Queen: Days of Our Lives Page #2

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The album came out and sort of resoundingly

crashed. It really didn't do much.

When you make your first album, you go into the record

shops and think, "We're in the record stores now!"

You go in and say, "Have you got the new Queen

album then?" They go, "What?" It's a long haul.

With Queen II, I couldn't believe

how much work we put into that.

I think We felt we were evolving

our own sound.

We were pioneering

this sort of multi-tracking thing.

It gave you a tremendous palette.

You could get massive choral effects

with just three of us singing.

# Voice from behind... #

We really got into production

and went completely over the top.

There's a track called

March Of The Black Queen.

# I'll be a bad boy,

I'll be your bad boy

# I'll do the march

of the Black Queen... #

It's very long. It's in about 11 different

sections and the complexity of it is staggering.

I mean, the tape was

literally transparent.

The 16-track, two-inch tape, the

oxide was almost completely worn away.

We'd gone over it so many times.

It literally was transparent.

# Walking true to style

# She's vulgar abuse and vile Fi-fo the

Black Queen tattoos all her pies... #

It was really only with Queen II

and Seven Seas Of Rhye

that we had the breakthrough.

We realised that the easiest way of

getting a hit album is to have a hit single

that has some musical validity.

The key to that was the stroke that was

pulled in getting them on Top Of The Pops

when Bowie dropped out

and it absolutely broke that single.

It was a very underwhelming

experience the very first time

because there was a strike on

at the BBC.

# Fear me,

you lords and lady preachers... #

So it was shot

in the weather studio.

# I command your very souls,

you unbelievers

# Bring before me what is mine

The seven seas of Rhye... #

It was great fun to be at Top Of The

Pops because it was all happening.

You felt like you were in a sense

becoming part of public consciousness.

# I will destroy any man

who dares abuse my trust... #

Top Of The Pops

was incredibly uncool.

It was rubbish because

nobody was actually playing.

There was about 75 teenagers

who were herded about the studio

and a bunch of ageing disc jockeys

presenting you.

Pan's People were there, these very

glamorous girls dancing. It was a lot of fun.

The BBC had a set of plastic cymbals that went "duh"

when you hit them, so they didn't make any noise.

I think that sort of says it all,

really.

We had slightly mixed feelings about Top

Of The Pops because it wasn't very cool,

but it was the great vehicle for

selling records, so what can you say?

It had a big impact. Our record

went straight into the top ten.

So obviously, the impact was huge.

# Storm the master marathon

I'll fly through

# By flash and thunder fire and I'll

survive I'll survive, I'll survive

# Then I'll defy the laws of nature and

come out ali-i-ive Then I'll get you... #

We had this song called Seven Seas Of Rhye, but

it's a universal truth that more groups break up

because of songwriting arguments than anything

else in the world. Your songs are your babies.

The person who has written the song tends to be the

one person who sees that one song all the way through

from the idea they have in their head at first,

the final production, the sounds and the mix...

Most of the time, I have

a clear picture of what I want.

I sort of have a lot of...

say, Roger's parts

and what Brian should do and

things... There are rows, of course.

I've probably never spoken about this before,

but The Seven Seas Of Rhye was Freddie's idea.

He had this lovely little riff idea on the piano

and all the middle eight is stuff that I did,

so we worked on it together, but when it came to

the album coming out, Freddie went, "I wrote that. "

And we all went, "OK."

It didn't seem like that big a deal.

Freddie said, "I wrote the words and

it was my idea, so it's my song. "

The sort of unwritten law was the person who brought

the song in would get the credit for writing that song

and the money for writing that song.

Much, much later in Queen history,

we recognised this fact.

# Here I stand

Here I stand

# Look around, around

# Around, around, around... #

We were very lucky in that we hooked up with

Mott The Hoople and we were their warm-up act.

# Now I'm here

Now I'm here... #

We went all around the UK with them

and it worked out just perfectly.

# Now I'm there

Now I'm there... #

Then the guys from Mott said, "Would you

like to do the same thing in America?"

# Just a new man

# Yes, you made me live again... #

After a few gigs,

I started to feel weird.

Something was happening. I didn't know if it was

my head or my body, but I started to feel odd.

Then I woke up one morning in Boston which

was going to be the climax of the tour...

I woke up and I was yellow. The doctor came and

said, "You've got hepatitis. You have to go home. "

I still was amazed we managed to shepherd him

through the immigration queue at JFK in New York.

The poor fellow could hardly stand.

I was taken on the plane

shoulder to shoulder.

We were devastated the tour had been cut

short. It was our first trip to America.

But we just ploughed on

in the studio without him.

It was a bit of a long haul

back to health.

I was getting over all this stuff and I saw

Freddie battering out all these things, thinking,

"I've not got my sh*t together," and

really starting to worry about it.

# She keeps her Moet et Chandon

# In her pretty cabinet

# "Let them eat cake" she says

just like Marie Antoinette... #

Queen I and Queen II were full-on rock albums

and I suppose it was only a question of time

before they put some clever melody into it and

Sheer Heart Attack was that break-out album.

And Killer Queen where Mercury's

vocals have probably never been better.

# She's a killer queen

Gunpowder, gelatine

# Dynamite with a laser beam

# Guaranteed to blow your mind

Any time... #

I do remember having a slight

reservation about Killer Queen.

I thought, "Are we selling ourselves as

something which has become very light?"

But every slice through that record

is a perfect vision. There's lots of little things

which visit once only like that bell of the cymbal.

RINGING SOUND # In conversation

she spoke just like a baroness

# Met a man from China

Went down to Geisha Minah

# Then again incidentally

if you're that way inclined... #

Killer Queen always felt a bit special. It

was very sophisticated and it was very Freddie.

As the albums have progressed, our songwriting has

progressed and we ventured into different areas.

# Dynamite with a laser beam

Guaranteed to blow your mind... #

I like writing different songs. We

don't like to repeat the same formula.

It had a slightly Noel Coward...

You know, that kind of element in it.

When you took the lyrics apart, you thought, "How

incredible is that!" Because they were so clever.

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