Queen's songs have fascinated fans for decades, and their greatest hits can make even the
largest stadium audience sing and clap hands like there's no tomorrow.
But what did it take to create these massive tunes?
Let's take a look at some of the stories behind Queen's most popular songs.
"We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" are so catchy and easy to join in on, it almost
seems like they were specifically designed that way.
Well, they were.
Both songs were actually inspired by a concert Queen played at a U.K. venue called Bingley
Hall on May 29th, 1977.
The band was already accustomed to gigs where fans were singing along, but Bingley Hall
was a game-changer.
According to Brian May, the audience was so loud that they turned the event into a giant
impromptu rock choir.
The band had to stop the show and allow the crowd to perform for them, instead of the
other way around.
After that, both May and Freddie Mercury wanted to craft songs specifically meant for audience
participation.
May contributed the stomping, hand-clapping "We Will Rock You," while Mercury came up
with the powerful "We Are The Champions."
Freddie Mercury had a life-long relationship with a woman named Mary Austin.
Austin actually briefly dated Brian May, and she met Mercury some time after her relationship
with May ended on good terms.
The singer's feelings toward Austin were quite genuine, as they lived together for seven
years and he reportedly said she was the only person he truly loved.
However, Queen's popularity grew, and Austin felt uncomfortable in Mercury's new celebrity
circles.
Thinking that Mercury would eventually lose interest in her, she tried to break up with
the singer, but he refused to let go, and tried to keep them together by writing several
songs about her.
"Love of My Life" was the most famous of those songs, but ultimately, it wasn't enough.
Mercury soon came clean with numerous infidelities with men, and the surprised Austin finally
left him.
"I enjoyed..
I enjoyed the fact that he was able to be honest and frank with me."
However, they remained extremely close for the rest of Mercury's life, and Austin became
something of a muse to him.
Their relationship was so strong that Austin dropped everything to devote herself to Mercury's
care as he was dying… and Mercury left her the lion's share of his fortune.
"Don't Stop Me Now" is an empowering anthem to feeling completely unstoppable and taking
on the world.
But after Mercury's death in 1991, May revealed that the song was about a particularly difficult
period in the vocalist's life.
At the time, Mercury was at his most hedonistic, and the rest of the band members were worried
about their friend, who basically wrote an ode to his own dangerous excesses.
Still, even the singer's death wasn't enough to cast a shadow over the song's gleeful ode
to decadence.
Despite not performing particularly well on the charts when it was released as a single,
"Don't Stop Me Now" has become one of Queen's most popular tracks.
In 1981, David Bowie met Queen in Switzerland, where the the five musicians decided the best
way to get acquainted would be to jam together.
John Deacon broke the ice with the iconic bass line for 'Under Pressure', and the group
descended into a wine-and-drug-fueled marathon jam-fest that turned into a song.
The famous vocals were recorded by the tripping singers letting out whatever crossed their
minds.
This peaceful coexistence endured a small crack the very next day, when Bowie remixed
the track into a version that Freddie Mercury disliked.
The two had an intense argument, but didn't seem to bear a grudge.
"We were friends and ah… sometimes different artists come together at the right time if
the characters are right … more than anything.”
"Now I'm Here" is a song about the most classic of rock song subjects: touring.
As Queen: Complete Works describes, Brian May started working on the autobiographical
song while the band was on the road, supporting Mott the Hoople in 1974.
However, the actual writing process was difficult because May's year was plagued by illness,
from gangrene to hepatitis to an ulcer.
He was so worried that his bandmates would replace him because of his health troubles
that he became deeply depressed.
"Yeah, I'd like to tell you there was a glimmer of hope there but there wasn’t at that time."
Instead, the rest of the band doubled down on their support, and they focused on writing
new material as they waited for him to heal.
May thanked them for the vote of confidence with "Now I'm Here," which became one of the
most performed songs in the band's career.
If you pay attention, you'll find that "You're My Best Friend" isn't actually just about
friendship: it's actually bass player John Deacon's love song to his wife, Veronica.
The year was 1975, and the only song Deacon had written for the band was the unassuming
"Misfire."
At the time, the band had an electric piano that Freddie Mercury hated, so Deacon hauled
it home and started learning to play.
He describes "You're My Best Friend" as the song that simply came out of the piano when
he was practicing, and to this day, he feels that it sounds best on that particular instrument.
The rest of the group were so floored that they even released the poppy tune as the follow-up
single to "Bohemian Rhapsody."
"Radio Ga Ga", one of Queen's most famous songs, was also one of their most controversial
single choices.
Capitol Records weren't pleased that their expensive signing's first single release was
going to be a song that turned the downfall of radio into a rock chant.
Capitol President Jim Mazza even drafted some less controversial lyrical ideas and sent
them to the band, but it's unclear if any of the changes were ever implemented.
Roger Taylor says the song wasn't meant to be a statement against radio, and actually
criticized the era's emphasis on music videos.
The band had also acquired some clips from Fritz Lang's Metropolis and decided to use
those in the music video for the song.
As a result, the song that's criticizing music videos produced one of Queen's finest music
videos.
According to Denise Sullivan of All Music, "Somebody to Love" is Freddie Mercury's heart-wrenching
testimony to the universe, a ballad that functions as a pleading, soul-searching question.
In a life without love, what's God's function?
It's easy to see all this desperation and heartbreak as the singer's own.
Roger Taylor offered an alternate interpretation in an interview with Circus Magazine, saying
that the band was actually just influenced by Aretha Franklin, and they were deliberately
playing things pretty loose to get that gospel style.
So, is this Freddie Mercury's personal scream of anguish, or just a rock band attempting
to pay homage to the Queen of Soul?
In fact, it's entirely possible to do both at the same time.
Still, one thing is certain: Leave it to Queen to create a gospel song about how God may
not be all that and still have it reach #2 on the charts.
"I Want It All" is an anthem to determination.
Queen: Album by Album says the track was inspired by Brian May's second wife, Anita Dobson.
When they were still a new couple, Dobson was present at the band's concert at Wembley
Stadium.
Some people recognized her and applauded for her, but instead of being intimidated with
the huge masses, she said what would become the song's chorus: "I want it all, and I want
it now."
May placed Dobson's ambitious saying at the heart of a powerful riff-rock anthem that
he submitted for the album The Miracle.
Although the band was at a point where they had agreed to split all writing credits equally,
John Deacon noted that "I Want It All" was essentially a finished song before they even
headed into the studio.
Unfortunately, due to Freddie Mercury's failing health and inability to tour, the powerful
track was never performed live by its original singer.
The assorted stories behind "Killer Queen" are unusual and at odds.
The generally accepted story that the #1 single from 1974 is about a courtesan, which was
directly confirmed by Mercury himself.
Mercury said he wrote the song about a high-class prostitute and that he wanted to express that
even people from the upper echelons of society can still have flexible morals.
However, if you read into the song with a little of the band's history, you come to
media personality Eric Hall.
"He said 'Eric'..
That’s about you.
How is about me?
You’re a Killer Queen."
Hall was actually in the band's atmosphere during the era, and even worked as their radio
plugger at the time.
The BBC repeats Mercury's statements that the song is about a completely fictional call
girl, but Hall himself seems to have confirmed that it's all about him.
Either way, it boasts some of Mercury's best work.
As Roger Taylor said in the documentary Days of Our Lives,
"Killer Queen always felt a bit special.
It was very sophisticated.
And it was very Freddy!"
"Save Me" is a tragic and emotional song about a man whose relationship is falling apart
and who is truly at his wits' end.
Brian May wrote it about his friend, who was undergoing the fracturing marital situation
described in the song.
Even though he composed the track, May wasn't the only one pouring emotion into it.
Freddie Mercury liked to belt the power ballad out like it was a personal statement, which
might not be too far from the truth.
As Rolling Stone points out, the singer's own emotional and relationship issues also
fit into the lyrics surprisingly well.
Was the friend May was writing about secretly Mercury all along, or did the song just resonate
with the vocalist?
Regardless of the answer, this incredibly heartbreaking song has recently given its
name to one of May's current pet projects: The Save Me Trust, a foundation for … uh,
protecting badgers?
"Brian May here… it seems for wildlife all around the planet, the candle is about to
burn out."
All right, maybe people are reading too much into the song.
In early 1980, John Deacon stopped writing simple pop songs and ushered the rest of the
band into the world of funk.
Although they had flirted with funk on a couple tracks, the songs had always sounded like,
well, Queen.
Deacon introduced crisp, dry drums, a bass-driven rhythm, and a relatively simplistic production
where Freddie Mercury's voice was the only element that was a recognizable Queen staple.
Though Roger Taylor vocally opposed releasing "Another One Bites the Dust" song as a single,
others disagreed, and it became a #1 hit in the U.S.
It was so different from their usual fare that some radio stations actually labeled
it as an obscure single by a little-known African-American R&B band.
But the song had another layer to it — the unexpectedly dark lyrics.
Although official comments about the words are few and far between, the bullet-slinging
lyrical content is generally agreed to be inspired by the notorious St. Valentine's
Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929.
When you look past Mercury's cool vocals and the funky bass line, the song does indeed
hide some surprisingly straightforward descriptions of violence.
"I think we'll go with a little Bohemian Rhapsody Gentlemen …”
“good call."
One of the biggest unanswered questions about Queen is what's up with "Bohemian Rhapsody."
What's it really about?
The answer to "what do the literal words mean," according to a leaflet included with an Iranian
cassette of Queen's greatest hits, is that the song is
"...about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul
to the devil."
He later calls out to God, and God helps him get his soul back from the devil.
Okay, fine, that's interesting, but why would Queen write this song?
Is it a coming-out song?
Maybe it's about Freddie's youth?
Sorry, but we don't know.
The best we can do is gather some tiny snippets.
No one who was around for the production of the song will say what Freddie was imagining
or describing to them when they worked it all out.
Producer Roy Baker was there, but he told the New York Times it was generally agreed
with Queen that Mercury was allowed to keep the true stories behind their songs a secret.
Freddie only ever said the song was about "relationships," and the other people who
know have all kept buttoned up so far.
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