Top 50 Queen Countdown: 10–1

Well, here we are, folks – the fifth and final installment in my Top 50 Queen Songs Countdown. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did revisiting the songs and then writing about them; I know some of the reviews were more personal or unconventional, which was fun for me, considering the limitations of my book. Oh, that reminds me! Queen: Complete Works is now available at all book retailers in North America, so help me out and buy my book.

10. ‘Innuendo’
Written by Queen
From the album: Innuendo, 1991

The title track of Queen’s 14th studio album – and the last released in Freddie Mercury’s lifetime – is a grandiose epic, full of pomp, circumstance, and bombast, and recalling their formative prog-rock heydays. Realizing he was living on borrowed time, but that his doctors’ predictions that he wouldn’t make it into 1989 turned out to be incorrect, Mercury called the band back into action to start work on a follow-up to The Miracle. One of the first songs the band worked on was ‘Innuendo’, derived from a four-way jam that was later shaped and tightly arranged by Mercury, with a set of lyrics from Roger Taylor. Shifting effortlessly from a dirge-like bolero into a flamenco-styled interlude, complete with 12-string guitar flourishes from Yes’s Steve Howe, before exploding into a heavy metal free-for-all that finds May wailing away on his homemade guitar. It all quiets down (relatively speaking) for a reprise of the opening bolero, with Mercury howling at the top of his lungs, “We’ll keep on trying till the end of time”. Clocking in at six-and-a-half minutes, it gave Queen a much-deserved UK #1 single – their first since ‘Under Pressure’, ten years prior – and inevitably drew comparisons to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but opera was just about the only genre not touched upon in ‘Innuendo’, so its similarities – other than the facts that both songs are long and reached #1 – are limited.

9. ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Jazz, 1978

As Queen advanced their pop-rock sensibilities toward the end of the 1970s, May became increasingly frustrated that the guitar was becoming a secondary instrument. With Mercury’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, an ebullient, joyous celebration of party-goers and life-lovers everywhere, propelled by piano and a surging rhythm section, there was little for May to do but sit on the sidelines and wait for the cue to let rip with a good-natured solo. That’s not to say he didn’t try; an early version features a rhythm guitar track that, while interesting, was wisely erased from the final mix. This may account for the guitarist’s dislike of the song, though he later clarified his position that Mercury’s ode to promiscuity hinted at his own lifestyle, which was his eventual destruction. Regardless, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ has endured as a fan favorite, and was voted the Greatest Driving Song Ever by Top Gear, an honor that’s hard to dispute.

8. ‘Liar’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen, 1973

Mercury’s earliest compositions were vaguely religious (or, in the case of ‘Jesus’ and ‘Mad The Swine’, overly religious), and the results were enough to threaten to turn Queen into a non-secular band. Thankfully, he dialed back the theology on his songs on Queen II, making his excursions into this style all the more intriguing. The best “religious” song Mercury wrote was ‘Liar’, a six-and-a-half minute magnum opus that showed hints of his songwriting abilities; the song takes its time to get going, stretching out its intro over 90 seconds, with plenty of impressive instrumental interplay between the three primary musicians, before the sound quietens and Mercury sweetly sings, “I have sinned Dear Father / Father, I have sinned”… It’s a Greek tragedy of a song, with the band interjecting with shouted chants of the title as Mercury, backed into a corner, confesses his transgressions, all to no avail. The performance, one of the earliest recorded for Queen’s debut, really cooks, winding its way around tight musical turns with not a note out of place. Their eponymous debut album was spotty at best, but ‘Liar’ showed a great deal of promise for the up-and-coming band, so much so that it was released as a second single in the US, where it wasn’t so much edited as it was butchered, bringing its epic running time down to three minutes and completely losing any sense of atmosphere.

7. ‘You And I’
Written by John Deacon
From the album: A Day At The Races, 1976

Deakey Strikes Back. After writing ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and realizing that he had a knack for writing delightful pop tunes, Deacon offered ‘You And I’ as his third-ever song, easily rivaling – sometimes bettering – May’s and Mercury’s contributions to the all-around strong A Day At The Races album. With its exuberant piano backing, gritty rhythm guitar, and percolating rhythm section, this simple devotion of love to Deacon’s wife was a sure-fire follow-up to ‘Somebody To Love’, but, alas, the music playing field of late 1976/early 1977 had changed drastically: love songs were no longer en vogue, with the charts now dominated by young punk upstarts and chugging disco beats, and so ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ was released as the ill-advised second single, stalling at a disappointing #31 in the UK, the first time the band missed the Top 30 since their debut. What of ‘You And I’? It was resigned to album track status, and even sneaked out as the B-side of ‘Long Away’ in the US, but that was as well-known as it remained. Shame, that.

6. ‘White Queen (As It Began)’
Written by Brian May
From the album: Queen II, 1974

The songwriting on Queen II was somewhat plagued by flights of fancy that, to be honest, wasn’t uncommon on other prog-rock albums in the early-to-mid-70s, but there were still moments of stark honesty that cut through the fruity fluff. May’s ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ was written while the guitarist was still in college, where he idolized a beautiful girl from afar (a recurring theme of May’s in his songwriting output of the 1970s), but was unable to ever approach her. That pained longing translates to the studio recording, in a subtle arrangement of restrained beauty, with contrasting degrees of light and shade. Mercury’s vocals are relatively restrained until the final outburst, where he battles a storm of guitar and clattering drums, howling through the cacophony of love unrealized. This gorgeous ballad would get a fair bit off attention in the live setting following its release, and a BBC recording that adds some truly astounding piano playing from Mercury is still, unbelievably, unreleased, but its fallen into obscurity since. It – and the equally underrated ‘You And I’ – didn’t even earn a coveted spot on the Deep Cuts 1 compilation, an oversight that should have never happened.

