The second side of A Night At The Opera commences with Brian’s lengthy, “The Prophet’s Song,” that was inspired, if that is the right word, when he was feverish with hepatitis during the Sheer Heart Attack sessions. Mercury’s “Seaside Rendezvous” is another track that shows the band’s inventiveness, since Freddie and Roger provide a woodwind section performed by just their voices, along with a tap-dancing sequence they performed on the mixing desk with thimbles over their fingers. Given the song’s weird skiffle arrangement, Brian asked Deacon to play double bass, and the number was included in Queen’s set-list by 1976, becoming an instant crowd favorite.īrian’s “Sweet Lady” accentuated the almost willful diversity of Queen at this point in their career, with its live rhythm section and heavily distorted rock thrash in ¾ time. Very much John’s baby, he even supplies the Wurlitzer organ.īrian May’s “39” is his first composition to appear on this album and it is a science fiction come space travel number that is a reminder of his learned interest in astrophysics and astronomy in general. More new ground is broken by John Deacon’s “You’re My Best Friend,” which in 1976 became the eminent bass man’s first composition to be released as a Queen single, and a hit at that. It was also used as B-side to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but only after Roger allegedly locked himself in a cupboard at Sarm Studios until the others laughingly agreed to it. There follows a neat transition into Roger Taylor’s “I’m In Love With My Car,” a paean to speed and auto fixation that would one day be used as the sound-bed for a Jaguar TV advert, meanwhile offering itself as a serious love song. It’s one of Freddie’s sharpest lyrics, so vicious that Brian May wasn’t too thrilled to even have to sing the words.įreddie’s “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon” continued to showcase his piano playing skills and his growing confidence on keyboards helped to make the whole album so much better. It opens with “Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…),” a barely veiled and acerbic open letter to a businessman contact, which was actually given its finishing touches immediately before release. Queen made the most of the 24 track set-ups Baker brought to the table, and along with the engineer, the late Mike Stone who sadly passed away in 2002, they collectively created a great sounding record. This is an album that should be listened to in its entirety rather than through the unpredictability of random play and shuffle. The 12 tracks that make up A Night At The Opera comfortably broke the 43-minute mark, and like its predecessor, the sequencing of this record creates its own dynamic. The band later worked in five more studios (Roundhouse, Sarm East, Scorpio, Lansdowne, and Olympic) in their pursuit of perfection, and in so doing, their own self-belief was fully justified. They then decamped over the Welsh Marches once more to Rockfield. John, Roger, Brian, and Freddie took much-needed holidays before work on the new project began in earnest with a three-week writing and playing session in a rented Herefordshire house.
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