Queen: The Complete Works (50 page)

DON’T TRY SUICIDE
(Mercury)

• Album:
Game

Continuing the rockabilly themes explored on ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Don’t Try Suicide’ is a song that takes the serious matter of suicide and turns it into a black comedy number (hence the liberal use of the word “tits”), discounting suicide as a cry for attention instead of as a plea for help.

“‘Don’t Try Suicide’ says just that,” Roger told
Sounds
in 1980, “and I quite like that one, it’s funny. You should never read the lyrics without listening to the album at the same time, you know. It isn’t prose and they’re not poems.” With the instrumental backing of a lazy acoustic guitar and a great walking bassline, the song is a lighthearted throwaway, and is a welcome breath of fresh air among the loftier performances on
The Game
.

‘Don’t Try Suicide’ appeared as the US B-side of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ in August 1980, and gained considerable airplay on rock radio when DJs tired of playing its A-side.

A DOZEN RED ROSES FOR MY DARLING
(Taylor)

• B-side: 3/86 [3] • CD Single: 11/88

Essentially the programmed drum sequence from ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ reconfigured as an instrumental with additional synthesizer and guitar segments, ‘A Dozen Red Roses For My Darling’ is far more interesting than its cousin, but is no more than an instrumental throwaway. The curiously titled song appeared as the B-side of ‘
A Kind Of Magic
’ in the UK in March 1986 and as the B-side of ‘Princes Of The Universe’ in the US the following month, while a superfluous extended remix appeared on 12” versions of ‘
A Kind Of Magic
’, extending the track by forty-five seconds yet adding nothing substantial.

DRAGON ATTACK
(May)

• Album:
Game
• B-side: 8/80 [7] • CD Single: 11/88 • Bonus:
Game
• Live:
On Fire, Montreal

An interesting diversion into funk-rock, Brian’s ‘Dragon Attack’ is the result of a drunken recording jam session in Munich in early 1980 (“It was put together in an unusual way,” the guitarist later said. “We just jammed for awhile and put down the basic riff.”), and can be seen as the catalyst for what would eventually become
Hot Space
. Roger and John swing convincingly, locking into an infectious groove that they adhere to throughout, allowing Brian full rein on some dirty guitar licks while Freddie sings the minimal lyrics, long rumoured to be about his hard partying ways. ‘Dragon Attack’ sets the mood nicely for the following track, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, and if the funk experiments on
Hot Space
had been recorded in the same way as this track, that album wouldn’t have been such a failure in the eyes of fans and band members alike.

Issued as the B-side of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ in the UK in August 1980, the song was updated in 1991 with a remix by R.A.K., which replaced Roger’s drums with a more urban drum-machine loop, while still retaining the bass work and Freddie’s vocals, but almost completely omitting Brian’s solo in lieu of an incomprehensible rap segment. Released as a bonus track on
The Game
, that reissue would have instead benefited far more from the non-album B-side ‘A Human Body’. The song was played as a mid-song interlude during ‘Now I’m Here’, normally after Freddie’s vocal interaction with the crowd; it was performed this way between 1980 and 1982, but in
1984 and 1985 was performed as a song in its own right ... before ‘Now I’m Here’. Surprisingly, the song was brought out of mothballs for the 2006 US tour with Paul Rodgers, initially performed as the third song proper in the set, but later performed after ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, closer to the encore.

DREAM OF THEE
(May)

• Soundtrack (Brian):
Furia

The only true song on the
Furia
soundtrack, ‘Dream Of Thee’ is an achingly beautiful piece performed on acoustic guitar with haunting vocals by Brian. Concluding the soundtrack album in a sombre, downbeat style similar to the other pieces, the song’s lyrics deal with the heartbreak of losing a loved one. Perhaps the most successful piece of music on the album, if only because of the lyrics, ‘Dream Of Thee’ is a triumph, and proved that Brian hadn’t lost his ability to write touching, mournful ballads.

DREAMERS BALL
(May)

• Album:
Jazz
• Live:
Killers
• Bonus:
Jazz

The song that nearly brought Brian and Roger to blows: the latter, being characteristically opinionated, didn’t particularly care for the song, while the former, who wrote it, defended his own composition. Crystal Taylor, Roger’s unrelated personal assistant, said, “Hated it on disc and hated it live, so there. I actually have a tape of Roger and Brian trying to record this in the studio, and shall we just say that tempers flared.”