5. ‘Mother Love’
Written by Freddie Mercury and Brian May
From the album: Made In Heaven, 1995

In November 1995, I was walking through Trac Records, a (long-gone) local record store that I frequented often in my adolescence. Though I had all of their albums by this point and the possibility of a new Queen album was incredibly slim, I still checked the “Q” section frequently, almost as a running joke. Imagine my surprise then when I noticed a tranquil, blue album cover peering back at me, with the words “Freddie Mercury’s Final Performances!” shouting at me on a bright red sticker. Without even a second thought I purchased it and, as I waited to be picked up (oh, the joys of being a teenaged suburbanite), I scanned the song titles and was taken aback by how unQueenly they were. Some of them I recognized – ‘Heaven For Everyone’, ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’, ‘Made In Heaven’, ‘I Was Born To Love You’ – as solo songs, but the other titles were a revelation, and I rued my inability to get home in a timely manner to listen to them. As soon as I did, I raced upstairs, shut the door, and listened to my first new Queen album since becoming a fan in its entirety, and I was mesmerized. The overall feeling of peace and acceptance of mortality within most of the songs was alarming to 12-year-old me, but the song that took me by surprise the most was ‘Mother Love’, the last song Mercury ever sang. With its moody atmosphere, the song glides by at a slow pace, a drum machine backing and occasional explosions of piano punctuating its mordancy. Mercury, by this point only months away from death, pleads to return to the comfort of the womb, sheltered from the elements and the pain wracking his body. He wasn’t even well enough to finish the song; May went in a few years later, after the dust had settled, to add his shaky vocal to the final verse, a verse that he had to write himself. It all ends with a tornado of noise – reportedly, every Queen song sped up into oblivion – before slowing down with Mercury singing the very first song he ever sang, ‘Goin’ Back’, and the cry of a baby. How’s that for symbolism?

4. ‘The March Of The Black Queen’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen II, 1974

Unlike the intensely personal ‘White Queen (As It Began)’, Mercury’s songs on Queen II were more obtuse, scattered with literary allusions and cloaked meanings. He was never the most direct of writers, and even when he removed the veil, there was still a front to a lot of his most personal songs, but something like ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ isn’t going to win any awards for touching any poignant, personal nerves, but it does earn points for being a marvel of production and arrangement. It was almost as if Queen II was leading up to this point; the only other epic on the album was May’s ‘Father To Son’, which, coupled with ‘Procession’, opened things up in a fine manner, though it wasn’t quite as dignified as Mercury’s magnum opus here. What he’s getting at is anyone’s guess; the Black Queen is a mystical, mythical figure, sure to leave a path of destruction along her way. Set to an interweaving backing – starting off in a regal, stately manner, the song moves to a bolero type march, before quieting down with an introspective interlude, before picking up the pace again until it leads to a quiet false ending, ultimately concluding with a brief coda – the song tends to meander occasionally, though the band is able enough (remember, this is their second album) to keep things mostly in check. The true heroes are the rhythm section, with Deacon and Taylor keeping things rock-steady to allow May and Mercury the chance to have at their whims. Which, if you’ve gotten this far into Queen II, is a good thing.

3. ‘Somebody To Love’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: A Day At The Races, 1976

First they tackled opera with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Then, they gave gospel a shot with ‘Somebody To Love’, and succeeded admirably. Mercury would later cite this as his favorite self-penned song – no surprise, considering Aretha Franklin was his favorite singer – and it’s hard to disagree with him. While ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ gets more points because of its sheer off-the-wall bizarreness factor, ‘Somebody To Love’ has more depth and personal connection; who among us hasn’t found themselves on the wrong side of love, yearning after someone who hardly notices you’re there? It’s a sentiment that Mercury put into words superbly, and even though the band plays superbly – Deacon’s bass grooves, Taylor’s drums swing, and May’s guitar soars – it’s Mercury who’s the star of the show, pouring every drop of pain and anguish into his vocal performance. The studio version is a marvel of restraint – apart from the chorus vocals, there’s very few other overdubs, meaning the arrangement has room to breathe – but for a truly epic performance, check out any of their live performances between 1977 and 1982 (it was performed live in 1984 and 1985, but only as part of a medley, reducing its power to a three minute soundbite), specifically their Queen On Fire: Live At The Bowl performance from Milton Keynes Bowl, with a towering 8 minute tour de force to be reckoned with.

2. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: A Night At The Opera, 1975

What kind of a Queen fan would I be to not like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? Even though I’ve heard it a million times since I was first introduced to it in 1993/1994 (I jumped on board way late), and have fallen in and out of love with it many times, and even had it sung to me by my group of friends at my 28th birthday party – where key words were replaced with my name – there’s a part of me that can’t dispute the song’s defining power. For all of Queen’s loud arena rock that started with News Of The World, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is their flagship song, and a testament to Mercury’s unending creativity that, sadly, would diminish as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. (There were brief flashes of brilliance throughout that decade before it returned in 1987, just in time for his solo album, Barcelona.) What other band was writing and recording such pompous, over the top, operatic rock songs? Oh sure, Pete Townshend made the rock opera popular with Tommy – even though he didn’t invent it – but was there any opera there? No! Queen made this kind of bombast popular with this song, and if A Night At The Opera had turned out to be their swan song, they would have easily made their impact on the rock world anyway. There’s no sense in me writing about ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ anymore, or trying to describe the song; everyone in the world has heard it. It’s one of those songs that’s in the public consciousness, and, love it or loathe it, it will endure well after the baby boomer generation has shuffled off this mortal coil. And let’s not forget that this single made music videos much more acceptable as promotional tools. (I don’t like saying that Queen invented music videos with this, as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who were all filming performance – and sometimes non-performance – videos in the early 1960s.) Taking to life the Queen II album cover image, the operatic section is particularly memorable, with swirling, disembodied heads ensconced in darkness, before the band come crashing back in with the heavy metal section, bathed in dry ice and colored lights. But perhaps the most enduring image taken away from the song was that of Wayne’s World, where Wayne and Garth and their trio of friends sing along to nearly the entire song, but it very well may have introduced several Queen fans to the wonderful activity of headbanging.

1. ‘The Show Must Go On’
Written by Queen
From the album: Innuendo, 1991

I got into Queen right after Freddie Mercury died, and so I had a lot of catching up to do. I remember going into any record store I could to purchase the Hollywood Records cassette tapes of whatever Queen album I didn’t have, and was disheartened once to find Innuendo – not necessarily a rarity, but I just happened to be in the right place at the right time – in a Jersey shore boardwalk record shop, only to have the cashier sniff derisively, “Isn’t this by the gay guy who died?” But I never let that get to me, and I enjoyed so very much bouncing around my bedroom with a tennis racket, pretending I was Brian May, letting loose another inventive solo, or holding a cane I used as a prop for Halloween one year like the trademark half-mic of Freddie Mercury. When I got a drum set, I made sure to play along as much as I could to Roger Taylor’s underrated drumming, and I can remember writhing in agony when the impossibly tough ‘Dragon Attack’ proved to be too much for my fat wrists.

