Queen: Days of Our Lives Page #6

---

bicycle, bicycle... #

Lots of sort of local colour

got put onto that album.

# I want to ride my bike... #

We were sitting there and the Tour

de France cycle race came through

and inspired Freddie

to write "Bicycle... "

and for some strange reason, inspired

me to write "Fat Bottomed Girls".

Although there might have been

other inspirations there.

# On your marks, get set, go! #

Sadly, we weren't there

for the filming.

I thought it was

a hugely amusing idea.

# Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle... #

I remember the huge disappointment that

none of us could be at the photo shoot.

Because we were exiled from England,

so we couldn't go back in to see it!

I don't think you'd be able

to do that now, would you?

Yeah, I don't think

we would go there these days.

# Bicycle race! #

When it came time

to launch the "Jazz" album,

we had the idea of having

a massive party in New Orleans.

# Oh, you gonna take me home

tonight... #

It was the so-called launch

of that album,

and we had lots of girls and things,

there was a New Orleans band,

it was a very over-the-top party.

# Fat bottomed girls, you make

the rockin' world go round... #

We had a bit of a spiritual

connection with New Orleans.

A lot of our friends came,

of all sexes.

It was definitely fun.

When I opened up

the door of my suite,

on the bed was a complete case

of Dom Perignon.

And it was downhill from there.

# Heap big woman, you made a bad boy

out of me... #

I remember I felt quite

ill the next day.

There was a lot of acts..

There was a man, he was actually

a person of restricted growth,

who did lay under meats.

When asked what he did, he said,

"I lie under meats. "

And he's covered in sort of

cold cuts and sort of, um,

chopped liver and stuff like that.

You couldn't see him.

So people would approach

the trestle table

and as they just reached out

to scoop their meat,

he would just move, like that.

And that was his act!

# Tonight, I'm gonna have myself

a real good time

# I feel ali-i-i-ive... #

It wasn't a pretence, we actually

did live the life of a rock band.

Sort of living on the edge,

in a sense.

# Turning inside out, yeah

# Floating around in ecstasy

# So don't stop me now... #

"Don't Stop Me Now"

is a whole different trip, really.

It's become one of the most

popular Queen songs of all time.

# I'm a shooting star leaping

through the sky like a tiger

# Defying the laws of gravity

# I'm a racing car passing by

like Lady Godiva

# I'm gonna go, go, go,

there's no stopping me

# I'm burning through

the sky, yeah... #

It's a song of sort of

unfettered joy.

#.. Mr Fahrenheit

# I'm travelling

at the speed of light

# I wanna make a supersonic woman

of you... #

I've been quoted as saying

I don't like the track.

I kind of do like the track,

but I had mixed feelings,

because in a sense, it represented

a sort of separatism.

It was very much Freddie's world

and reflecting what he was

going through.

Freddie took to the gay scene

in New York

like David Attenborough

making a wildlife programme.

He'd report on what he'd seen with that

kind of "Hey-hey!" attitude that he had.

There was this one particular place

called The Anvil,

which seemed to have invented new

uses for parts of the human anatomy!

He was never shocked.

He was eager to be

involved in everything,

it was like he was

a social field worker.

# I wanna make a supersonic man

out of you... #

As far as I'm concerned, I just want

to pack in as much of life

and fun and having a good time

as much as I can.

# If you want to have a good time,

just give me a call

# Don't stop me now

Cos I'm having a good time.

# Don't stop me now

Yes, I'm having a good time

# I don't wanna stop at all

# Da-da da-da dah

# Da da da-ha

# Da-da-da ha-ha-hah

# Da-da-dah... #

The album "Jazz"

was not a complete flop,

it got to number 6 in the chart.

But "Don't Stop Me Now", which is a

big favourite in Britain to this day,

in America, only got to the 80s.

The review in Rolling Stone

was notorious.

And it shows you that

Queen were not respected.

We were confused by that title.

Why would a rock band

call their album "Jazz"?

It had a couple of great

tracks on it,

but it had some weaker stuff on it.

Queen was maybe viewed

as the Indian meal that had

gone cold in the refrigerator.

What's going to happen

in '79 for Queen?

We're going to make more records,

tour even more.

It's difficult to say. This has been

our hardest working year.

We'd heard that there was this

great studio called Musicland

in Munich, and we'd heard there was

this great engineer called Mack.

And we got into this rather

kind of indulgent way of just

bowling into the studio with

no ideas, or very few ideas,

and just doing it from scratch.

"What you got?"

"Well I dont know, I've got this. "

"Crazy Little Thing Called Love"

# This thing called love... #

First thing we did was

"Crazy Little Thing... "

Fred did write the song in the bath,

in about ten minutes.

# Crazy little thing called love... #

Next, he said, "Tell them I'm coming over and

we've got to go straight into the studio. "

# Like a baby

In the cradle all night... #

I was very quick, had everything

set up in pretty much no time,

and they put it down,

and then the best bit was,

"Quick, let's finish it before Brian gets

here, otherwise it takes a little longer!"

# There goes my baby

# She knows how to rock and roll

# She drives me crazy

# She gives me hot and cold fever

# She leaves me in

a cold, cold sweat... #

That was the first number 1

across the board in America.

Billboard, Cashbox

and Record World, I think.

We were still making a record,

we hadn't even nearly finished

the album,

and we were going out in Munich

and somebody came up and said,

"It's gone to number 1 in America. "

We were going, "Yeah! More drinks!"

So, "Crazy Little Thing... " completely

cracked the charts in America.

But it wasn't easy to find

the follow-up.

"Play The Game"

charted outside the US Top 40.

But the next single was

something very different.

One thing I always liked about Queen

was they were four individuals,

all of whom brought something to the table,

musically and in terms of songwriting,

and that includes

the bass player, John Deacon.

"Another One Bites The Dust"

I'd always wanted to do something

that was more sort of disco-ey,

which was very uncool at the time.

I mean, funk wasn't really

in the vocabulary.

Let's go!

John was pulling us strongly in that

direction, sort of funky direction.

And John got Roger to play

with tape all over his drums,

which is exactly what Roger hated.

Roger hated his drums

being made to sound dead.

I didn't really want to get into

dance music. It wasn't my thing.

# Another one bites the dust... #

Freddie got deeply into it, Freddie

sort of sang it until he bled,

cos he was so committed to making it sound the

way John wanted it, which was like hardcore...

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes