At this point in the list it's customary to reach the best so-and-so songs in particular groupings and "Long Away" would be the best song Brian May ever sang. Not counting the melody's highest note, which he handed off to Roger Taylor to tackle for logical reasons. May swapped out his Red Special for a Burns twelve-string here and "Long Away" became the only single put out during the band's lifespan that Freddie Mercury wasn't at all featured on.
Freddie's blatant and lively little ode to Elvis Presley "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was one of the most spontaneously constructed pop singles probably of all time. Allegedly written in 10 minutes in the bath, Freddie's near non-existent guitar playing abilities restricted him to keeping it stupid simple. A handful of hours after he brought it in that very day to show everyone, it was properly recorded. May once again busted out a different axe, this time a Telecaster for the solo, while Mercury did some of the only rhythm guitar ever laid down in his life.
Going for the biggest possible amount of noise to maximize on a recording was something Queen endlessly did to torment their mixing engineers and just such a laborious process was taken on Sheer Heart Attack's finale "In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited". Freddie composed the song in an attempt to write something a live audience could sing along to and the majority of it was dedicated to the "Whoa oh la la la" vocal crescendos that nearly explode from the speakers by the last go-round. "Revisited" is the perfect caper to the most perfect of Queen albums in my opinion, rightfully achieving one of the most massive of sounds.
One would hardly assume that possibly the heaviest and certainly most metal as fuck Queen song wasn't written by their guitar riff guru Brian May, but instead Mr. Mercury. Freddie wrote this bloody tale of exactly what the song title implies, (ogres marching into war), riffs and all on a guitar that he could barely play. Then Brian May and the rest of the band chunked and tightened it up to acceptable standards. "Ogre Battle" was one of the very earliest of Queen songs, but was held off the debut album until they could wank around more in the studio on the second one to give it it's proper due. This is about as heavy as it gets for 1974, let alone Queen in general.
After delivering solid gold with "You're My Best Friend", John Deacon's follow-up was the "Tie Your Mother Down" b-side "You and I". The bass player performed acoustic guitar on it as well and the song being piano based, left that part up for the band's best ivory player which naturally was Freddie. Though Queen obviously had a stellar batch of hit singles in their career, just like any of my very favorite bands, album cuts such as "You and I" generally find my fancy so much more. At least when a bloke like John Deacon was so increasingly crafty at delivering them.
The most synth-laden hit that Queen ever had was Roger Taylor's very 1980s yet very beautiful "Radio Ga Ga". Taylor's son coined the phrase "radio ca ca" which probably made the drummer laugh out loud, nevertheless inspiring him to lock himself in a room with a keyboard and a drum machine to put the outline for the track together. Initially considered for his own solo album, once the rest of the band got a hold of it, John Deacon added a bass-line to it, Freddie polished off the arrangement and some lyrics, and session player Fred Mandel put the synthesizer sequences together, it became thoroughly Queen's.
The jammiest and loosest Queen cut could very well be The Game's high-point "Dragon Attack". Credited to Brian May, the song came together from a late night/early morning, fucking about session, (whilst "probably very drunk" says Brian), and the finished product has a number of breakdowns in a row. These include a bass solo, guitar solo, and even a percussion solo, all of which are somewhat played alone over Roger's tight, funky groove. The vocals likewise have an improvised feel and are basically rhyming gibberish, which makes the song even more lighthearted and fun.
I could've easily grouped "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke", "Nevermore", and "The March of the Black Queen" together but eh, I didn't feel like it. This is because I've long been fine listening to the minute and seventeen second long "Nevermore" on it's own, proving how very solid it stands by itself. This is essentially the breather in Freddie's "Side Black" on Queen II, a brief, captivating moment of pure beauty to be found with his remarkable piano playing and the band's signature, operatic vocal harmonies.
News of the World's "It's Late" is a different kind of epic for Queen. Grandiose, layered, rhapsodic, and dramatic are convincing words to use in describing even the shortest of Queen songs, let alone their more complex, multi-sectioned ones. But for "It's Late", Brian May firmly rooted it in stripped-down guitar, bass, and drums, though it still adheres to being composed in three acts and near reaches the six and a half minute mark. Lyrically it tells the story of a love affair reaching it's zenith and the rich yet basic guitar intro to "It's Late" is on the long list of my favorite individual moments from any Queen song.
The first proper title track to actually appear on the album it's title shared was "A Kind of Magic". Roger Taylor wrote a more complex, different version for the Highlander soundtrack and then Freddie re-arranged it similarly to how he tweaked "Radio Ga Ga" for maximum hit appeal. To single out the best Brian May guitar solo is rather fruitless do to how many astounding ones there are, but the incredibly stylish leads that are featured in "Magic" are amongst his finest. Freddie's vocal likewise is chill and romantic and it shows just what you can do with taking a line from a movie and crafting a superb pop song around it.
If we're to be honest, there probably isn't a catchier Queen song than "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy". Is there even a catchier 70s song period? Freddie was still delivering the occasional music hall number at this point in the band's flawless years and "Lover Boy" has his campy charm oozing all over it. This has yet another guitar solo from Brian May that displays the highest possible level of craftsmanship; a call and response, meticulously arranged, brass-section-esque lead that matches Freddie's ragtime pop sensibilities to a wondrous tee.