This list has been a joy to write, because I got to revisit several songs I had written off in the past, but perhaps the toughest thing was placing 49 of the 50 songs. The easiest one to place was ‘The Show Must Go On’, as I believe it embodies everything of Queen, and serves as a perfect career summation. It doesn’t take into account the goofiness – despite what critics wrote, Queen had a sense of humor about themselves, and didn’t take their music too seriously – nor is it quirky or unconventional. But discovering it on Classic Queen was a revelation: sitting in my bedroom, probably working on homework (or, more likely, pretending to be Mercury or May), I remember being taken aback by the ghostly, haunting organ intro, sounding more like a doom-laden procession than a simple pop song. Mercury’s otherworldly vocals, coupled with the thundering rhythm section and mind-blowing guitar work, stopped me in my tracks and made me pay attention. Shrouded in doom and uncertainty, the song takes an unexpected turn with the bridge (“My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies / Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die / I can fly, my friends”) and the song takes on a whole new meaning: Mercury is defiant, refusing to let the curtain close on him, and while there’s still a breath in his body, he will remain a showman – “I’ll top the bill, I’ll overkill / I’ve got to find the will to carry on”.

Mercury was the consummate showman, soaking up the attention and, instead of letting it get to his head, throwing it right back onto the audience, so that every person in attendance felt like they were part of the show. And so ‘The Show Must Go On’ remained his final living statement, the closing of a chapter of a book that was, by all accounts, a hell of a ride. Oh sure, there’s the Made In Heaven coda, and the ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ footnote, but Innuendo was Mercury’s swan song, and ‘The Show Must Go On’ was 45 years’ worth of informal training as the greatest frontman and vocalist ever condensed into a four-and-a-half minute rock song. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ may be more inventive and groundbreaking, but ‘The Show Must Go On’ has more poignancy, meaning, and depth – to me, it’s the quintessential Queen song.

Top 50 Queen Countdown: 20–11

20. ‘Love Of My Life’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: A Night At The Opera, 1975

This song took on a life of its own in the live setting, turning into a duet between Mercury and the audience. (May was there to help out on acoustic guitar, too.) But in its original studio incarnation, it was less of a football chant singalong and more of a love-torn ballad, with various, subtle flourishes – cymbals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and, intriguingly, a classical harp, played one note at a time by May – but with all of the emphasis placed on Mercury and his gloriously understated piano. Often presumed to have been written about Mercury’s then-lover Mary Austin, one look at the words will show that it’s not so much a declaration of unabashed love as it is a weary resignment that their romantic affair has come to an end, yet she would remain a big part of his life – evident in that she was his best friend until the day he died.

19. ‘Keep Yourself Alive’
Written by Brian May
From the album: Queen, 1973

As it began: the very first Queen song on the very first Queen album, released as the very first Queen single, and, by all accounts, the very first song that the newly-assembled Queen would record. Written by May and designed as a mini-showcase of his homemade Red Special guitar, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was recorded a handful of times between 1971 and 1975, though May has insisted that the very first recording – from a 1971 demo session that was often bootlegged and finally released forty years later as a bonus track on the Queen reissue – was the definitive version, and that subsequent versions couldn’t match the spontaneity and magic of the original. Be that as it may, the familiar version is no slouch, with a powerful, rumbling backbone and introspective lyrics that would remain a May trademark in his songwriting. As a single, it’s a bit ponderous, taking far too long – 30 seconds – to get to the first verse, which accounted for its failure. The band certainly weren’t deterred, and they had the last laugh, anyway: it remains a staple on US rock radio programming, which, considering the band’s own competition of ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, speaks volumes of its staying power.

18. ‘I Want It All’
Written by Queen
From the album: The Miracle, 1989

Having watched his beloved band stumble and stagger throughout the 1980s with forays into disco, funk, and pure pop, May felt that what Queen really needed was a good old-fashioned power rock anthem. His songs had been pushed aside as singles in favor of his other band members’ diversions, and while he would get a few (‘Save Me’, ‘Flash’, ‘Las Palabras De Amor’, ‘Hammer To Fall’, and ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’), they all failed to ignite the charts, apart from ‘Flash’, which reached #10, but was simply a goofy, kitschy theme song to an equally goofy, kitschy film. So he fought tooth and nail to get ‘I Want It All’ the honor of being the lead single from The Miracle, a much-needed shot of pure rock that was a welcome return to the Queen sound after a three year hiatus. With its anthemic chorus and finger-shredding guitar solo, the Queen of yesterday was back, with an updated sheen of the ’80s for good measure. It proved to be a highlight among the more middling The Miracle, and fans who had been hoping for similar results on the album would be sorely disappointed.

17. ‘Another One Bites The Dust’
Written by John Deacon
From the album: The Game, 1980

Imagine this: for a time in the summer of 1980, Queen – known for their camp, over-the-top production styles and the flamboyant histrionics of Freddie Mercury – was mistaken in some North American radio markets as an R&B group. That’s how convincing ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ was, and, much like some of their other songs – three of which are in this particular countdown – it’s always been assumed that this song was just “there”. (For years, I thought Queen just covered this song, and that it was an obscure 1960s song by someone on Motown.) But no, this was once again penned by the powerhouse that was John Deacon, who always had one ear trained to the hit parade, and he submitted this bass heavy funk/disco amalgam as an album track during sessions for The Game. And so it might have remained, if some radio stations in New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia hadn’t sussed it as an obvious single and attracted so much attention that Elektra, Queen’s North American record label, were forced to issue it as a single. It not only soared effortlessly to #1 in the rock charts, but it also did nearly equally as well in the R&B and disco charts – and turned out to be Elektra’s biggest selling single ever. Not bad for a song that started life as a throwaway about cowboys.