A shame, since ‘Dreamers Ball’ (sans possessive apostrophe) is a unique song on what turned out to be one of Queen’s most maligned records. Recalling the boozy sounds of a New Orleans jazz bar, the song tells a story of the main character’s magical night with her lover, and how the celebration will continue in her dreams. With Freddie adopting a drunken, slurred enunciation to his delivery, the rhythm of the song, well executed by John and Roger and featuring a prominent acoustic guitar, falls slightly behind the beat, as Brian lays down some gorgeous guitar harmonies. The backing vocals are exquisite as ever, and ‘Dreamers Ball’ is an unexpected highlight of
Jazz
. An early take from August 1978, performed more in the style of ‘My Melancholy Blues’ with subdued acoustic guitar and minimalist brushed drums, was released on the 2011 reissue of
Jazz
, and serves as an interesting alternate listen.

The song was performed live during the acoustic interlude in the 1978 and 1979
Jazz
tours; in lieu of Brian’s guitar solo, Roger and Brian would provide vocalizations, similar to ‘Seaside Rendezvous’. A fun version was released on
Live Killers
in 1979, though it wouldn’t have been missed in favour of ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Somebody To Love’ or ‘It’s Late’.

DRIVEN BY YOU
(May)

• A-side (Brian): 11/91 [6] • CD single (Brian): 8/92 [5]

• Album (Brian):
BTTL
• Bonus (Brian):
BTTL

• Live (Brian):
Brixton

In early 1991, Brian was approached by the Ford Motor Company, who were interested in updating their image by using a more contemporary sound for their advertisements. Brian, who was near completion of his first solo album, agreed to work on a few ideas and, during early sessions for what would eventually become
Made In Heaven
, fleshed out a song that was enthusiastically received by the company. Three versions of ‘Driven By You’ were recorded, all sounding similar and lasting only ninety seconds each, but the response from the TV-viewing public was initially one of confusion, thinking that some no-name band was cashing in on Queen’s distinctive sound. Thus, both the Queen and Ford offices were bombarded with irate calls, but once the confusion was cleared up, the next logical question became, “When can I get this single?”

“I thought advertising was a dirty word, and I didn’t want much to do with it,” Brian said in 1991. “But these ad guys threw some slogans at me and I thought, ‘Well, I can do it if I relate to my own experiences and my own feelings.’ And the phrase ‘driven by you’ immediately jumped out as a description of the way I saw the power struggle between two people in a relationship – it just poured out. I wrote a version for me, and I wrote a version for the ad people, and it worked out great. It was a good kick up the backside for me, too, because these people work quickly and do high-quality work. On English television, the adverts are a lot better than the programming!”

Brian’s version was slated for release on 25 November 1991, such was the demand for the single. Freddie had informed the band and management that he was losing his battle to the AIDS virus, and when Jim Beach broached the subject of Brian’s latest single, with the guitarist expressing concern that he wanted to pull it so as not to appear to be cashing in on Freddie’s death,
the ailing vocalist reportedly exclaimed, “Tell him he has to – what better publicity could he have?” Freddie died on 24 November and, the day after, ‘Driven By You’ appeared and raced up the charts the following week to No. 14 before peaking at No. 6 the second week, staying in the charts for an impressive nine-week run. When released as a single in the US in April 1993, the single charted for a further nine weeks in the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, peaking at an impressive No. 9.

The song is a sprightly rocker, with a heavy drum-machine chugging away beneath layers and layers of guitars. The guitar work on this track is impressive and typical of Brian’s sound, but the most interesting aspect is the vocals, especially at the beginning. “The beginning of ‘Driven By You’ is just one voice, put through the Vocalist,” Brian explained. “I did it live, but it’s only one take – great machines!” The Vocalist, as Brian mentioned, is a machine that is able to do live multi-tracking of vocals, and is used on all of the chorus vocals throughout the song.

The song was an obvious candidate for the live setting, and was performed at every Brian May Band concert between 1992 and 1998, with a particularly touching acoustic version being recorded specially for a VH-1 special in May 1998. A live version was released on
Live At The Brixton Academy
in February 1994, and a video version of the song was taken from a live show on 19 October 1991 in Seville, Spain. This version was released on
Greatest Flix III
in 1999, though an early unique studio video, filmed during October 1991, has yet to surface.

