Queen: The Complete Works (70 page)

‘Lost Opportunity’ was the only song recorded in January 1991 to actually end up as originally intended, appearing as a bonus track on the CD single and 12” vinyl releases of ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’ two months later. It has yet to be released on any compilation, failing to be released on
The Singles Collection – Volume 4
in 2010, on the grounds that it wasn’t originally released on 7” vinyl – yet this would have been its perfect home after nearly twenty years of obscurity. A true lost opportunity indeed.

LOVE KILLS
(Mercury/Moroder)

• A-side (Freddie): 9/84 [10] • Soundtrack (Freddie):
Metropolis
• Compilations (Freddie):
Pretender, Solo Collection
• B-side (Freddie): 11/92 [8]

Never one to remain inactive for long, Freddie started recording tracks for a proposed solo album shortly after the 1982
Hot Space
tour, with ‘Love Kills’ being one of the early survivors to make it past the demo stage. Initially, the song was submitted for Queen’s
The Works
album but, after several unsuccessful attempts, was discarded and set aside. Freddie, recognizing the song’s potential, worked on it further, though it was later offered to Giorgio Moroder for the restored and updated version of the 1927 Fritz Lang film
Metropolis
.

How Moroder became involved in the writing of the song is uncertain. On the soundtrack to
Metropolis
, a set of lyrics is printed that is completely different from the well-known version; reportedly, when Moroder first asked Freddie to contribute to the song, the vocalist agreed but was displeased with the result and chose to rewrite it. This set of lyrics, though, sounds akin to the personal feel that Freddie had been going for and would later explore on his solo album, and the finished lyric also contains several of Freddie’s trademarks. But considering the song was practically finished before Moroder’s involvement, the extent of his contribution has so far remained a mystery.

Brian revealed (by way of Queen’s archivist Greg Brooks) that ‘Love Kills’ features Roger’s programmed drums and his guitar work, though he failed to mention if John contributed any bass, which sounds synthesized anyway. In essence, ‘Love Kills’ is almost a complete Queen recording, but since it was rejected and Freddie later turned it into something far greater than it had been, it duly became the vocalist’s first solo single. Released in September 1984, the original version reached an impressive No. 10 in the UK charts (three positions higher than Queen’s current single, ‘Hammer To Fall’), with an extended version issued on 12”.

For the 1992 compilation
The Great Pretender
, a remix was created by Richard Wolf with a completely new backing, also being issued as the B-side of ‘In My Defence’ in November 1992. A rock remix was also created for inclusion on the 2000 box set, and while it’s an interesting creation, there certainly must have been other material that would have been more beneficial. As if it couldn’t get any more ludicrous, four remixes were included on the 2006
Lover Of Life, Singer Of Songs: The Very Best Of Freddie Mercury
compilation, each of them less essential than its predecessor. Stick with the original.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING (SHE WAS A

WICKED, WILY WAITRESS)
(Taylor)

• B-side (The Cross): 9/87 [74] • Album (The Cross):
Shove
• Live (The Cross):
Bootleg

An underrated rocker from The Cross’ debut album, ‘Love Lies Bleeding (She Was A Wicked, Wily Waitress)’ is a sleazy, slinky, sex-fueled song in which Roger recalls the sordid events of a chance meeting with a lady of the night – and furthering the rumour of his lyrical decay with the precious line, “I could see she had for me / A burger with my fries on”. Certainly not the best track on the album, but one of the few songs to actually call back to Roger’s rock roots, thanks to some terrific guitar work from Brian May, ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ was used as The Cross’ introductory number for their 1988 tour. A significantly different version was released on the UK version of
Shove It
and as the B-side of ‘Cowboys And Indians’, stripping away the busier guitar riffs, but is inferior to the US version.

LOVE MAKIN’ LOVE
(Mercury)

• Compilation (Freddie):
Solo Collection

Originally recorded for
Mr Bad Guy
on 9 December 1984 at Musicland Studios, ‘Love Makin’ Love’ was submitted as a Queen track for the
A Kind Of Magic
sessions but, sadly, remained unfinished. If Freddie’s solo version, available on
The Solo Collection
, is any kind of preview for the unreleased band version,
A Kind Of Magic
would have improved significantly with its inclusion.

