Queen: The Complete Works (47 page)

CLOSER TO YOU
(Edney)

• Album (The Cross):
MBADTK

Mad: Bad: And Dangerous To Know
was the first democratic album to be released by The Cross, with each band member contributing at least one song, and Spike Edney’s ‘Closer To You’ is an enjoyable, albeit ultimately forgettable, rocker. Considering that it’s the keyboardist’s songwriting debut within The Cross, there was obviously room for improvement, but it gives Roger a chance to stretch his vocal chords in the more ambitious moments. The song was performed live on the 1990 tour in support of the sophomore album, but wasn’t invited back for the next tour.

IL COLOSSO
(May/Holdridge)

• Soundtrack (Brian):
The Adventures of Pinocchio

The companion piece to ‘What Are We Made Of’, ‘Il Colosso’, with music by Brian and Lee Holdridge and a set of lyrics by Brian, is an ambitious, operatic, cinematic contribution to
The Adventures Of Pinocchio
, serving as an overture to the soundtrack of
Pinocchio
, though a more appropriate term would undoubtedly be ‘mini-opera’: the song shifts styles and moods ferociously, summing up the ninety-minute film succinctly in seven and a half minutes.

“Over the last months in the studio we have been recording the vocals of the puppet characters in the Opera,” Brian told the Official International Queen Fan Club in the summer of 1996. “A lovely Norwegian singer called Sissell for the Princess, a fantastic operatic tenor from the New York Met called Gerry Hadley as the King, our old friend Gary Martin (who sang with us on ‘Let Me Live’) as the Giant ‘Il Colosso’, and me as everyone else, including a cast of hundreds of peasants, soldiers, courtiers etc., and a cameo appearance as the Chamberlain!! Oh, and I nearly forgot – after many attempts we finally found a young boy to sing Pinocchio’s part, who wishes only to be known as Just William [in actuality, an electronically-altered Brian], and he’s made a fine debut as the rascal Pinocchio, himself playing the part of the Hero (for this is a play within a play). We recorded a full seventy-five-piece orchestra in Seattle a few weeks ago, then mixed it all together for the film in L.A. The soundtrack album will include a full-length version of the opera and a duet of the main song ‘What Are We Made Of’, which I wrote specially for the project (but also for my album, hopefully!) Sissel sings the duet with me and she really has a beautiful voice. This is being talked about as a possible single, probably following the release of a Stevie Wonder song which forms part of the end titles.”

COME TO YOUR SENSES

In 2009, Brian wrote this song for blues musician Troy Turner, who recorded it on his
Whole Lotta Blues
album, released the following May. This gritty blues grinder features accompaniment on guitar from Memphis session musician Steve Cropper, and is a highlight of Turner’s album. Unsurprisingly, a demo recording was made, with Brian on vocals, guitar and other programmed instruments, and was premiered at the 2010 Queen Fan Club convention. While the guitarist was presently infatuated with Kerry Ellis and recording and producing her long-player debut,
Anthems
, ‘Come To Your Senses’ proved that Brian still had the creative spark in him, and a blues album, with The Red Special featured prominently, would be a daring and welcome move from him.

COMING SOON
(Taylor)

• Album:
Game

The origins of Roger’s first contribution to
The Game
were rocky: starting off as an outtake from the
Jazz
sessions in 1978, the song was re-recorded the
following summer, originally intended to be the B-side of ‘Play The Game’ but instead promoted to album filler status when the alternative – the far superior ‘A Human Body’ – was deemed too melodic and became the B-side instead.

‘Coming Soon’ is a faceless and lyrically ambiguous new wave rocker, with Freddie and Roger duetting on lead vocals while Brian riffs along in the background and Roger and John create a monotonous rhythm section. Roger mentioned it in a 1980 ‘Innerview’ with Jim Ladd: “Originally the idea was a sort of anti-advertising song, really: ‘Coming soon to your neighbourhood’. But in the end it was meant to be a modern pop song, that’s all ... I certainly didn’t have any intention of saving the world when I was writing it!” An alternate version, featuring different backing vocal and rhythm guitar parts, was included on the 2003 DVD-A release of
The Game
since the original master tape for the song went missing.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

(Bonham/Jones/Page)

Performed by Ibex throughout most of their short career, a version of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Communication Breakdown’ surfaced from the 9 September 1969 show at The Sink Club in Liverpool.