16. ‘Under Pressure’
Written by Queen and David Bowie
From the album: Greatest Hits, 1981

Pity poor Vanilla Ice. All he wanted to do was sample one of the most instantly recognizable bass riffs on the planet and turn it into a hit rap song. But when he failed to give credit to the original songwriters, he got himself into a heap of trouble, and steadfastly defended his position that they were two completely different songs because of a simple cymbal ting. But he later apologized, mostly because he has a good sense of humor about himself, but also because he probably realized how iconic that song itself was. You can call Queen whatever you like – contrived, money-hungry, pompous, whatever – but there’s no denying that they were masters of their art, crafting instantly recognizable songs that were strictly meant for consumption in the hit parade. Queen and David Bowie partnered up, completely spur-of-the-moment (because they both just happened to be in Switzerland, HOW CONVENIENT), to record this, and while Bowie was hesitant to release it, Queen immediately loved it and, with Bowie’s blessing, received top billing. This marriage of the minds – Queen’s propensity for blowing subtlety out of the water with Bowie’s oddball, obtuse quirkiness – may have alienated only a few band members, but it resulted in a classic single that, for some odd reason, remains the latest Queen song US classic rock stations will play on the radio. The same can’t be said for ‘Ice Ice Baby’, which is only played ironically at weddings or karaoke bars.

15. ‘We Will Rock You’
Written by Brian May
From the album: News Of The World, 1977

I mean, what can possibly be said about this song that hasn’t been said already? It’s been ingrained into our consciousness, both individually and as society, and not a day goes by where this song isn’t played at least once in a public forum, somewhere in the world. And what an astoundingly simple song it is, too! Footstomps, handclaps, and a raw, scratchy guitar solo – two minutes, boom, done. There’s no sense in analyzing the song any further – questions of who will be rocked, how one does the rocking, how the verses fit the chorus, or what, exactly, is rocking, all go unanswered – and are best left to the philosophers.

14. ‘We Are The Champions’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: News Of The World, 1977

‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ go together like peanut butter and jelly, like peanut butter and chocolate, like… peanut butter with anything, really. They’re synonymous, and should be considered as one entity – a five minute medley – instead of as two separate songs. Even though they were written as complements to each other, ‘We Are The Champions’ is the more melodic of the two, with an antagonistic, taunting chorus, powerful, anthemic explosions of guitar and cymbals, and a winner-take-all attitude that made it perfect for the sports arena. Who can deny its sheer power? Certainly not its songwriter, who expressed some surprise that nobody had tried to write a song to match it. But when perfection has been achieved, why bother messing with it?

13. ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen II, 1974

Queen’s second single was a deliberate move to get radio play. One of the common criticisms of debut single ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was that it took too long to get going, so, as May later explained, the band put everything in the first 10 seconds: an impossibly nimble piano opening, a burst of guitars, cymbals, and bass, a clattering of drums, and off we go into a defiant fairytale that made sense only in Mercury’s mind. But it worked, sending Queen to the Top 10 in the UK, and even attracting some Stateside radio play – but their domination of the US, however brief it may have been, was still a ways off. Until then, Queen were uncertain that they wanted to be labeled as a pop singles band, finally submitting to the inevitable with their next single…

12. ‘Killer Queen’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Sheer Heart Attack, 1974

…the delightfully camp and coy ‘Killer Queen’. Penned by Mercury about a high-class call girl (“I’m trying to say that classy people can be whores as well,” he later quipped, tongue planted firmly in cheek) and set to a complicated backing of jangle piano, interwoven guitar solos, and catty harmonies, ‘Killer Queen’ was just what the band needed to become international pop stars. After a shaky start and two albums that were creatively fertile but commercial failures, ‘Killer Queen’ and its parent album, Sheer Heart Attack, provided the financially struggling band the returns – and confidence – they so sorely needed. If ‘Killer Queen’ had failed, the band would have undoubtedly folded, and this list would have been a lot shorter.

11. ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: The Game, 1980

The 1970s were kind to Queen, but they found themselves struggling to remain relevant in the day and age of musical shifts. Glam and art rock were no longer “cool”; punk, New Wave, and disco were all the styles du jour, and Queen were still relatively young enough to have to make a conscious decision: embrace the changes, or ignore them and become relics of a bygone era. For eternal rocker Brian May, the band’s decision to move with the times meant an astonishing cut back on guitar orchestrations, evident in ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, a conscious effort to strip back their sound. Much like ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, this song was one of those that just always seemed to be “there”; Mercury’s hiccuping homage to Elvis was so convincing that many were certain that the King himself had recorded it, and now Queen were simply covering it – but it’s hard to be the first performer of a song that was written two years after your death, now isn’t it? With the drums tight and crisp and the acoustic rhythm guitar – played by Mercury, the first (and only) time he would pick up a six-string on record – ringing openly, the song is a testament to the fresh ideas that new producer Reinhold Mack would bring to the table, and proved to be a much-needed blood transfusion after the pomp and circumstance of Roy Thomas Baker. Mercury was justifiably proud of his song, and was so ramped up on the spontaneity that he wanted to release it before May had a chance to put down his guitar solo – recorded under duress on a Telecaster, not May’s homemade guitar.

Top 50 Queen Countdown: 30–21

30. ‘Ogre Battle’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen II, 1974

This and the next two songs should be considered in tandem, as a joint collection of songs, instead of as three separate entities who just happen to fall next to each other on Queen II. As on ‘Father To Son’, Queen indulged themselves in grandiose production ideas that would have been poo-pooed on their debut album, and while some of the ideas are too indulgent, well, what else could be expected of Queen? Opening Side Two (or Side Black) with a whirlwind of backwards guitar and drums, ‘Ogre Battle’ is another excursion into mystical myths, this time of beasts duking it out for no particular reason. But while May was often tasked with writing on the guitar, it comes as a surprise that this raucous rocker – devoid of any piano – was penned by Mercury. And with a crash of the gong…

29. ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen II, 1974

…we are introduced to this curious ditty, an aural adaptation of the similarly-titled Richard Tate painting. Neatly encompassing Mercury’s cheeky sense of humor and keen ear for studio production, the song is 2 1/2 minutes of unbridled fun, with the vocalist throwing in scores of unconventional, antiquated words (“pedagogue”, “tatterdemalion”, “quaere”, “harridan”, “mab”, “ostler”), the likes of which wouldn’t even grace a Yes recording, over top a quirky, piano-led backing, punctuated with harpsichord trills and guitar orchestrations. The effective use of stereo panning was an early indicator of the kind of precision and attention to detail Queen would perfect on their next three albums. But, before long, the hyperdriven song quiets down and gives way to…

28. ‘Nevermore’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen II, 1974

…this utterly sublime piano ballad, once again penned by Mercury but devoid of the mythos of its predecessors. As with ‘Lily Of The Valley’, which would turn up on the next album, Mercury, the eternal romantic, is uncertain of sexual paths he’s heading down, and while his gender-bending would be seen as typical early 1970s androgyny, it ultimately revealed something deeper and more true to himself. ‘Nevermore’ is Mercury’s earliest indicator that something wasn’t right with his feelings, though it’s disguised as a pained broken love song; with subtle touches of instruments (a splash of drums here, some supporting bass there), the song lasts a mere 77 seconds, but it’s 77 seconds of the most honest songwriting the still blossoming Mercury had indulged himself in to date.