Proving that both "You're My Best Friend" and "Another One Bites the Dust" were no flukes, John Deacon once again handed in a mega-hit with The Works' "I Want to Break Free". Technically a 12-bar blues with no chorus, Deacon insisted on the song containing no guitar solo either, Fred Mandel once again saving the day with for my money, the best synthesizer lead in history. And of course one cannot fail to mention the hilarious music video which poses the entire band in drag as a play on the British soap opera Coronation Street.
It really was no joke that Queen was ready and willing to jump fully into any possible genre of music they fancied at the time and the Jazz opener and clear highlight "Mustapha" finds them exploring what an umpa, Arabian, prog-pop jingle with heavy guitars would sound like. And it sounds fucking awesome. Freddie put "Mustapha" together on the piano and threw English, Arabic, and fake-Arabic together to sing his praises to Allah and that and the bouncy musical arrangement are equally headbanging and intentionally silly. I love playing this song for people who are unaware of it's existence and getting a series of "what the fucks?" and laughs from them. And simultaneously proving just how brilliant this band really was in the process.
Topping off the top-notch songwriting craft that John Deacon reliably displayed is his very best song ever, News of the World's "Spread Your Wings". The piano and vocal melody are both just fantastic, Freddie delivering both like a boss. Sounding like a broken record I know, but Brian May really does peak with the outro guitar solo here, the most tasteful lead he'd ever lay down. Lyrically, "Wings" is an uplifting anthem for anyone who can relate to Sammy and his dead-end job and dreams of the more fulfilling life waiting for him whenever he decides to finally go for it.
Everything said about "Mustapha" except all the Arabic nonsense can likewise be said about the joyously goofy Sheer Heart Attack gem "Bring Back That Leroy Brown". This is the very greatest vaudevillian, old school Broadway song and dance number in Queen's catalog and few songs ever written bring such a smile to my face as this. Freddie Mercury authored, (because of course it is), "Leroy Brown" has Queen grabbing every instrument they can find laying around and proceeding to do a barber shop quartet number with them. It's just over two minutes long, but it's as exhausting and complex as "Bohemian Rhapsody" is, though even more splendidly enjoyable.
With so many songs featuring the world's all time finest vocalist, there now comes what I'd call the highest mountain top of Freddie Mercury's studio vocal performances, his own "Somebody to Love". As a follow-up to "Bohemian Rhapsody", A Day at the Races' "Somebody" was Queen's answer to gospel music and Freddie was admittedly and noticeably influenced by Aretha Franklin throughout it, singing his ass off as only he effortlessly could. Freddie, Roger, and Brian's harmony vocal acrobatics here make them sound like a church full of bellowing choir ladies and as one of the band's few soul songs, it couldn't possible be any more perfect.
Brian May went bonkers and pulled-out all the stops for his magnum opus and Queen's very longest, the just shy of eight and a half minute "The Prophet's Song". May worked on the arrangement for a long while before oodles of time was then spent in studio piecing it together. The vocal canon that appears in the middle is the most jaw-dropping moment on any Queen song; Freddie harmonizing with himself in real time as his voice pans and loops around the speakers. Lyrically, May took as much dark imagery from the Bible as well as elements of a disturbing dream he had to forge together a warning of doomed prophesies. The final "people of the earth" chorus literally gives me chills no matter how many hundreds of times I hear it.
Ever just topping out Brian May's ultimate prog-epic is Freddie Mercury's ultimate prog-epic, Queen II's paramount "The March of the Black Queen". To say this is the greatest Queen song of all time is not something I can logically dispute. It not only brought all of the band's incredibly ambitious ideas to ecstatic realization only two albums into their career, but it also mapped out a clear blueprint to follow for what became "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "The Prophet's Song" a few years later. Basically, all the proof that Queen was at one point a progressive rock band to rival all others can be found with "Black Queen". No song in the band's entire repertoire is as complex and dazzling and if you had but six and a half minutes only to demonstrate what this band was most impressively capable of, this would be your example.
The last music video Freddie Mercury ever shot was for the song that would be released on his forty-fifth birthday a mere two months before he was no more, Innuendo's incredible "These Are the Days of Our Lives". Though primarily composed by Roger Taylor and dealing with his own feelings about growing older and living vicariously through his children, Freddie's vocal gives it an entirely elated urgency and meaning of looking back at his own life which was nearly over at the time. It's as lovely a Queen song as could ever exist and the very most fitting goodbye for Freddie to in-part go out on.
I have no logical explanation as to why a minute long lullaby featuring only it's author Brian May on piano and Freddie Mercury on vocals, (including the harmony ones), should be my all time favorite Queen song. I could stop right there but I suppose I'll elaborate. I'm a sucker for ballads so I can surmise that my vigorous preference for "Dear Friends" compared to everything else this band ever put down is simply attributed to it being a subdued, gorgeously sung, chill bit of song-craft that sits right at home to my ears. But it really does say something that so simple, so tender, and so brief a song can really shine so bright amongst so, so many others with completely different, alluring qualities. My list and my rules so here dear friends is where "Dear Friends" so properly belongs.
