TALON'S TAKE
Good Old-Fashioned Lover BoyWritten by: Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury - lead and backing vocals, piano
Brian May - guitars, backing vocals
John Deacon - bass guitar
Roger Taylor - drums, triangle, woodblocks, backing vocals
Mike Stone - additional vocals
- Issued kind of as a single. It was the lead track on what was called
Queen's First EP which collected a song from
Queen II (White Queen), Sheer Heart Attack (Tenement Funster), A Night At The Opera (Death On Two Legs) and this song in the UK where it hit #17 on the charts.
- Mike Stone, who you may remember was the sound engineer who assisted Queen produce this album and the next one, is the one singing the line:
Before I found out, I thought it was Brian and then Roger from the video when Rog mimes it.
- This is really the last of the Freddie vaudeville type songs unfortunately. I wish he continued this tradition!
- Played live as part of the medley through 1978 or so. Hillariously Freddie could rarely remember all the lyrics so he would throw in a few ram pam pams in replacing lines here and there.
QUOTES:
- “[It’s] one of my vaudeville numbers. I always do a vaudeville track though
Lover Boy’ is more straightforward than
Seaside Rendezvous for instance. It’s quite simple, piano and vocals with a catchy beat; the album needs it to sort of ease off.” – Freddie Mercury
- Freddie Mercury: "It’s called
Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, and it’s in my ‘ragtime’ mood that I get a chance to, [Laughs] to do on every album and this time, this is something I’ve come up with this time around."
Kenny Everett: "Right, a little frilly number from the pen of Fred."
ALTERNATIVE RELEASED VERSION:
TOP OF THE POPS VERSION- ESSENTIAL listening
- The band rerecorded a version to mime on Top Of The Pops. This version is slightly more up tempo at times, more live sounding. The Mike Stone part is taken on by Roger.
UNRELEASED LIVE VERSION:
LIVE AT EARLS COURT - 1977- I couldn't find a decent quality standalone so this is
Killer Queen into
Lover Boy.
- And yes - it has a few ram pam pams in it :D
PERSONAL NOTES:
- This one took a little bit to grow on me but it did and now I love it. Dancy fun, and flirty with some great harmonies and background vocals.
CHANCES:
Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy......5% -- 5% may even be too high, but it was on Greatest Hits, and while it was less than 0% with Paul, this is the type of song they COULD conceivably do with Adam. Not saying it's likely but I didn't think they'd do Don't Stop Me Now....so anything can happen BUT I still would be a bit surprised.
SUPPLEMENTAL:
I Was Born To Love YouWritten by: Freddie Mercury
Musicians:
Freddie Mercury - lead and backing vocals, piano, keyboards
Brian May - guitars, keyboards
John Deacon - bass guitar
Roger Taylor - drums, percussion
- Issued as a single in Japan where it hit #45. It became more well known later on in abour 2004, after being in an advertisement.
- Seems to be a Brian arrangement with a lot of extra guitars.
- The ending has a few snippets taken from different tracks such as A Kind Of Magic[/b](Ha ha ha ha it's magic) and Freddie's solo
Living On My Own (I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah)
ALTERNATIVE
VIDEO VERSION- Part of the Made In Heaven Films project where young British filmmakers made short form films out of MIH songs.
VINYL EDITPROMO EDITGREATEST HITS 2011 EDIT JAPAN- NO YT Vids.
- NOT ESSENTIAL. They all are brief edits at the end of the song just in slightly different spots.
FREDDIE'S SOLO VERSIONLIVE
QPR IN JAPAN 2005- ESSENTIAL! I wish I could find the official release but it's been taken off YT. You really can't see it here but you hear it at least.
- On their short Japan tour in 2005, it had just been a big hit again so Brian and Roger decided to give the Japanese fans a treat. So during the encore, Brian brought out an acoustic guitar and sings a verse and Roger comes out to sing a verse and it's just awesome. It reminds me of Brian's little dittys at Hammersmith. Fun version.
FREDDIE'S ORIGINAL
PERSONAL NOTES: I LOVE this version more than Freddie's solo. A lot more guitars and it actually seems like they were jamming together when they recorded this (even though obviously they were not). Freddie's version was far more like a demo.
CHANCES:
I Was Born To Love You....0% in America....25% in Japan -- It became a bit of phenomenon in Japan so I wouldn't be surprised if during the Brian/Roger mini section or perhaps the first encore we see Brian and Roger do a similar to 2005 version.