CONTACT
(Taylor)

• Album (The Cross):
Shove
• B-side: 3/88 [83]

Sounding like a distant cousin of David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘Contact’ is the nadir of
Shove It
, encompassing everything that sums up the 1980s in five minutes: dominant synthesizers, poppy drum-machines, and the obligatory squawking saxophone, all overshadowing a thinly veiled set of lyrics about sexual contact. From any other up-and-coming band forming around 1987, ‘Contact’ would be expected, but is just embarrassing from a man who should know better.

COOL CAT
(Deacon/Mercury)

• Album: Space • B-side: 6/82 [17]

The first effective use of Freddie’s falsetto is on ‘Cool Cat’, a delicious slice of cool funk from
Hot Space
that features John on bass and rhythm guitars, synthesizer and drum-machine (Roger and Brian are not present), thus justifying the first collaborative effort between vocalist and bassist. Recorded during the latter half of 1981 during preliminary sessions for
Hot Space
, ‘Cool Cat’ originally featured David Bowie on backing vocals and was slated to be the B-side of ‘Under Pressure’. Bowie protested, however, much to the irritation of the band: “David just did a backing track,” Brian explained in 1982. “I don’t think anyone thought any more about it, except that it was a nice ornamentation. We just sent him a courtesy note telling him that we had used it and he said, ‘I want it taken off, because I’m not satisfied with it.’ Unfortunately, he didn’t tell us until about a day before the album was supposed to be released, so it really set us back. It delayed the album’s release.” A remixed version, without Bowie’s vocals, was included on the album release in May 1982 and became the B-side to ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’ the next month.

COOL JERK
(Storball)

Originally performed by The Capitols, ‘Cool Jerk’ was covered live by 1984.

COSMOS ROCKIN’
(Taylor/Rodgers/May)

• Album (Q+PR):
Cosmos
• Live (Q+PR):
Ukraine

The opening song to any album of new material after a significant hiatus is imperative for an artist. It can make or break fan and critical appreciation, and, no matter how good the other songs may be, it’s going to be that first song that people remember the most, and if it falls below expectations, maintaining any interest in the rest of the album is going to be an uphill battle. Queen, for better or worse, always had opening songs that grabbed listeners by the lapels and shook them around, but they weren’t always the best songs, or even all that easy to get into; more often than not, their album openers were always diversions from the norm, with gut-punching rock songs the exception rather than the rule. ‘Cosmos Rockin” follows in the trend of interesting and unconventional album openers, in that it’s a true rock song.

With an intro reminiscent of ‘One Vision’ – a keyboard drone, a swoop of guitar feedback, the sound of an otherworldly deity awaking and demanding that there be rock ‘n’ roll – and the main body of the song comparable to any Status Quo boogie rocker, this “fairly basic and jolly” song, as described by Brian, delivers a pure and simple message: the power of loud rock‘n’roll pervades all. There’s not much to dissect, no hidden meanings or philosophical questions left
unanswered; at its core, ‘Cosmos Rockin” is a good-time rocker, an update of ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ – unsurprising, considering its songwriter. “Roger had this song called ‘The Whole World’s Rockin” and it’s on there now,” Brian said on a 2008
Bob & Tom Show
radio appearance. “It starts off with ‘the whole house rockin”, and then ‘the whole town rockin”, ‘the whole world rockin”, and then I went, ‘Well, why don’t we have “the whole universe rockin’”?’ It’s just for fun, you know. It’s not a serious comment on cosmology, but it’s just fun to think – you can get the whole cosmos rockin’. So that’s kind of how the thing took shape and there’s a few little allusions in there to the cosmos.”

Is the song successful as an opener? It depends on the fan’s expectations for
The Cosmos Rocks
; it follows in Queen tradition with an opener that grabs the listeners by the short and curlies, and, as a rock song, it’s hard to listen to it and not feel the urge to at least tap a foot. But from a lyrical standpoint, it’s a shambles, with a slapdash set of lyrics that, even for Roger’s standards, are cringeworthy; it’d be nice to believe they’re tongue-in-cheek, but there’s no humour in Paul’s delivery anywhere to suggest this, which isn’t a condemnation of Paul as a vocalist, but his ability to sing the song with a glister of wit. It’s certainly not fair to compare Paul to Freddie, but if Freddie had been handed these lyrics, and provided he found them acceptable enough to sing without a major rewrite, his vocal delivery would have bordered on the preposterous so that the listener knew he wasn’t serious. As performed by Paul, however, one can’t help but feel he truly believes that the cosmos really will rock.