LOVE ME LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW
(Mercury)

• Album (Freddie):
BadGuy
• Compilation (Freddie):
Solo Collection

Sounding like a counterpart of ‘It’s A Hard Life’ from
The Works
, ‘Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow’ contains some of Freddie’s most gorgeous lyrics and melodies and is a poignant conclusion to his debut solo album. With a title inspired partly by Freddie’s then-partner Barbara Valentin, a German actress who starred in the film
Kiss Me Like There’s No Tomorrow
, the song explores the heartbreaking sentiments of a romantic struggling to accept his lover’s departure. (The song may indeed be about Valentin, for their relationship ended during the making of
Mr Bad Guy
.) It was around this time that Freddie’s personal life started to slow down, as the desire for a long-term relationship began to sound increasingly attractive. Having lived a promiscuous lifestyle for so long, Freddie pours his emotions out on this song, deliberately doing a poor job of masking his emotions through a more universal narrator. Happily, Freddie’s love life would improve drastically after the release of the album, when he met hair stylist Jim Hutton, and the two would embark on a long-lasting relationship until the end of Freddie’s life.

Released as the fourth and final single from
Mr Bad Guy
in November 1985, the song hardly troubled the charts, peaking at a disappointing No. 76; it would be the only single from the album that didn’t receive a promotional video. An extended remix was issued on 12” vinyl releases of the single, and was notable for running over five minutes and featuring additional synthesizer enhancements. A handful of additional versions were released on
The Solo Collection
, along with an instrumental rendition, created specially for the set and mixed by David Richards and Kris Fredriksson, while four interesting early takes were included on the rarities disc. The first, recorded on 29 May 1984, features only Freddie and bassist Stephan Wissnet and is a fascinating glimpse into the framework of the backing track; the second, recorded on three days later, is dominated largely by drum-machine while Freddie is clearly still working his way through the lyrics; and the third, revisited in January 1985, is an attempt to produce a final cut. A live take, which features no vocals whatsoever, was recorded at some point in June 1984, with an upbeat finale not used on the final version.

LOVE OF MY LIFE
(Mercury)

• Album:
Opera
• A-side: 6/79 [63] • Live:
Killers, Wembley, On Fire, Montreal
• Live (Brian):
Brixton
• Live (Q+PR):
Return, Ukraine
• Bonus:
Opera

There are many highlights on
A Night At The Opera
, but none is quite as perfect as Freddie’s ‘Love Of My Life’. Blending nicely with the outro from ‘The Prophets Song’, the track is a mournful ballad that many sources have indicated was written about Mary Austin, Freddie’s longtime companion and girlfriend between 1970 and 1977. In several of Freddie’s early songs, the underlying message indicated that he was emotionally confused, which Brian suggested was the inspiration for ‘Lily Of The Valley’; if so, then ‘Love Of My Life’ can be seen as a poignant romantic send-off to Mary. Indeed, Freddie maintained that Mary was the love of his life, and the two remained best friends until his death in 1991, with the bulk of his estate bequeathed to her.

The band turn in a gorgeous, understated performance, with bass and percussion flourishes from John and Roger. The song’s main focus is not only Freddie’s classical piano, but the orchestral harp that accentuates Freddie’s more dominating instrument. “There’s also a lovely little ballad; my classical influence comes into it,” Freddie explained to the
New Musical Express
in September 1975, well before the album was finished. “Brian is going to attempt to use harp, real life-size harp. I’m going to force him to play till his fingers drop off.”

“I did it chord by chord,” Brian told
Guitar Player
in 1983. “Actually, it took longer to tune the thing than to play it. It was a nightmare because every time someone opened the door, the temperature would change and the whole thing would go out. I would hate to have to play a harp on stage. I just figured out how it worked – the pedals and everything – and did it bit by bit.”

