Queen: The Complete Works (75 page)

Set to a terse backing of goose-stepping drums and Roger’s hushed vocals, the song positively seethes anger and outrage. Originally, the repeated line was “We’ve gotta kick these fucking Nazis” instead of “stinking Nazis”, but after careful consideration Roger altered the line to make it more accessible. Released as the first single from
Happiness?
, it created quite a controversy when radio stations refused to air it and record stores wouldn’t stock it. Roger was surprised, telling
The Independent On Sunday
, “For me it is not political. It is a case of fundamental right and wrong. Peddling hatred through ignorance is wrong. The record is fairly outspoken but it doesn’t make any political statements in my view. I find it odd that it is a successful record but the media seems shy of it.” Music journalist and one-time bad boy Allan Jones weighed in for no particular reason: “I’m sure his heart is in the right place. But it is just not a very good record. Let’s face it: he’s an ageing rock star and they just don’t want to play his record. Pop station audiences want little boys that they can look at and fancy or dance records. This song, as well as being controversial lyrically, is not a good tune.” As with most good examples of controversy, the single still fared well, reaching No. 22 in the UK and becoming Roger’s first Top Thirty (and highest-charting) single.

The CD single featured several alternate remixes, each marginally less interesting than the previous one. The ‘Big Science Mix’ features Matt Hillier on additional analog synthesizers and was remixed by Joshua J. Macrae, explaining its percussion-dominated backing, with excerpts from news reports and what sound like samples from Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
. The ‘Kick Mix’, produced by Serge Ramackers, Dominic Sas and Remo Martuf for No More Productions, is an attempt at a dance remix, using the original banned version but adding a generic dance beat, and really starts to grate on the listener within the first sixty seconds. (However, it does feature an additional verse not heard on any other version.) The ‘Radio Mix’ is the most interesting of the bunch, restructuring Roger’s drum beat to feature a droning synthesizer background and additional percussion. Again produced by No More Productions, the song was extended by nearly a minute yet still loses a verse. The ‘Makita Mix Extended’ and ‘Schindler’s Mix Extended’, both produced by Danny Saber, are the most extreme, featuring excerpts from an actual Nazi rally.

The song was performed throughout Roger’s 1994/1995
Happiness?
tour, but was dropped in favour of more recent material on his
Electric Fire
tour. A video was made in the spring of 1994, directed by David Mallet in London. Two versions were produced: one featuring the normal album version, which was the most widely seen, and another of the banned version. Both versions feature intercut scenes of World War II Nazi footage, making for an unsettling viewing experience.

NEED YOUR LOVING TONIGHT
(Deacon)

• Album:
Game

Written by John for
The Game
album in 1980, ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’ is a joyous pop romp that recalls the bubblegum days of The Beatles, even deriving its title from ‘Eight Days A Week’, perhaps that band’s finest pop song ever. Lyrically speaking, the song gives a false optimistic slant to the end of a relationship, with the narrator taking the higher road by insisting the break-up was a mutual decision. Released in the US as the fourth and final single from
The Game
in November 1980, ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’, backed with Roger’s ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’, reached a disappointing No. 44 and never appeared on any compilation. The song was performed on and off between 1980 and 1981, but wasn’t a mainstay in the set list and was out just as quickly as it was in.

NEVERMORE
(Mercury)

• Album:
Queen2
• Bonus:
Queen2

Slipping in unnoticed between the adventurous ‘The
Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’ and the epic ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ on Side Black of
Queen II
is this gorgeous ballad by Freddie, which is rumoured to have been written about his then-girlfriend, Mary Austin. Brian later attributed this and ‘Lily Of The Valley’, on the surface lyrically simple songs, to Freddie’s realization “that his body needed to be somewhere else”.

A BBC version, recorded on 3 April 1974, features a rougher arrangement, and more pronounced bass and drums (which are lacking on the album version). Other than this airing, ‘Nevermore’ was never performed live.

