Queen: The Complete Works (74 page)

The song concludes with a reverse timeline of Freddie’s life: the ending segment starts with a vocal impromptu from Wembley Stadium in 1986, then moves onto a brief clip of every officially released Queen song compressed into ten seconds, and concludes with one of Freddie’s first vocal performances from ‘Goin’ Back’ in 1972. And what a fitting conclusion it is: “I think I’m going back, to the things I loved so well in my youth.”

MUSTAPHA
(Mercury)

• Album:
Jazz

Without a doubt one of Freddie’s most bizarre compositions, ‘Mustapha’ is a song that has hardly any English words, but contains enough caterwauling from Freddie that its meaning becomes secondary. Opening the
Jazz
album in a confusing manner, the song, nonetheless, features a fine vocal performance from its author but the words are the main drawback: apparently written for a friend of his from school back in Bombay, the words are a mixture of Arabic, Parsi and (a little) English blended together to create a weird yet entertaining end result.

‘Mustapha’ was performed live between 1978 and 1980, usually as the medley opener, but mostly as an introduction to other songs (on the 1980 tour, as well as during some 1981 shows, the song was performed in its entirety). It created a minor sensation when it was issued in 1979 as a single from
Jazz
in Bolivia, Germany, Spain and Yugoslavia.

MY BABY DOES ME
(Queen)

• Album:
Miracle

This collaboration between John and Freddie is an average track from
The Miracle
that serves as an unfulfilling lead-in to ‘Was It All Worth It?’ Despite being a cool slice of the funk the pair were so adept at creating (‘Cool Cat’ and ‘Pain Is So Close To Pleasure’), with an emotional, wailing guitar contribution from Brian, the song is too faceless to really make an impression. More mundanely, the song was originally recorded as ‘My Baby Loves Me’, with a demo slipping out in recent years – yes – featuring the word “does” replaced with “loves”. Interestingly, the drum machine pattern used on this song was also used for the unreleased ‘I Guess We’re Falling Out’, itself a far superior song to this one.

“That song stemmed from John and myself,” Freddie said in a 1989 BBC Radio One interview. “I seem to remember I wanted something a little more relaxed than the way the other songs were getting. I felt that we didn’t have something that was a little more clear-headed, and not too involved. And so we decided we should have something very easy, very listenable.”

MY BOY
(May)

• Compilation (Brian):
Lullabies For A Difference

Originally recorded by Brian in 1980 as part of a trio of demos (‘The Dark’ and ‘I’m Scared’ were the other two, though these were ultimately re-recorded in 1988 and issued on his first solo album,
Back To The Light
, four years after that), this delicate ballad was recorded during sessions for
Hot Space
in 1982 but was kept unreleased; it’s obvious why, when one hears it in tandem with the other songs on that album. It’s a shame about the loss, since it’s easily one of Brian’s most tender piano ballads and would have been an ideal closer for the album. The original 1980 demo was later issued on the 1998 compilation album
Lullabies For A Difference
, compiled by Joan Armatrading.

MY COUNTRY I & II
(Taylor)

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

While Roger would shy away from denigrating politicians and lambasting jingoism on Queen records, his solo albums were fair game. His first,
Fun In Space
, was largely apolitical, but the major saga on it was ‘My Country I & II’, an epic, seven-minute rocker that decries the futility of war and politicians’ plight to further a winning ticket instead of enrich their constituents’ lives. The song was well timed given the outbreak of war between Britain and Argentina over control of the Falkland Islands. Because ‘Under Pressure’ was topping the Argentinean charts at the time, the government there concluded that the song was British propaganda cooked up for the event and promptly banned the record from the airwaves. Roger seethed, “In Argentina, we were Number One when that stupid war was going on and we had a fantastic time there, and that can only be for the good. Music is totally international.”

The first part of the song is a leisurely stroll, with Roger and some sweetly-sung chorus vocals proclaiming his conscientous objection. The second part, however, is an impressive display of power chords and clattering drums, as Roger all but howls his beliefs. The concluding coda, where Roger croons “You don’t get me” repeatedly, fades out then back in before finishing abruptly. Truly a masterpiece.

‘My Country I & II’ was chosen as the second single from
Fun In Space
in June 1981, but unfortunately fell victim to the record company’s decision to edit the track to a more radio-friendly running time. Clocking in at just under four minutes, the song is disjointed and almost immediately kicks into the second, drum-oriented part of the song; unsurprisingly, the song failed to chart.

