“Here comes Freddie plus Freddie plus Freddie plus
Freddie plus Freddie“. This was the way Kenny Everett
introduced this song when he was playing tracks from
the new ‘A Day at the Races’ album in company with
Freddie in the Capital Radio studio back in November
1976. This was because, unlike other Queen vocal
arrangements, this track contains only Freddie’s voice
multitracked, and no backing from Brian and Roger.
Despite the replication, Freddie described the song as
“pretty sparse by Queen standards”.
This feature of the track, which is the second one on
side 1 of the album, was picked up by Harry Doherty in
his contemporary review, where he described it as a
“fairly simple Mercury song”, pointing out that it had
already been performed by Freddie with just his vocal,
accompanying himself on the piano. This was a
reference to the band’s September 1976 concerts, for
example at Edinburgh and the free concert in London’s
Hyde Park. He likened it to ‘Love of My Life’ from the
previous ‘A Night at the Opera’ album, but parallels
have also been drawn with ‘Nevermore’ from Queen
II.
Apart from his captivating and harmonised vocals,
superbly managed as ever by sound engineer Mike
Stone, Freddie played the piano part, the scale used
being a huge nod to Japan, where the band had first
been received like superstars. Whereas the Hyde Park
version was only about three minutes long, the final
studio track extended to just over five. Roger
contributed a little percussion - there were no drums -
Brian added some courtly guitar and John’s bass inlay
completes this jewel of a track.
In an interview with Jas Obrecht in Guitar Player
magazine in 1983, Brian was asked how he achieved
the violin-like tone. He replied:
“There's a particular pickup combination which I use for
the violin things: the fingerboard pickup and the middle
one. Those two working in phase make a very mellow
sound. And there's a point on the amplifier where it's just
about to get distorted, but not quite. Instead of using my
pick, I tap the fingerboard with the right hand, and that
just sets the thing moving. It sustains itself - you hardly
need to even tap it any. If you stand in exactly the right
place, it feeds back in any position so I can just warble
around and it's very smooth”.
Freddie’s lyrics express a very physical passion,
together with his deep-seated need for the object of his
affection, which is understood to have been David
Minns, a music manager with whom he had a romantic
relationship early on after realising his sexuality.
The song remained on the setlist until June 1977 and it
has been played on tape to lead into ‘Who Wants to Live
Forever’ in Queen and Adam Lambert concerts.
© Alison Sesi 2023
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