Some would give Roger Taylor points on his licence for I’m In Love With My Car, the B-side to Bohemian Rhapsody. But while he does set a Robert Heinlein-inspired lyric to a Lonnie Donegan guitar thrashalong, its sing-song campfire melody and simple charm make it May’s best song on A Night At The Opera. Instead, it’s an oddly sluggish affair – like Jethro Tull on Night Nurse – but salvaged by that insane a cappella vocal mid-section.īrian May once described 39 as “sci-fi skiffle”. But it struggles to match past gems such as Brighton Rock and Father To Son. On paper this Brian May-composed pomp epic should be one of Queen’s finest hard rock moments. Queen and Google collaborate on Bohemian Rhapsody virtual reality experiment.This is what Bohemian Rhapsody would sound like if Queen were a reggae band.Listen to Queen's 1973 radio debut in John Peel session.Don't Stop Me: The 10 Best Queen Songs According To Justin Hawkins.Also contains one of the worst Queen lyrics ever: ‘You call me sweet, like I’m some kind of cheese…’ You what, Brian? True, there’s a nice Communication Breakdown-style guitar dust-up at the end, but May would do it better in the years ahead (see: Tie Your Mother Down, Hammer To Fall…). But preferable to Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon thanks to Mercury and Roger Taylor’s pin-sharp harmonies, some imaginative use of kazoo and the singer’s final payoff ‘Give us a kiss!’ which, unusually for Freddie, is delivered with all the grace and panache of driver Stan Butler leering at a buxom ‘clippie’ in the 70s TV comedy On The Buses.Įven Brian May’s tidy Zep-meets-Free riff can’t save Sweet Lady from obscurity. More old-time musical japes from Freddie. Where else should it go? Still a testament to Brian May’s regal guitar skills, the most surprising thing about God Save The Queen is that it took the band four albums to get around to recording it. Queen’s version of the National Anthem closes A Night At The Opera album – and quite rightly so. Once heard, rarely played again, though (unless it comes up unexpectedly on iPod shuffle and you can’t forward it quickly enough). Brian May has always been a one-man guitar orchestra, and rarely more so on this homage to Dixieland jazz, in which he sang a charming When I’m 64-style lyric while his guitar mimicked a ukulele-banjo and a clarinet.

A night at the opera album