NEW DARK AGES
(Taylor)

• Album (The Cross):
Blue
• German single (The Cross): 8/91 • Live (The Cross):
Germany

Roger’s exquisite ‘New Dark Ages’ is an emotive plea for safe sex (“Stop / Take care / Think / Is this real love?”) and AIDS awareness. Set to a terse backing, dominated mostly by keyboards and bass, The Cross is in fine form here, and ‘New Dark Ages’ is arguably one of their finest performances captured in the studio. Released as the first single from
Blue Rock
in August 1991 with Clayton Moss’ ‘Ain’t Put Nothin’ Down’ on the B-side, the single made no significant dent in the German charts, despite considerable promotion provided by The Cross as well as a fine video directed by Paul Voss. It’s a ‘Body Language’ for the 1990s, with an oiled-up man and woman cavorting across the stage as the fully-clothed band perform the song. Presenting the
Hot Space
imagery from another angle, the single sleeve featured the same wide-eyed child from the ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’ single from June 1982 with a pattern of birds as an overlay.

The song was performed live on the European tour supporting Magnum, with a live version appearing on the 1992 Fan Club-only bootleg
Live In Germany
. Intriguingly, it was revealed by Greg Brooks that the song was recorded during sessions for
Innuendo
, but remained unfinished due to objections from John.

A NEW LIFE IS BORN

Dating from
The Miracle
sessions, this (partly) unreleased track written by Freddie was featured as the intro to Roger’s ‘Breakthru’ (the a cappella “when love breaks up” segment), but instead of the “somehow I have to make this final breakthru” line, Freddie continues into a gorgeous, improvised piano ballad. A second, more atmospheric, mostly instrumental version was also recorded, and both sound like pieces from Freddie’s 1988
Barcelona
sessions.

NEW YORK
(Mercury)

• Compilation (Freddie):
Solo Collection

Recorded on 6 July 1984 at Musicland Studios (a home demo was also recorded, though it remains unreleased), this short yet charming piano piece was the last thing to be recorded by Freddie before embarking on the upcoming
Queen Works!
world tour. Unfortunately, he didn’t complete this piece upon returning to the sessions in December, and it languished unreleased for over fifteen years before appearing on
The Solo Collection
in 2000.

NEW YORK AT LAST

An interesting fan mix (or ‘mash up’) featuring an almost club-style synthesized beat, ‘New York At Last’ was created in 2003 by a fan named Smash – real name Scott Akister – who programmed and produced the synthesizer and drum beats, and added Freddie’s vocal from the unreleased song ‘New York’, originally recorded by Freddie during the
Mr Bad Guy
sessions in 1984. Mixing in guitar parts by Brian from ‘Spread Your Wings’ and ‘Save Me’, the mash was such a huge success on the internet and among Queen fans that an online petition was started to get the song issued as a single. Unfortunately, the powers that be either decided against it, or simply didn’t listen.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK
(Ebb/Kander)

A snippet of Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York’ appears in the
Highlander
film during Kurgan’s carjacked joyride into New York City, before merging effortlessly with ‘A Dozen Red Roses For My Darling’. For years, Queen fans have hoped that a full version exists, but it has recently been revealed that the thirty-second clip is all that was recorded.

THE NIGHT COMES DOWN
(May)

• Album:
Queen
• Bonus:
Queen

One of the earliest lyrics written by any member of Queen, Brian’s elegiac ‘The Night Comes Down’ recalls the simpler days of his youth, and laments growing old and having to take on responsibility. Set to a gorgeous acoustic backing, driven by a subtle rhythm section
that doesn’t overpower the words, Freddie recalls a fling from the Summer of Love: “Lucy was high, and so was I / Dazzling!” That line, of course, harks back to The Beatles’ controversial 1967 song ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’, which was presumed to be about LSD but was revealed by its author, John Lennon, as a lyrical depiction of a painting his son, Julian, had made of a classmate.

‘The Night Comes Down’ is a stunning excursion into acoustic territory the band would rarely explore again. Seemingly influenced by many of The Kinks’ late 1960s singles, the song is a bright and cheery ballad, certainly a rarity among most other Brian-penned ballads. Performed live in 1971 and 1972 (recordings of which have not surfaced), its only post-Queen performance may have come on 1 March 1974, Greg Brooks reporting in his book,
Queen Live: A Concert Documentary
, that the song was rumoured to have been played that day along with ‘The Fairy Fellers Master-Stroke’.

