TALON'S TAKE
Father To SonWritten by: Brian May
Musicians:
Freddie Mercury - lead and backing vocals, piano
Brian May - acoustic & electric guitars, piano, backing vocals
John Deacon - bass guitar, acoustic guitar
Roger Taylor - drums, backing vocals
- Segued in from
Procession, this also used to follow in early live performances. Later on it would be played later in the set.
- With some comparisons to The Who, this is full of power chords but also tempo shifts and an emotional lead vocal.
- Features a great singalong at the end of the song that segues nicely into the next number.
- Marks the first appearance of John Deacon playing guitar on a Queen album!
QUOTES:
- “On
Queen II, there is a lot of stuff which I like because that was the beginning of doing guitar orchestrations which I always wanted to do.
‘Father To Son’ starts off with an introduction. After it gets into the song and a few words are sung, it immediately goes into a six part orchestral kind of thing. It was really a big thrill for me to be able to do that, because I had never been allowed to spend that amount of time in the studio to construct those things before then. That was the fulfillment of an ambition for me, to get started on the road of using the guitar as a kind of orchestral instrument. Led Zeppelin and The Who are probably in there somewhere because they were among our favorite groups, but what we are trying to do differently from either of those groups was this sort of layered sound. The Who had the open chord guitar sound, and there’s a bit of that in
‘Father To Son’ but our sound is more based on the over-driven guitar sound, which is used for the main bulk of the song, but I also wanted to build up textures behind the main melody lines.” – Brian May
UNRELEASED AND UNHEARD:
EXPOSED HYBRID VERSION- I know very little about this except that a famed Queen collector has stated it exists.
LIVE VERSIONS:
LIVE AT GOLDERS GREER HIPPODROME - SEPTEMBER 1973- Not terribly different from the studio version, but less layered obviously) and more intimate.
PERSONAL NOTES:
- For awhile this was one of my fav Queen songs ever. It still is up there and in my ever rotating spot of Top 20 Queen songs, it still makes an appearance now and again
- I love the slow piano break down that goes back to an emotional climax!
CHANCES:
Father To Son......2% -- There's always the chance that being the last tour, might dredge up stuff from their first tours. I don't think it likely but amongst the Queen/Queen II non-"hits" this would be one of the more likley.
SUPPLEMENTAL
Leaving Home Ain't EasyWritten by: Brian May
Musicians:
Brian May - lead and backing vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
John Deacon - bass guitar
Roger Taylor - drums
- Written and performed mostly by Brian. It's a very low key but very emotive song full of where Brian was coming from at those times with his relationship with his wife at the time.
- The high "lady" part is still Brian just with the tape he recorded on slowed down so when played back it plays at a higher pitch.
- Features more Brian Red Special orchestrations. Brian does a nice string section with the Old Lady here.
- This was never performed live nor are there alternate takes.
QUOTES:
-" The lady’s part? It’s me. We slowed down the tape to record it so it comes out speeded up. I think Wheetus just did the same thing on ‘Dirtbag’!” – Brian May - 2002
PERSONAL NOTES:
- This was always one of my underrated favorites on the album. Pure Brian emotion but not done in an overwrought fashion. More melancholy blues than power ballad. Sweetly sad.
CHANCES:
Leaving Home Ain't Easy.....0.5% -- The 0.5% is still hopeful wishful thinking I believe. It is a Brian song though and I think he's more apt to go back to one of his...
