Queen Discussion Thread

JTIS some of the best singing of all time!

NG - One of my favorite intros to a song ever. I wish there was a full Queen version. Funny story about that particular song which is actually a Billy Squier song:

Freddie was doing backing vocals (almost co-lead) on the song when he just sat down and drunkenly just put out this melodramatic opener. The two retired for the night but Billy couldn't get it out of his head and the next day, dragged Freddie to the studio to actually record the opener, having to coach Freddie through what he remembered...as Freddie didn't remember a lot of it!

The record company though balked at the opening for the song especially as a single because they said that fans would be confused at thinking they were hearing a new Queen tune. Billy's reply, "We should all have such problems" (or something similar!)




This is actually a tough tough question to answer. On a purely credited basis - for the most part the songs had individual creators. There were a few moments where credit was given to two of them (and in the rarest of occasion - all of them). This was done ALL the way until 1989's The Miracle and 1991's Innuendo where they credited everything as written by Queen (although the discerning...and in some cases researching...Queen fan could figure out for the most part whose song was whose).

There is a quote I posted earlier which basically said while they always did work together on music, basically one person had the idea and the rest of the band fleshed it out. In the case where it was definitely a group effort, the band gave credit to the lyricist. Liar from the first album was the song pointed out in the quote.

Also further more there are stories about while Freddie and Brian were songwriting forces, John and Roger came along more slowly and often had help fully developing the ideas from Freddie. One such example is Radio Ga Ga. Roger wrote the basic structure for the song and Freddie thought it was an important song. Supposedly Roger went away on a vacation and Freddie rearranged it a TON and it ended up the way it was. BUT Roger still gets the writing credit. We'll definitely get more into this as we move onwards but it is a GREAT question

While these aren't perfect examples it'll give you a good frame of reference :D

1. Somebody writes the lyric and another one writes the music (i.e. Hangman):

Hangman was really one of the only documented times that it happened so separately as that. Most of the time the music was so organic that if they did collaborate - the collaborated the whole way through...at least as far as we know!

2. Mostly only one writer of both music and lyrics:
THIS is most of their catalogue. Although the band would flesh it out, mainly the one innovater would be the driving force. Bohemian Rhapsody was one though that Brian always said was Freddie's baby. He said he had the song all mapped out in his head and on cocktail napkins. They recorded the song in a very haphazard manner - different sections at different times and the band had NO idea what it was going to sound like until Freddie rearranged all the moving pieces.

3. Group combination of creating/writing the lyrics as they already have the melody:

One Vision If you look at the making of video from earlier in the thread - they basically had the melody and 3/4 (Freddie, Brian, and Roger came up with the lyrics together.


4. Group combo creating/editing the melody as they already have the lyrics written?:

This is more difficult. There are no documented (that I can recall) efforts where they stated they had the lyrics first. I know Freddie always did the lyrics last. As you'll eventually see many of the demos has Freddie just dee dee deeing his way through the music!




Queen II was released the year after Queen - 1974. A great year for Queen. Queen II was released in the beginning of the year and their third album, Sheer Heart Attack was released at the end of it

Or in the case of Under Pressure, leaving in the dee dees and hardly writing any lyrics at all ;D

Loving all the interesting trivia and stories you have by the way :D

Hey when it works, it works...why change it

Thanks NG :D