Two versions of the song exist: the first is a demo, recorded between September and December 1971 at De Lane Lea Studios and produced by Louis Austin, while the second version hails from the Trident sessions in 1972. When the band listened to a playback of the rerecorded 1972 version, they decided that the original demo captured the mood they wanted to portray, so the new version was discarded and the old one was used instead. To date, the re-recording has yet to surface, and one can only wonder if it’s possible for the unreleased version to surpass the beauty of the demo.

1983...(A MERMAN I SHOULD

TURN TO BE)
(Hendrix)

Originally released on Jimi Hendrix’s
Electric Ladyland
album in 1968, ‘1983... (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)’ merely served as an introduction to Wreckage’s rendition of The Beatles’ ‘Rain’.

NO MORE FUN
(Taylor)

• Album (Roger):
Electric
• CD single (Roger): 3/99 [38]

A fast-paced, self-referential rock song (in the first verse, Roger makes note of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Mott the Hoople) that bemoans the loss of good times in the world, nostalgic for the golden days of rock ‘n’ roll, ‘No More Fun’ is a more characteristic song from
Electric Fire
. Set to a menacing backing, and performed entirely by Roger except for some wilder lead guitar from the ever-present Jason Falloon (interestingly, ‘No More Fun’ marks the only appearance Roger would make on guitar), the song secured a rightful position in the 1998/1999
Electric Fire
tour set list. A version from the Cyberbarn gig on 24 September 1998 was released on the second CD single of ‘Surrender’ in March 1999.

NO-ONE BUT YOU (ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG)
(May)

• Compilation:
Rocks, Hits3
• A-side: 1/98 [13]

The years following Brian’s 1992
Back To The Light
album, his first proper solo release pulling together songs written between 1988 and 1991, were spent touring that album as well as writing new songs. When rumours surfaced in 1997 that he was working on a follow-up, fans started to get excited, since it was the first new material from any Queen member since
Made In Heaven
in 1995. Even more exciting for fans was the one-off performance of Brian, Roger and John with Elton John at the Théâtre National de Chaillot at the premiere of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne (see Part Three), which was the first integration of Queen’s music with ballet since Freddie’s 1979 excursion with the Royal Dancers. The press predictably covered the appearance, which saw the pianist/vocalist performing ‘The Show Must Go On’, and rumours started to circulate that Elton would front Queen on a world tour.

Brian wasn’t interested in any reunion at this point, despite Elton’s assertion that the band should re-form: “It must be like keeping a fabulous Ferrari in the garage and not being able to drive,” Elton later quipped. However, shortly after the performance in Paris, Brian was so moved by the celebration of Queen’s music and Freddie’s life that he wrote ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ as a tribute to the late vocalist.

Originally, he intended to release the song on his solo album, which ultimately surfaced in June 1998 as
Another World
, but he sensed that it needed something that session musicians couldn’t recreate. “It was written as a sort of tribute to Freddie and before long I became aware I was trying to make it sound very Queen-like,” Brian told
Guitarist
in 1998. “There are some musical and verbal quotes in there and I thought, ‘If it’s going to sound like Queen, maybe it ought to be Queen.’ I sent the track to Roger and he loved it and said we had to do it. Although I lost that track from my album, it worked out alright in the end; it was the final thing that made me realize I was on the wrong track for my album
anyway.” With Roger on board (“He put it away in a drawer somewhere,” Brian explained in 1998, “‘cause he was busy or whatever, and it was months later when Roger phoned up suddenly, excited and said, ‘I just listened to the track and it’s amazing, and we have to do it as a Queen song!’”), the duo asked John to help them out with it. Sessions took place in the spring of 1997 at Allerton Studios, Brian’s home studio, and the song was completed in time for inclusion on a future compilation. The initial intent was for it to appear on a simultaneous compilation of ballads and love songs, but when this fell by the wayside, it secured a position as the final track on
Queen Rocks
.

Lyrically, the song draws inspiration from the unveiling of Freddie’s statue, which overlooks Lake Geneva in Montreux (“A hand above the water/ An angel reaching for the sky”) and is majestically featured on the sleeve of
Made In Heaven
. The theme of the song comes from the subtitle, and is unofficially dedicated to those who die too soon. This became more sentimental in August 1997, when Lady Diana Spencer was killed in a car crash after a flock of French paparazzi gave chase to her car. It was an indirect yet appreciated tribute, and it became appropriate to dedicate the song not only to Freddie but to everyone who lives on in spirit and memory.