MY FAIRY KING
(Mercury)

• Album:
Queen
• Compilation:
BBC
• CD Single: 6/96 [9]

Concluding the first side of Queen is Freddie’s exquisite ‘My Fairy King’, a song which revealed the vocalist’s fascination with mythical (and mystical) creatures and stories, subjects he would explore deeper on subsequent songs. Written later in original Queen bassist Barry Mitchell’s waning days as a band member, the song was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem ‘The Pied Piper’, even borrowing directly the lines “And their dogs outran our fallow deer / And honeybees had lost their stings / And horses were born with eagles’ wings”. More significantly, the reference to Mother Mercury inspired Freddie to finally change his name from Bulsara, thus completing the first stage of his metamorphosis.

Driven by Freddie’s piano, ‘My Fairy King’ marked the first time that the band even knew of his mastery of the instrument. “He’s virtually a self-taught pianist,” Brian later recalled, “and he was making vast strides at the time, although we didn’t have a piano on stage at that point because it would have been impossible to fix up. So in the studio was the first chance Freddie had to do his piano things and we actually got that sound of the piano and the guitar working for the first time, which was very exciting. ‘My Fairy King’ was the first of these sort of epics where there were lots of voice overdubs and harmonies. Freddie got into this, and that led to ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ on the second album and then ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ later on.”

“‘My Fairy King’ was a number Freddie wrote,” John said in 1976, “which ... was built up in the studio. Whereas there are other numbers which are essentially live songs, basically just the track and then just a few backing vocals and guitar solos over the top and that was it.” The complexity of this song made it impossible to perform live, though Freddie obviously held some affection for it: he would occasionally slip the melody into improvisations on the 1982
Hot Space
and 1984/1985
Queen Works!
tours. It was presented, however, on the first BBC broadcast by Queen, albeit in a rougher fashion. Even though the BBC version merely takes the master track of the song from the Trident album sessions, the vocals were recorded on 5 February 1973; this version was released on the 1989 UK compilation
Queen at the Beeb
, and again six years later on the US equivalent, retitled
Queen at the BBC
.

MY GENERATION
(Townshend)

The Who’s 1965 power anthem was played live by 1984.

MY GIRL
(Robinson)

Originally performed by The Temptations, ‘My Girl’ was also covered live by 1984.

MY LIFE HAS BEEN SAVED
(Queen)

• B-side: 10/89 [25] • Album:
Heaven

Written by John and recorded during sessions for
The Miracle
in 1988, ‘My Life Has Been Saved’ was unfairly relegated to B-side status – despite some of the more questionable material that ended up on the album – as the flip-side of ‘Scandal’ in October 1989. With some beautiful keyboard work and a hardworking Brian on slide guitar, the song is a moody, atmospheric appreciation for life and taking things in stride in a world of disarray and confusion.

In the context of Freddie’s passing, this seems like an odd choice to have revisited for the
Made In Heaven
album, but it provided an optimistic glimmer of hope to an album of downbeat, sombre ballads. Unfortunately, the reworked version is more keyboard-dominated, with Brian’s guitar buried in the mix, and the touching vocal coda (“I made it up / I’m blind / I don’t know what’s coming to me”) removed.

MY LOVE IS DANGEROUS
(Mercury)

• Album (Freddie):
BadGuy
• B-side (Freddie): 9/85 [50] • Compilations (Freddie):
Pretender, FM Album, The Solo Collection

The penultimate track from
Mr Bad Guy
is the least inspiring: Freddie’s vocals are drenched in echo and set to a vague reggae-dub rhythm. Freddie, however, held some affection for it, feeling it accurately summed up his position as a lover. “I haven’t actually analyzed myself and said, ‘OK, my love is dangerous’,” he said in 1985. “I think after all these years I just feel I’m not a very good partner for anybody and I just think that’s what my love is. I think my love is dangerous. Who wants their love to be safe? Can you imagine writing a song called ‘My Love Is Safe’? It would never sell!”

