Sheer Heart AttackWritten by: Roger Taylor
Musicians:
Freddie Mercury - lead and backing vocals
Roger Taylor - lead and backing vocals, drums, rhythm guitar, bass guitar
Brian May - guitars
- Well as you can tell from the title this is a song that Rog had been working on for awhile now! It also was the beginning of Roger really discovering himself as a multi-instrumentalist as except for some shared lead vocals from Freddie and some additional guitar from Brian, Roger did everything - to the point where John isn't even on the track.
- In a time when punk was starting to explode, Queen shows that they are again ahead of their time given that the song was written in 1974. A show that Queen could punk it out with the best of them, although on stage it would still be a glitzy kind of punk
- Played live through 1982 and often was the first song of the encore until it was dropped.
QUOTES:
- "It sounds like a punk, or ‘new wave’ song but it was written at the same time as the Sheer Heart Attack LP. Roger played it to us then but it wasn’t quite finished and he didn’t have time to complete it before we started recording That was three years ago and now almost all these records you hear are like that period.” – Brian May – Circus – 1978
- "We came up with the title for the Sheer Heart Attack album, and it was a song that I had an idea for, but I hadn't actually finished the song, yet. By the time I had finished the song, we were two albums later, so it just struggled out on the News of the World album. It's quite interesting, because we were making an album next-door to a punk band, the Sex Pistols, and it really fit into that punk explosion that was happening at the time, which was happening right then. It was actually better that it happened that it came out on the News of the World album." - Roger Taylor” - Rockline 1991
- "At the moment, punk is suffering from all the worst symptoms of hype and the oldest plagues of the business possible. It’s so much crap right now. I like raw rock ‘n’ roll, mind you, and I like the Sex Pistol’s album but…there’s nothing new, it doesn’t mean much at the moment.” – Roger Taylor
ALTERNATIVE RELEASED VERSION
QUEEN ROCKS VIDEO VERSIONNO YT VID
- From the video version of the
Queen Rocks compilation, it edits out about fourteen seconds in the middle...which to me makes it a better version to be honest as all it loses is some of the shrieking feedback guitar.
FAN MADE VIDEO PICKED BY BRIAN AND ROGER- Ok nothing new audio wise but in 2011 Talenthouse and Queen had a contest for fans to create their own video for this particular song. This was the winner hand picked by Brian and Roger. It contains QUITE a few nods to the bands videos from over the years.
OFFICIALLY RELEASED LIVE VERSION:
LIVE KILLERS VERSION- AUDIO only.
LIVE IN PARIS VERSION- THe AUDIO is officially released and pristine. The video is from a bootleg and a fan synched it up.
UNRELEASED LIVE VERSION
LIVE AT HAMMERSMITH 1979- This is one of my favorite concerts from the band so I always will throw a video from it in here. Freddie is very wild in this song!
PERSONAL NOTES:
- You can't tell me I can't critique the band...I don't do it much, but I HATE about 14 seconds of this song. The squealing feedback guitar is too much for me and makes it unenjoyable. The rest of the song though is PURE energy and a FUN live performance.
- Roger and Freddie's voices blend so well together, even Queen fans sometimes have a hard time telling who is singing what!
Next up, a turn in the opposite direction, Brian writes a very mournful ballad and sings a beautiful duet with Freddie....it isn't until much later I found out who it was written for...in
All Dead, All Dead