Here’s the tricky part: several alternate versions of the track were recorded, which is not surprising given the success of the single. The standard version was recorded in the summer of 1991 at Montreux Studios and was ultimately released as the single in November 1991 and later on
Back To The Light
. The advertisement version was the preliminary take submitted to the Ford Motor Company for their campaign starting in July 1991, and was released as part of the 12” version of the single. A rock radio version, remixed by Brian Malouf and featuring a rougher, more raw sound, was later issued on a US promotional CD, while a completely new retake with Cozy Powell on drums and Neil Murray on bass was issued on the CD single of ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’ in August 1992 and later as a bonus track on the CD version of
Back To The Light
.

Three different edits for DJs were also created, each one more humorous than the last. The first, subtitled “for DJs in a bit of a hurry”, lopped off the first few seconds of the intro and some of the outro, with the running time now 3’38; the second was edited even further, subtitled “for DJs feeling under pressure”, and ran only 3’23; while the third was only five seconds, subtitled “for DJs under extreme stress!”, with a short burst of the chorus vocals and the concluding guitar riff. Phew! Driven by alternate versions, indeed.

DRIVEN BY YOU TWO
(May)

• CD single (Brian): 6/93 [23]

An interesting alternative version of ‘Driven By You’, ‘Driven By You Two’ is a re-recording based on the style of its more complete sister recording. Although it lasts only ninety seconds, it’s a surprisingly catchy instrumental, with Brian’s guitar dueling with a hardworking drum-machine. The song was released as part of the second ‘Resurrection’ CD single in June 1993, and was recorded at the same preliminary sessions as ‘Driven By You’.

DROWSE
(Taylor)

• Album:
Races

Roger had been proving himself more and more versatile as a songwriter since his debut on ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ in 1973. His glam-rock effort, ‘The Loser In The End’, hadn’t been critically well received, but the dark and ominous ‘Tenement Funster’ was a step in the right direction, and ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ would prove its staying power as a live favourite for nearly five years. Instead of continuing in the hard rock vein, Roger instead became introspective for his fifth song for Queen, harking back to the simple days of youth.

‘Drowse’ is an exquisite song, one of the finest Roger ever wrote, and certainly one of his finest vocal performances. It recalls Roger’s adolescence, when he and his friends would “scuff up the sidewalk with endlessly restless feet” and broaden their minds “more in the pool hall than we did in the school hall.” Essentially too young to enjoy what adults could but already past the border of childhood innocence, Roger finds himself bored to “rages of tears” with “the fantastic drowse of the afternoon Sundays.” Musically, the song is an accomplishment since it features an almost Spector-like ‘wall of sound’ of acoustic and rhythm guitars, played by Brian and Roger, and one of Brian’s first attempts on slide guitar, which soars
effortlessly throughout the song.

Issued as the American B-side to ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ in March 1977, ‘Drowse’ eluded a placement in the live repertoire. Oh, and the final words which Roger ultimately fades out upon, for years the cause of much speculation, were revealed in 1984: “I think I’ll be Clint Eastwood / Jimi Hendrix, he was good / Let’s try William the Conqueror / Now who else do I like?” And, if you turn up your volume loud enough, you can hear Roger’s answer to his own question: “Brian May.”

THE DUET (THE FALLEN PRIEST)
:

see
EXTRACTS FROM GARDEN LODGE

EARLY MORNING BLUES
(Blake)

This song was performed live by The Cross, with Brian on guitar and vocals and John on bass, during the band’s 1988 Christmas party for the Fan Club.

EARTH
(Staffell)

• Compilation (Smile):
Ghost Of A Smile

One of the better tracks recorded by Smile to surface from the June 1969 Trident Studios sessions, ‘Earth’ is a laid-back, slightly spacey track reminiscent of Pink Floyd, with a suitably prominent Hammond organ high in the mix. The song predates ‘’39’ and is about an astronaut lost in space, singing of the many worlds he sees, but lamenting that he’ll never again see the planet Earth; heavy stuff, yet the song was chosen as the most chartworthy track from the sessions, and was released as Smile’s first single in August 1969. Unusually, the single was a US-only release, and since Smile had no means of promotion in America, the single failed to chart, which brought a premature end to their deal with Mercury Records. Shortly after their sessions in August 1969, Tim Staffell would jump ship, bringing an end to what could have been a promising career as a blues-based rock band.