27. ‘My Fairy King’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Queen, 1973

The earliest piano-dominated songs that Mercury would write, ‘My Fairy King’ is one of his most impenetrable songs ever, with layers upon layers of subtext and hidden meanings that to decipher it all would make one go cross-eyed. Its inspiration came from Robert Browning’s poem “The Pied Piper” (even directly quoting the lines “And their dogs outran our fallow deer / And honey-bees had lost their stings / And horses were born with eagles’ wings”), though there are hints of an autobiography at work with the “Mother Mercury” line. It’s well-documented that Mercury legally changed his name from Bulsara while writing this song, though it was only one stage of his metamorphosis that was complete.

26. ‘Long Away’
Written by Brian May
From the album: A Day At The Races, 1976

Brian May was always the most ill-at-ease with being a rock star, preferring the privacy and solitude he and his family should respectfully receive. Yet the calling to be a guitar hero was too great, and he sacrificed a different calling in order to be one – but that doesn’t mean he got over it. Starting with 1975′s ‘Good Company’ (which bubbles just under my Top 50) until 1978′s ‘Leaving Home Ain’t Easy’, May would write one self-sung, reflective, and introspective song per album that addressed his awkwardness with balancing a normal family lifestyle with rock stardom, and ‘Long Away’ is the most affecting and gorgeous. Set to a bed of ringing, jangling 12-string guitars (oddly, eschewing his homemade Red Special until the solo), this McCartney-esque rock ballad is a sweet dose of reality among the loftier grandiloquence of A Day At The Races.

25. ‘Drowse’
Written by Roger Taylor
From the album: A Day At The Races, 1976

Just as May had written the metaphorically autobiographical ‘Long Away’ for A Day At The Races, Roger Taylor, too, felt particularly introspective, and updated his earlier slacker anthem, ‘Tenement Funster’, for this album. This song has come under fire by a lot of fans as being the weakest moment on an otherwise stellar album, but to me, this is the real Roger Taylor: bored with life and slumming around billiard halls instead of educating himself, the teenager finds music, and the rest, they say, is history. Songs about ennui and lethargy are rarely exciting, but the musical accouterments – a soaring slide guitar, a thick, Spector-esque Wall Of Sound production treatment, and a chorus of angelic Taylors singing such lines as “It’s the fantastic drowse of the afternoon Sundays / That bore you to rages of tears”. The choir is stripped away for the final verse, leaving just one Taylor muttering indecisively to himself, “Thinkin’ it right, doin’ it wrong / It’s easier from an armchair / Waves of alternatives wash at my sleepiness / Have my eggs poached for breakfast, I guess”.

24. ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’
Written by Brian May
From the album: The Game, 1980

As Queen became more commercial, subtler non-single songs became a scarcity on later albums. In the 1980s, every song from an album could have potentially been a single, but it’s the margins on their earlier albums that resonate the heaviest with me – because they weren’t selected for the hit parade, almost begging to be discovered by anyone willing to look beyond the greatest hits. May’s and Taylor’s self-sung songs served as a bit of light relief from the powerhouse of Freddie Mercury, and often allowed them to stretch their writing chops to write something personal, instead of something more universal to appeal to a larger crowd. While it’d have been great to have heard Mercury on lead vocals on some of those songs, they have a certain charm to them, and I always thought it a shame that that disappeared once the band refocused their vision on attaining maximum sales. ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ was the last song to feature May on full lead vocals (apart from a verse here or there on later songs, and the 1991 CD single extra track ‘Lost Opportunity’), and is a beauty of a song to go out on. Subtitled “To the sister I never had” on the lyric sheet (May is an only child), the guitarist passes on words of wisdom to his unborn – and probably never conceived – sibling, sung sweetly over a light piano backing before exploding into that traditional Queen power anthem – chords and choirs abound! – for the chorus. Mercury sweeps in quickly for a vocal spotlight in the bridge, but otherwise May is the star of the show here.

23. ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’
Written by Queen
From the album: Innuendo, 1991

As a one-time Queen fanatic, my perception of them has dwindled considerably, not only due to other musical discoveries, but also through the process of research. It’s a double-edged sword: I longed to learn as much as I could about them as a youngster, and poured myself into any available resource, but the more I learned, the less magical things became to me. One of the misconceptions I used to have was the democratic crediting of all Queen songs on their last two albums as a four-way split, whereas on previous albums, they had all individually written songs. This was meant to disguise the fact that Mercury was dying, and to split up royalties more evenly, but it presented a stronger, more unified front, which may have not meant much to critics or fans, but certainly meant a lot to each other. ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ has long been attributed to Mercury, as it’s a lovely, unassuming ballad that reflects on the majesty of life. Given that Mercury was not long for this world, I – and many others – looked at the 2 + 2 equation, saw that it equaled 4, and was convinced that was that. Turns out assumptions can bite you in the ass; the song was actually written by Taylor, and may have contained hints of Mercury’s illness, but was mostly about seeing life through his children’s eyes. It didn’t matter who wrote it, anyway; it’s an unparalleled classic on Innuendo, with a vaguely calypso/Caribbean flavor to it, and May’s ethereal guitar solo achieving heights of emotion and poignancy that he had rarely hit before. Fittingly, this was released as a double A-side with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ two weeks after Mercury’s death, serving as his final word in the hit parade – and what better way to end than with him uttering, “I still love you”?

