The origins of this song are well documented: it arrived with us through
the toddler mutterings of Roger’s son Felix denouncing radio as "ca ca"
using French, the first language of his mother Dominique. He’d thus
declared radio to be 'poo poo'. There can’t be too many people who can
claim that a pronouncement they made at the age of three has become
immortalised in a song! Although the band sang 'ca ca' on the original
recording, it wouldn’t sit well within an English language title, so it was
changed to ‘ga ga’, which, spelled as one word means crazy in two
senses: losing one’s mental faculties, especially in old age; or being
passionate about something, which both fit the message of the song in a
way.
The story goes that Roger started working on the track individually
before Freddie, along with the other band members, took an interest in it.
It’s well known that Roger intended the song to be a eulogy to radio,
which he felt was the ideal medium for music, but was being endangered
by the introduction in the early 80s of MTV and its requirement that a
video should accompany every song from now on, otherwise it simply
couldn’t become a hit.
Ironically, Queen created a highly memorable and imaginative video for
this song, which, according to the Official International Queen Fan Club
magazine of the time, was premiered in the US on 10 February 1984 on
MTV, which had exclusive rights to it until 17 February. For one week,
therefore, MTV was its sole broadcaster, unaware that it was airing a
protest against its own existence.
The importance of radio for a teenager growing up in the 60s and even
the 70s, when TV was in its infancy, is of paramount importance in
understanding the lyrical content: Roger declares that radio was "my only
friend through teenage nights and that "everything I had to know
I heard it on my radio…"
By his own account, it was influencers like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley
that he first heard this way. Similar stories of listening to popular music
have been recorded concerning Brian, who "lay under the covers
listening to Radio Luxembourg", a pirate station, and Freddie, whose
"fascination with western pop music" as a teenager in Zanzibar was fed
by the BBC World Service.
The song was originally composed with various synthesisers. A
vocoder was used to create the robotic effect on the vocals, and the
production also included the use of a LinnDrum drum machine with
keyboards played by Fred Mandel.
As for the video, footage from the 1927 science fiction movie,
‘Metropolis’ creates an appropriate mix of past and future as a backdrop.
Freddie and Roger had long admired the film and Freddie’s solo song
‘Love Kills’, co-written by Giorgio Moroder, was on the soundtrack of the
latter’s 1984 Metropolis remake.
The video shows the band members riding in a flying car through the
futuristic city, as well as ‘extras’ from the fan club dressed like the
demoralised workers from the movie footage, whom they impersonate
with their heads down. The words "finest hour’" in the song are a quote
from the British wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the video
also depicts a family, apparently during World War 2, entirely dependent
on their radio.
There is also a reference in the song to the 1938 ‘War of the Worlds’
sci fi radio drama in the US, which is said to have been so genuine that
some people were duped into thinking that a real Martian invasion was
taking place, another homage to the power of radio.
The song, which is almost as long as Bohemian Rhapsody, is
unquestionably Roger’s most successful contribution to Queen’s
enduring repertoire, and with footage from Metropolis accompanying its
performance at Queeh and Adam Lambert concerts, it has, despite its
original message, become irrevocably bound to the contents of its video
in the public imagination.
© Alison Sesi 2022
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