For promotional reasons, Trident Productions set up a video shoot for this song and ‘Liar’, which was intended to be hawked to
Top of the Pops
and other music television programmes. Two versions were shot: the first, on 9 August 1973 at Brewer Street Studios, was directed by Mike Mansfield but was rejected by the band, since they felt it portrayed them falsely and had lighting which wasn’t moody enough. The second version, filmed on 1 October at St John’s Wood Studios, right before the band commenced an extensive British tour supporting Mott the Hoople, was directed by Queen and Barry Sheffield (the manager of Trident Productions) and showed the band in a more dramatic
light, earning their approval. Despite all the trouble that went into the videos, they were never shown; instead, BBC TV compiled a collage video in July 1973 for the programme The Old Grey Whistle Test, which contained no Queen involvement whatsoever. In their stead is old black and white footage from television broadcasts over the years, which was originally created for US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s campaigns from the late 1930s. This footage, along with interpolations from the above two video shoots, was recompiled in 1992 by The Torpedo Twins for inclusion on the US video compilation
Greatest Hits
. The second video version remained unreleased until
Greatest Video Hits Volume 1
in 2002.

‘Keep Yourself Alive’ would become an oft-performed track in the live setting, where it became a staple of the set list between 1970 and 1981. (It was dropped from the 1982 set list, but was revived in 1984 and 1985.) The song would undergo several tempo and mood changes over the years, and was often the base for extended improvisation. Two versions were recorded for the BBC: both were essentially remixes of the standard album version with re-recorded lead vocal tracks. The first was overdubbed on 5 February 1973 at Langham 1 Studio and was produced by Bernie Andrews (this version later appeared on the 1989 UK compilation,
Queen at the Beeb
, which was released in America in 1995 as
Queen at the BBC
), while the second was taped on 25 July, also at Langham 1 but produced by Jeff Griffin.

In the summer of 1975, Elektra Records approached Queen with the idea of re-releasing ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ as a single. By that point, the band had become more popular in the States, and, with sessions planned to commence on their fourth album shortly, this was met with a surprising amount of positivity. On 2 July, the band entered Trident Studios to record a completely revamped recording of the song, with a fresh, new arrangement more akin to its live renditions than the original. Unfortunately, shortly after the sessions ended, issues that had been building with Trident Productions and Norman and Barry Sheffield came to a head, and a moratorium was placed on all new recordings while the legal squabbles were worked out. ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was lost in the mire of litigation, and, with Elektra at a loss, the original 1972 recording was released instead, albeit edited slightly. This re-recording would remain unreleased until 1991, when it was unearthed by Hollywood Records’ archivists and included as a bonus track on the CD reissue of
Queen
. Twenty years later, the song once again appeared as part of a comprehensive archival release, this time being released – chronologically correctly – as a bonus track on deluxe editions of
A Night At The Opera
.

THE KEY
(Taylor)

• Album (Roger):
Happiness?

When compact disc took over vinyl as the leading format for album releases, musicians suddenly had the opportunity to fill up seventy-four minutes of space. This meant that a lot of albums were weighed down with songs that would have otherwise been cut, reducing a potentially great album to a decent album with too much filler. While most of
Happiness?
was strong, there was inevitably going to be a song that was deemed filler, and ‘The Key’ is that song: it’s not necessarily a bad song, with a slinky, funky rhythm and falsetto vocals, but when stacked up against the other material, it pales in comparison. The production places it firmly in the early 1990s, with keyboards closer to a new age musician than a rock drummer, and the overly verbose lyrics don’t say a whole lot, apart from the expected slams against politicians and theology. ‘The Key’ is simply Roger by numbers, and a blemish on his finest solo album to date.

KHASHOGGI’S SHIP
(Queen)

• Album:
Miracle

Adnan Khashoggi is a Saudi entrepreneur and arms dealer who formed the large Swiss property company Triad and became a multimillionaire virtually overnight. He hit some snags in his long string of successes: in 1975, the US accused him of receiving bribes to secure military contracts in Arab countries, and eleven years later he found his fortune withering away due to the slump in oil prices and political problems in Sudan. But the man was notorious for his parties, with ‘Khashoggi’s Ship’ being an homage to both his parties and his private yacht, the Kingdom 5KR. Though not taking the side of the infamously flamboyant mogul, the song is a defiant cry against party poopers everywhere, and Freddie howls about the good times to be had at his parties over a crunching guitar riff. Freddie’s line “He pulled out a gun / Wanted to arrest me / I said ‘uh-uh-uh, baby!’” is an eerie portent of what would actually happen to Adnan in April 1989, when he was arrested in connection with illegal property deals.