22. ‘You’re My Best Friend’
Written by John Deacon
From the album: A Night At The Opera, 1975

John Deacon sure went to great lengths to prove he was a capable songwriter. His inauspicious start, ‘Misfire’, was more of a delightful diversion than a serious musical statement (though that didn’t stop Neko Case from covering it in 1997), but there’s a reason you should always root for the underdog. Deacon’s second song was ‘You’re My Best Friend’, which would be like George Harrison progressing from ‘Don’t Bother Me’ immediately to ‘Something’: it’s a gentle pop song, an admission of love to his wife, Veronica, with all of the bubblegum sensibilities to make it a powerful earworm. Issued as the follow-up single to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, its saving grace was that it was nothing at all like that single: short, concise, and to-the-point, the single not only peaked respectably but gave Deacon that much-needed boost to be a songwriter with whom to contend.

21. ‘Save Me’
Written by Brian May
From the album: The Game, 1980

With The Game, Mercury devised a simple method of getting songs onto the album: he and May would write three songs, and Taylor and Deacon would write two. Whichever of those songs were the strongest were up to the discretion of the band, but it’s telling that May’s three contained one funk/rock amalgam, ‘Dragon Attack’, and two powerful ballads, ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ and this song. Written about a friend who, May later explained, was going through a tough time, this touching plea for help featured May doing a lot of the grunt work: piano, synthesizer, guitars, and backing vocals, while the rhythm section of Deacon and Taylor moved things along nicely. For all of May’s work, however, he’s overshadowed by the force of Mercury, who heightened the emotion to a great degree. There’s no denying that Mercury’s voice was perfect for a good majority of Queen songs, but every so often there was a misstep (‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’, for example, lacked the true emotion of May’s solo single when it was released on Made In Heaven with Mercury on lead vocals). Not so on ‘Save Me’, where Mercury is so believable that you think he’s the one going through the tough times. That must have taken some work, as Mercury often delivered the songs with tongue planted in cheek, sometimes more forcefully than not, depending on the atmosphere of the song. But when he played it straight, he was able to achieve such languid beauty that you can’t help but feel a slight lump in the back of the throat.

Top 50 Queen Countdown: 40–31

40. ‘Spread Your Wings’
Written by John Deacon
From the album: News Of The World, 1977

John Deacon had the enviable talent of delivering one knock-out song per album, a reputation he upheld throughout his entire songwriting career, and there are several of his songs in these lists. ‘Spread Your Wings’ is a plaintive power ballad, written about a down-on-his-luck loner named Sammy who grew up believing that he was destined for great things, only to be beaten down by the harshness of reality. What makes the song so effective is its simplicity: as it was submitted for News Of The World, Queen’s back-to-basics album, it sounds like it was recorded in one take in the studio, with very little, if any, studio trickery slathered on. (If it had been submitted for any of Queen’s earlier albums, it would have undoubtedly been tarted up with vocal harmonies and guitar orchestrations, which aren’t necessarily a bad thing.) Far superior is a BBC take, which was recorded live in one take, and features a more muscular backing and a double-time instrumental coda.

39. ‘Bijou’
Written by Queen
From the album: Innuendo, 1991

The definition of bijou is “small and elegant”, and that was the band’s intent with this song. Written by Brian May and Freddie Mercury, the song was modeled off of Jeff Beck’s ‘Where Were You’, in that it’s an inside-out song: May’s guitar wails mournfully where Mercury’s lyrics would be, and in the middle, where a guitar solo would be, is a little vocal interjection from Mercury, who sings a brief, four-line ode to a lover. It’s a neat trick that works astonishingly well, and serves as a beautiful introduction to Queen’s swansong, ‘The Show Must Go On’.

38. ‘Radio Ga Ga’
Written by Roger Taylor
From the album: The Works, 1984

Unlike the consistent pop song-crafter Deacon, Roger Taylor’s track record was a little spottier. It got better, under Mercury’s watchful eye, throughout the 1980s, and when ‘Radio Ga Ga’ was released as the first single from The Works, to have had it credited as a Taylor/Mercury composition wouldn’t have been too far off from the truth. That being said, the lyrics are pure Taylor: bemoaning the also-ran status of radio, once a marvelous invention, now replaced by music television, the song is six minutes of delightful electronic pop-rock, with synthesizers masterfully integrated so that they’re part of the atmospherics, and not just there to be there. With a hard-hitting and memorable chorus, ‘Radio Ga Ga’ rightfully washed away the bad taste of Hot Space and Queen’s questionable excursions into disco.

37. ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’
Written by Brian May
From the album: A Kind Of Magic, 1986

Queen’s mid-1980s output can be summed up thusly: three or four killer singles per album, six or seven mediocre-to-great album tracks. The three albums released in this span – The Works, 1984; A Kind Of Magic, 1986; and The Miracle, 1989 – were million-sellers and platinum records for the band, but were designed with an eye on the charts instead of presenting a unified album. That said, there are some songs on these albums worth finding: ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ is a fairly popular Queen song, and was even released as a single, though it failed to attract much of an audience. But this gorgeous ballad, with keyboards, guitars, Mercury’s powerful, restrained vocals, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra, deserved far better, but being released alongside ‘A Kind Of Magic’ and ‘One Vision’, it’s understandable that a five minute ballad would be pushed out of the consciousness in favor of poppier, rockier stuff – but that doesn’t mean it’s fair.

36. ‘In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisted’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Sheer Heart Attack, 1974

Queen’s first two albums were rooted more deeply in prog/art rock, so when the comparatively poppy Sheer Heart Attack was released, it was a dynamic shift toward playing the charts while still experimenting with unconventional musical styles. ‘In The Lap Of The Gods’ is an operatic apocalypse, a Dante’s Inferno of otherworldly howling that was the obvious precursor to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – yet its revisited cousin, which closes the Sheer Heart Attack album, is a power ballad through and through, with Mercury admitting his posturing and pretending is all for show, and that there’s depth beneath his exterior. Taking ‘Hey Jude’ as a template, with an extended singalong chorus that’s equally as meaningless (“Woah woah la la, woah wa woo” instead of “Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude”), ‘In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited’ entrenched itself as a set closer for the next three years, though ‘We Are The Champions’ would replace it as that pivotal, arm-swaying, lighter-waving concluding anthem.