The song became a live favourite over the years, and was reworked as a duet between Freddie and Brian. “It’s adapted on stage for guitar,” the vocalist told
Melody Maker
in 1981, “but it was written on the piano. I’ve totally forgotten the original and if you asked me to play
that now, I couldn’t. Sometimes, I have to go back to the music sheet, and I can’t read that well either.” The song was introduced on the 1977
News Of The World
tour and remained an integral part of the acoustic segment until Queen’s last tour in 1986, though it was omitted for the 1982 Rock ‘n’ America tour. While the legend remains that the song was a natural for audiences to sing along to from its first performance, audience recordings indicate that this wasn’t so; it wouldn’t be until 1978 that UK audiences would participate, and it was on the 1979
Jazz
European tour that the tradition really took off, hence its belated single release. The song was brought out of mothballs for Brian’s 1992/1993
Back To The Light
tour, and was performed as a tribute to the recently deceased Freddie. The reception made it almost impossible to remove from the set, and so it remained on the 1998
Another World
tour, and again on the 2005/2006 and 2008 Queen + Paul Rodgers tours, with Brian once again leading the audience in a touching duet.

A live recording from
Live Killers
was released as a UK single in June 1979, where it became the poorest-selling single in Queen’s history, peaking at a dismal No. 63. The song struck quite a chord in South America, and it was only after the single was in the charts there for over a year that Queen finally took notice and booked a tour there in February 1981. “There are certain songs which are more popular in different countries,” Roger said in 1991, “and we used to vary the songs that we played. For instance, in South America, there was a song that was a major hit, called ‘Love Of My Life’, which was never a hit anywhere else. So we’d always include that, and that became a major part of the show there.”

LOVE ON A TIGHTROPE (LIKE AN ANIMAL)
(Taylor)

• Album (The Cross):
Shove

Dominated entirely by trick-shot drum effects, percolating sequencers, cheesy synthesizer effects and lacklustre lyrics, ‘Love On A Tightrope (Like An Animal)’ is a good example of what’s wrong with
Shove It
, in danger of being overcome by its own arrangement. Programming, when used properly, can achieve beautiful results; this is not one of them.

For reasons known to no one, the song was issued on a promotional disc, along with one track each from Phil Collins, China Crisis and Donny Osmond (of all people). The song was performed live by The Cross in 1988, and, with a slightly refined arrangement, became a halfway decent song – but not enough to save its reputation.

LOVE TOKEN
(May)

• Album (Brian):
BTTL
• B-side (Brian): 6/93 [23] • Live (Brian):
Brixton

Despite being one of the more upbeat rockers on
Back To The Light
, it would be in the listener’s best interest not to pay too much attention to the lyrics. Relating the tale of a son watching his parents’ marriage dissolve (a method of dealing with his own marital strife with wife Chrissy), the words border on the embarrassing, with Brian using questionable euphemisms and metaphors that would have benefited from some careful editing. Perhaps the most humorous moment comes about two and a half minutes in, when Brian takes on the roles of both mother and father in the middle of a ‘colourful’ fight. In keeping with his quieter demeanour, what could have been an interesting diversion was cleaned up for general release, though an early vocal track, included on a promotional disc for
RCD Magazine
, gets a little dirtier: “Meat for brains” becomes “Shit for brains”, and “That’s a shame” becomes a blunt “Fuck you”.

Beyond the lyrics, though, ‘Love Token’ is a well-constructed track, with Cozy Powell the dominant force – his thunderous drums give the song its catchy rhythm, while Brian merely focuses on the rhythm until he delivers a scorching guitar solo after the fight. The song concludes with some bluesy piano from Mike Moran before leading into ‘Resurrection’.

The song was performed live on the
Back To The Light
tour, usually after ‘Back To The Light’ (on the 1992 leg) or ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ (during the first part of 1993), before becoming an abridged intro to ‘Headlong’, as evident on the live album
Live At The Brixton Academy
. The song was slightly edited for release as the B-side of ‘Resurrection’ in June 1993, fading out just before the extended piano outro kicked in.

LOVER
: see
LIAR

LUCILLE
(Richard)

• Live (The Cross):
Bootleg

Little Richard’s 1957 single was played by the band as an encore number at Earl’s Court on 7 June 1977. The song was reprised by The Cross on their 1990 tour, with a live version on the Fan Club-only release
The Official Bootleg
.

MACBETH