An early version, going under the name of ‘Love Is Dangerous’, was recorded on 29 May 1984 and deviates little from the released version, while an extended remix, running just over six minutes and bordering on the tedious, was created for inclusion on the 12” single version of ‘Living On My Own’. Thankfully, it was remixed in 1992 for inclusion on the compilation album
The Great Pretender
, giving new life to an otherwise unremarkable track. Remixed by Jeff Lord-Alge and produced by Julian Raymond, the song is turned into a muscular hard rocker and benefits greatly.

MY MELANCHOLY BLUES
(Mercury)

• Album:
World
• CD Single: 11/89 [21] • Bonus:
World

What better way to close
News Of The World
than with this slick jazz-lounge track? After the final bars of the raucous ‘It’s Late’ have finished ringing, Freddie’s dulcet piano heralds the intro to one of his most sublime compositions, and showed that, despite the base carnal desires of ‘Get Down, Make Love’, he could still come up with something surprising instead of shocking. Written from the viewpoint of an inveterate barfly, the narrator is drowning his sorrows in the bottom of a glass, lamenting the loss of his lover but certain he’ll bounce back in time for the next party. Featuring an understated performance from Roger on brushed drums and John on bass, ‘My Melancholy Blues’ (originally demoed as ‘My Melancholy Baby’) is one of the few Queen tracks with no guitar contribution whatsoever. Instead, Freddie takes the initiative, turning in two gorgeous and tasteful piano solos.

The song became a regular in the 1977/1978
News Of The World
tour, but was dropped from the
Jazz
tour in favour of ‘Dreamers Ball’. An outstanding live version from December 1977 in Houston was released on the CD single of ‘The Miracle’ in November 1989, which had also featured on the cut-and-paste video anthology
Rare Live: A Concert Through Time And Space
. The BBC version, recorded on 28 October 1977, was finally released in 2011 on the double-disc edition of
News Of The World
. Adding in a splendid guitar solo courtesy of Brian, the song concludes with a spine-tingling laugh from Freddie and is undoubtedly a highlight of the sixth BBC session.

MY SECRET FANTASY

From the same batch of demos as ‘Self-Made Man’ and ‘Robbery’, ‘My Secret Fantasy’ is an alluring though lyrically sparse song, structured around a mesmerizing keyboard sequence. Rumoured to have been written by John, it’s very likely that Freddie had a hand in the writing of the song too.

A NATION OF HAIRCUTS
(Taylor)

• Album (Roger):
Electric
• B-side (Roger): 3/99 [38]

Attacking the fashionistas of the world, Roger’s ‘A Nation Of Haircuts’ is a fine, driving rocker on
Electric Fire
, buried among songs that deal with far weightier subjects like domestic discord and success stories. A nice complement to ‘London Town, C’mon Down’, the song rolls along at a decent clip, with Roger’s diatribe (distorted by the “shouting down the telephone” effect he prefers on much of his latter-day material) cutting down a peg the moody heroin chic models more concerned with their coif than with anything of substance.

Believing that the very poseurs that he was lambasting wouldn’t appreciate the grittier album version, Roger deconstructed the song into a sleek, sexy “club dub” remix, removing the backing track completely and adding faceless programmed drums and percolating synths. Released as the B-side of ‘Surrender’ in 1999, this rendition is worth a cursory listen or two, but isn’t a match for the less image-conscious original.

NAZIS 1994
(Taylor)

• A-side (Roger): 5/94 [22] • Album (Roger):
Happiness?

It had been just over a decade since Roger’s last true solo album, so imagine the response when faithful listeners purchased
Happiness?
and were greeted with the opening kick-march strains of ‘Nazis 1994’, the first song on the album. Set to a dirge-like rhythm, with little embellishment, the song expresses the drummer’s outrage over the recent uprising of neo-
Nazism and its proponents’ ridiculous claim that the Holocaust never happened.

When asked about the song in 1994, Roger exclaimed, “You want to talk about ‘Nazis’, eh?! I believe that it is a real problem ... one of the main dangers that exist in today’s society and particularly in Europe, of all places. I wanted to write something simple and direct which gives the main idea, one which repeats throughout the whole song. In my opinion the repetition fixes firmly the idea in people’s heads. This sentence that continually comes back is, ‘They say that it never happened’. To think that of the Holocaust is purely and simply outrageous. How can they be stupid enough to think that? The general atmosphere of ‘Nazis’ is cold and without feeling. That’s at least what I wanted to create. The only emotions that we can set against these people are the strongest emotions. That’s all there is which can stand against them.”