35. ‘Was It All Worth It’
Written by Queen
From the album: The Miracle, 1989

With Mercury’s health by this point deteriorating, his doctors were certain that he wouldn’t see the end of 1988, so serious was his condition. That he not only survived but thrived for a further three years was a testament to both modern medicine and his willingness to fight. That paints The Miracle in a different light: convinced this was their final album and testament, Queen rebounded with a goofy, lighthearted listen that, apart from its five singles and one strong album track, was an extension of A Kind Of Magic and The Works before it. That one strong album track is ‘Was It All Worth It’, a defiant, semi-autobiographical summation of a life and career full of ups and downs. Embodying not only everything that made Queen Queen, but also some tricks of the ’80s, the song is a six minute tour de force, with the band throwing everything they’ve got at the wall and finding themselves surprised at what sticks. (There’s a synthesized orchestral interlude in there, fer crying out loud.) Mercury’s in fine voice, sounding jovial and not at all regretful, and his gleeful assessment that “It was a worthwhile experience!” would have been a fine way to end a career. That he got one more chance with Innuendo meant that Queen were able to right some wrongs, and end on an even more traditional note.

34. ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’
Written by Brian May
From the album: Hot Space, 1982

The Hot Space album is the unloved bastard child in Queen’s discography: detrimentally experimental with its fusion of funk, disco, and rock, it was a year or two early: the rock world was still reeling from the mass-produced strains of Lipps, Inc., and didn’t need four white, British guys to tell them to get on the dance floor. (It didn’t help that most of the dance songs weren’t very danceable.) But the second side of the album is more traditional Queen, and May, the most ill-at-ease with his band’s excursions, was the most eager to return them to what they knew best. ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’ is a flowery ballad that successfully combines synthesizers with acoustic instruments, and comes out smelling sweeter than most everything else. Inspired by Queen’s 1981 South American tour and the warm reception they received there, Mercury occasionally slips into Spanish, sounding like an innocent choirboy, and the result has divided fans – some absolutely adore it, others find it to be a hamfisted rewrite and locale shift of ‘Teo Toriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’ – but isn’t that what Hot Space was all about, anyway?

33. ‘The Millionaire Waltz’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: A Day At The Races, 1976

O, fair listeners! Come hither betwixt legions of admirers to bathe in the glory that is Sire Mercury’s fine wealth! Swoon as he’s perched upon a piano stool, resplendent in a fine lurex suit, as he croons a decadent waltz of the perks of prosperity! Gasp as Lord May leads an orchestra of bewigged Mays, plucking delicate notes of a most exquisite nature! For at today’s outing at the races, Their Royal Majesties request your pounds, shillings, and pence be tossed upon the stage, so that Sire Mercury may festoon himself further with extravagance! May his beloved torch song to fortune forever ring in your hearts, your ears, and your minds, for these are affluent times indeed!

32. ‘Tenement Funster’
Written by Roger Taylor
From the album: Sheer Heart Attack, 1974

Taylor’s songwriting development wasn’t exactly a hit-the-ground-running process. His debut, ‘Modern Times Rock’n'Roll’, was a nifty pastiche of Mott the Hoople’s boogie-woogie glam-rock, while ‘The Loser In The End’ lumbered and galloped without any kind of consequence (though it confirmed that he quite liked John Bonham’s style of drumming). ‘Tenement Funster’, then, is his submission to the songwriter litmus test, and, as the saying goes, the third time’s the charm. Finding his voice as a slacker rebel, rejecting a humdrum existence by angering his neighbors with loud music and wooing girls, Taylor delivers a stellar composition, alternately dark and humorous, which paves the way for his best-known song, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’.

31. ‘Father To Son’
Written by Brian May
From the album: Queen II, 1974

The logical progression of albums is such: the debut gets out all of the material that the band has been living with and slogging endlessly onstage for two or three years, while the second is a grab-bag of songs that were rejected from the debut, mixed with newly-written material, and produced in a manner which is entirely to the band’s liking. At the mercy of a producer on their first album, the band will usually capitulate to common sense, but let their imaginations run wild – and refuse to be told no – on their sophomore effort. With that in mind, Queen II could have easily been called And The Kitchen Sink, as the band throw in every trick of their limited trade, no matter how murky the soup may get. (Fun fact: they were considering calling the album Over The Top, which would have been more apt – and imaginative.) The album attempts to tell a nonlinear story of mystical, mythical worlds, with gods, goddesses, ogres, faeries, black queens, white queens, mothers, fathers, and generation gaps. It’s not entirely successful, but it’s my personal favorite Queen album, so I’m bound to stick up for it no matter what. ‘Father To Son’ is a towering epic, of the passage of a kingdom from one generation to the next. Winding its way through several musical styles – starting off as a ballad before becoming a rocker that would make The Who blush, it ends with an acoustic singalong that blends into the next track – the song is a bit too epic, meandering from time to time with little regard for arrangement. But it allows May to run full reign on his homemade guitar, delivering blistering solo after blistering solo, while the rhythm section of Taylor and Deacon burble excitedly behind him. Unfortunately, it was destined for obscurity, though it remained a concert favorite and was even a show opener for a while – and if you’re used to Queen opening a concert with a fast, electric arrangement of ‘We Will Rock You’ or the anthemic ‘One Vision’, then this little bit of information gives you an indication of Queen’s early days stage presence.

Top 50 Queen Countdown: 50–41

As a sort of promotion for the upcoming US release of my book, Queen: Complete Works, I’ve decided to tackle something I thought about doing for quite some time: a personal Top 50 of their songs. This list is by no means the result of any widespread polling or public opinion; it’s merely my own thoughts on which songs hold significance to me.

Every Tuesday from now until March 13th I’ll post a list of 10 Queen songs that make up my Top 50. In the meantime, feel free to comment or head over to Amazon to pre-order the book.

50. ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’
Written by Brian May
From the album: Queen Rocks, 1997

Putting this hard-hitting power ballad on a compilation of rockers might not have been the smartest decision, but, to me, it’s a touching tribute that reunited the original line-up for one last song, right before John Deacon decided that Queen didn’t exist without Freddie Mercury, and he retired for good. Made In Heaven might have been the postscript to the Queen saga, but ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ is a lovely little footnote, and would have been a suitable end – unfortunately, it was about to get much worse, with Brian May and Roger Taylor embarking on a commercially rewarding but creatively dubious series of collaborations with any flash-in-the-pan star with whom the guitarist and drummer decided was worth working.

