Queen: Days of Our Lives Page #5

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stamp their feet, clap their hands and sing.

So I woke up with We Will Rock You

in my head.

We went into Wessex with these

ideas and that happened to be..

some boards lying around, strange enough

and I thought, "What does this sound like?"

And we multi-tracked it a lot of times to achieve a

sound of a big throng of people stamping and clapping,

a huge sort of rally of people.

# We will, we will rock you... #

# We will, we will rock you... #

I came up with We Will Rock You and Freddie with

We Are The Champions. His thinking was very similar.

Basically, it is

a participation thing.

I've been really cool and I'm just

thinking in terms of the public/group thing.

# I've paid my dues

# Time after time... #

We had no idea it would become a

universal, worldwide sports anthem.

Both of them did -

Rock You and Champions.

In football or whatever sport,

you've got two opposing teams.

Both can sing We Are The Champions, but

in a rock show, there's only one team.

# I've had my share of sand

kicked in my face

# But I've come through... #

It could be construed

as a rather elitist thing.

# We are the champions,

my friends... #

But it was really "we",

the collective "we".

But if I were you, before we find out, let's get

the sound... Let's get a real sound on the drums.

It's definitely a song

of great unifying power.

# We are the champions

# No time for losers

# Cos we are the champions... #

Here we've got four tracks of vocals, one with

the solo guitar, then that's the end bit solo.

I've listened to them.

That's the only way we can do it.

Fred was very cheeky. It was

about Queen being the champions

in a sense, the arrogance

for which we were famous.

# We are the champions

# We are the champions

# No time for losers

# Cos we are the champions. #

APPLAUSE:

Only Queen could come up with the title "We

Are The Champions". Where's the modesty gone?

Well, there isn't any.

No modesty whatsoever.

After the slaggings-off we get from the English music

press, who cares? We've got nothing to lose, you know?

Anyway, it's only a song, isn't it?

F*** 'em!

In those days, it was do the album,

do a video, tour America.

One, two!

It was regarded as the sort of grail

of the rock scene.

America was meaning more

and more to us,

and when you smell success

in America, you go for it.

We looked at what was going on

in the States at the time.

The music was very much

dominated by the cool West Coast

kind of rock with The Eagles

and Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac.

And to some extent, Queen, I guess,

didn't fit that mould.

They were bigger, more glamorous,

more extravagant than,

I think, anything that existed

in the States at the time.

They really didn't know

what to make of them.

Why would you call your band Queen

when there's obviously

four guys in it?

That was puzzling.

We were all in one station wagon,

then we were all in one limo,

then it was two in one limo

and two in another,

then it was one each.

But it was really only

because the entourage grew,

it wasn't anything to do with

not wanting to talk to one another.

We did stay pretty connected,

we didn't disappear

to our dressing rooms.

Generally, we found a big place

where we could all get ready together

and we would kind of joke around.

We had a good kind of camaraderie.

This is called a miracle, folks!

I've lost my shoe!

Oh, but I don't do my own.

Dave! Do, do, do!

I went to see the Queen show

and I had never seen so much luggage

and crew and amps and lighting.

And I said, "This is not

rock'n'roll, this is a show.

"This is a production.

This is Broadway".

"We Will Rock You"

The audience participation elevated

the shows to something really special.

And I think we put a bit

of distance between us

and some of our contemporaries like that,

because it was such a great two-way event.

This was a coronation

for Freddie Mercury in this town.

# We will, we will rock you tonight

# We will, we will rock you

# Buddy you're a young man, hard

man, shouting in the street

# Gonna take on the world someday

# Mud on your face, big disgrace

# Waving your banner

all over the place

# We will, we will rock you... #

It had always surprised us

that it took so long

to break Queen in the States.

It sounds like it happened quickly, but it didn't,

it happened over a period of about eight years.

We worked very hard at it.

At no point did you think,

"We've made it," cos we hadn't.

This is, um, a Mercury composition

from "A Night At The Opera"

and it's something which a few

people asked us to do last time.

So this is for those people.

This is "Love Of My Life".

The 1977 US tour was pretty much

a sell-out. And midway through,

we actually played two nights at

the legendary Madison Square Gardens

in New York, which is

a sort of landmark for any artist.

It was a watershed for me.

It was a mythical place, of course,

big deal for us to play.

And my parents, from the

beginning... Well, my dad, really.

My dad had really been against the

whole business of me being a rock star.

It's curious, because he helped me

build the guitar.

If it hadn't been for my dad slaving hours

and hours making this homemade guitar,

I probably would never have got

to this place.

He really felt that I'd thrown

my education away.

I mean, I was educated to a high level. So

to suddenly to go off and join a rock band

with apparently no future,

my dad really could not compute it.

He was kind of in tears, really, he just

felt I'd thrown my life away completely.

# You don't know

what it means to me... #

But anyway, we were playing

Madison Square Garden and I said,

"Look, Dad, this is a big one

for us, playing America,

"it's New York, it's the first time we've

played this amazing place. Come over. "

So I said,

"Dad, you'll go on Concorde",

you know, it was my dad and my mum.

And they came to the gig

and I remember to this day,

this feeling that our feet

weren't really on the ground, there

was so much electricity in this place.

# You don't know

what it means to me... #

And we came off thinking,

"Wow, that was really something,"

and then I went back with my dad

and my dad said, "OK."

He said, "OK, I get it now. "

# Oooh. #

Thank you, Madison Square Garden.

What's happening

when we go back to London?

You're one of the few bands

that actually haven't left Britain.

We're sort of an English band

in a way, we've always lived there.

Well, London particularly.

We've always recorded in England.

It doesn't change the fact that the

taxman still takes a lot of your money!

I think at the time,

we were paying 83%,

and plus, if you had any money in

the bank which was earning interest,

another 15%, which makes 98% tax.

So we decided to record the next

album, which was "Jazz", in France.

So that's what we did. In a tiny

little village called Super Bear,

we started the process

of making this album.

# Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle

# I want to ride my bicycle,

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