Despite its drawbacks, ‘Cosmos Rockin” is an ebullient song, with the band clearly enjoying themselves and taking their own words to heart. It became a welcome addition to the 2008
Rock The Cosmos
tour as an encore number, quickly earning a coveted place among the rest of the Queen + Paul Rodgers repertoire.

COWBOYS AND INDIANS
(Taylor)

• A-side (The Cross): 9/87 [74]

• Album (The Cross):
Shove
• CD single: 1/88 [84]

Shove It
may have been a controversial release, but ‘Cowboys And Indians’ is the cause of much debate and discussion among Queen fans, with the general consensus that it is not among Roger’s better songs, especially for The Cross. That statement may be too broad, as it is important to look at the song in the appropriate timeframe: the late 1980s were full of musical and stylistic changes, and many of the old wave found themselves stuck hopelessly in the middle. Roger was no exception, but he was willing to push the envelope and embrace new things; he may not have learned from the critical backlash from
Hot Space
, but he did know that the charts didn’t lie.

That’s not to say that the song is a masterpiece, but it’s also not the worst song Roger ever wrote. ‘Cowboys And Indians’ was simply designed and constructed to be a danceable, likeable single to introduce The Cross to the world (even if it was still only Roger and, at times, Spike Edney), and, in that respect, it’s a success. Clocking in at almost six minutes, the song is energetic and jubilant, telling a warped tale of Americana, updated for the 1980s, with the sights and sounds of the Old West now spread across the entire nation.

John Deacon is credited as playing bass on some of the tracks on
Shove It
, and, while unconfirmed, the bass on ‘Cowboys And Indians’ has his fingerprints all over it; unlike Roger’s usual chunky sound, the style is fluid and more indicative of John’s distinct trademark. Elsewhere, the song is constructed around a dodgy synth riff, percolating in a nervous way that lends the song a tense edge. The guitars are minimal, almost rudimentary in approach, but the main focus is on Roger’s voice, and he doesn’t disappoint, showing he’s finally ready to front a band.

Released as the first single from
Shove It
, trimmed off nearly ninety seconds, the single didn’t perform as well as expected, stalling at a disappointing No. 74 in the UK. A video was shot in September 1987, debuting The Cross in their finest acid-washed jeans and feathered mullets, while Roger’s then-girlfriend, Debbie Leng, mimed backing vocals. Unsurprisingly, sales weren’t improved drastically, and the video remains hardly seen.

The Cross, now with a permanent lineup, made their television premiere on Channel 4’s
The Roxy
on 6 October 1987, with a performance of the song, and with three other specific performances on No. 73 on 17 October, Germany’s
WWF Club
late in 1987, and Japan’s
Yoruno Hits
on 6 January 1988. ‘Cowboys And Indians’ received considerable attention as the second song performed on The Cross’ appearance on
Meltdown
on 6 November 1987, and was featured extensively in the live setting throughout 1988 and 1990.

CRASH DIVE ON MINGO CITY
(May)

• Album:
Flash

This is yet another variation on the main theme from
Flash Gordon
, but featuring random guitar bursts from Brian and timpani rolls from Roger. The bulk of the song is comprised of dialogue and serves more as incidental music than as an integral composition.

CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE
(Mercury)

• A-side: 10/79 [2] • Album:
Game
• CD Single: 11/88

• Live:
Wembley, On Fire, Montreal
• Bonus:
Wembley

• Live (Q+PR):
Return
,
Ukraine

“I wrote it in the bath,” Freddie told
Melody Maker
in 1981 of one of his most famous compositions. “I actually dragged an upright piano to my bedside once. I’ve been known to scribble lyrics in the middle of the night without putting the light on. [It] took me five or ten minutes [to write]. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and, because of that restriction, I wrote a good song, I think.”