49. ‘A Human Body’
Written by Roger Taylor
Non-album B-side, 1980

Recorded during sessions for The Game in 1980, ‘A Human Body’ was rejected as being “too melodic” (whatever that means) and consigned to non-album status, while the far inferior ‘Coming Soon’ earned precious real estate on that wildly popular album. ‘A Human Body’ isn’t Taylor’s best song ever, but it has an endearing charm to it: name-checking Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his failed Terra Nova Expedition, the song, as with most of Taylor’s compositions, doesn’t say much, but is a refreshing chaser to the funk-rock path the band was heading down by this time.

48. ‘Ride The Wild Wind’
Written by Queen
From the album: Innuendo, 1991

Though credited to all four band members, ‘Ride The Wild Wind’ was written by Taylor, and is a scorching rocker that reaffirmed Queen’s ability to let loose every once in a while. With a thundering drum performance and some positively ethereal guitar work from May, the song is a mighty strong album track that rivaled some of the other singles from Innuendo, and only further proved that Queen were back on track toward making a cohesive album, instead of a collection of strong singles with a few weaker throwaways to pad out the rest of the album.

47. ‘Don’t Try So Hard’
Written by Queen
From the album: Innuendo, 1991

This May/Mercury co-write (long, falsely attributed to Deacon) is an atmospheric power ballad, with Mercury, by this time in terminal decline, giving his all for an otherworldly vocal performance and May matching his poignant emotion with a transcendent guitar solo. As with ‘Ride The Wild Wind’, ‘Don’t Try So Hard’ is a surprisingly strong album track, and, in other circumstances, might have been a worthy single release.

46. ‘It’s A Hard Life’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: The Works, 1984

While Deacon, Taylor, and May were all married with children, Mercury was a promiscuous fun-seeker, and his torrid affairs have long been a point of gleeful controversy by those who didn’t know him. The truth was, he was a romantic at heart, and longed for a stable relationship; while he would often write tender love songs, there was an underlying current of bachelorhood that showed he wasn’t entirely willing to change his ways. Not so on ‘It’s A Hard Life’, a stand-out track from The Works that is a painfully honest appraisal of his love life. Chosen as the third single from the album, it gave the band another Top 10 hit, but part of me thinks it was a bit too emotionally raw for Queen, and might have been better suited for Mercury’s solo album, Mr. Bad Guy.

45. ‘Lily Of The Valley’
Written by Freddie Mercury
From the album: Sheer Heart Attack, 1974

Then again, this oblique ballad, lasting barely two minutes, is equally as tender and pained as ‘It’s A Hard Life’, and it’d be impossible to imagine Sheer Heart Attack without ‘Lily Of The Valley’. May later hinted that this was Mercury’s admission that his comfortable relationship with his girlfriend, Mary Austin, wasn’t entirely honest, and that he wasn’t too far off from discovering the real him. Closing out the first side medley (which also contained Taylor’s slacker anthem ‘Tenement Funster’ and Mercury’s vicious ‘Flick Of The Wrist’), ‘Lily Of The Valley’ is a sublime album track that is practically a solo performance, apart from the occasional burst of sound from the others.

44. ‘The Prophets Song’
Written by Brian May
From the album: A Night At The Opera, 1975

This riveting epic, lasting an astounding eight minutes and throwing every bit of studio trickery its way in the process, was based on a dream of May’s where he envisioned a prophet ranting wildly of an apocalyptic flood on the side of a mountain to legions of scared followers. The song takes its time to unfold, starting off as a delicate ballad, with May picking tenderly at a toy koto, before the sonic volcano of Deacon and Taylor takes over, turning it into a mid-pace rocker. The middle section of Mercury’s a cappella vocals goes on a bit too long, but its swirling madness only adds to the disconcerting cacophony, and just as the water levels rise, the rains stop, and the tension is alleviated with some dulcet acoustic guitar work. While ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ would attract well-deserved attention, ‘The Prophets Song’ would be unfairly neglected and forgotten over the years, a fate it most definitely does not deserve.

43. ‘It’s Late’
Written by Brian May
From the album: News Of The World, 1977

Queen’s last great towering epic for 14 years, ‘It’s Late’ starts off slow but quickly picks up steam, detailing a (partly autobiographical) torrid love triangle between a man, his wife, and a groupie. As with most of May’s compositions, the message doesn’t objectify the affair but questions its necessity, and the mood is more melancholic than it is triumphant. Released in 1977 just as punk and New Wave was gathering momentum, ‘It’s Late’ might have been a bit too raw and lumbering to put the musical upstarts to shame, but it firmly entrenched Queen’s status as power rockers. (The song was even released as a US single, though its length, at 6 1/2 minutes, was its downfall, and it stumbled to #74.) After this, the band ditched the epics, and focused on tighter, more compact songs, which helped their commercial potential but meant their musical experimentation was far more limited.

42. ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’
Written by Brian May
From the album: Jazz, 1978

Unlike ‘It’s Late’, which handles extramarital affairs with kid gloves and just a tinge of guilt, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ is a gleeful schoolboy ode to ladies with superior posteriors, and succinctly sums up the “excess all areas” attitude of Queen’s late 1970s after-show parties. (Their infamous Halloween 1978 premiere of Jazz, which took place in New Orleans and saw, among other things, female mudwrestlers and a little person walking around with a tray of cocaine strapped to his head, is the stuff of legend.) This nod to groupies everywhere strikes a C&W chord at times, with the hard-hitting chorus and tub-thumping rhythm instantly endearing it to lager louts at a strip club. Mercury certainly took a shine to the song, and was a prime mover in getting a half dozen nude strippers, perched on bicycles, to appear with the band onstage at Madison Square Garden that same year.

41. ‘A Winter’s Tale’
Written by Queen
From the album: Made In Heaven, 1995

Written by Mercury in the winter of 1990, ‘A Winter’s Tale’ is an unusual song for him, in that it’s merely observational; as the singer retreated to the comfort of Montreux, away from the intrusion of the tabloid press, he gained a new sense of perspective on life, and as he watched swans float by Lake Geneva, this tranquil ballad flowed from his pen. A few short months later, he assembled the rest of Queen to record the song, and it remains one of the last full songs he recorded before he died. Released as a Christmastime single in 1995, it flew to #6 in the UK charts, though it was neglected a prime spot on the Greatest Hits III compilation.