Queen: The Complete Works

by Georg Purvis

  DIRTY MIND (Edney)

  • Album (The Cross): Blue • Live (The Cross): Germany

  ‘Dirty Mind’ tackles the embarrassing topic of lust, which can be tolerable if handled right, but considering that Roger was just about to turn forty-two, with Spike not too far behind, the song is cringe-inducing as Roger screams, “I want a lover with a dirty mind!” One plus is that it returns the band to its rock roots, making it an acceptable addition to The Cross’ set list in 1991, with a live version appearing on the 1992 Fan Club-only bootleg, Live In Germany.

  DOES YOUR CHEWING GUM LOSE ITS FLAVOUR?

  (Donegan)

  An interesting rendition by an apparently double-tracked Brian (though it may be a duet with an unknown musician), the recording origins of Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour?’ are uncertain, but the evidence – or what little there is of it – seems to point to the early 1990s.

  DOG WITH A BONE (Queen)

  Two versions of this interesting blues track exist, both recorded on 15 April 1988: the first is a “straightforward” recording, clocking in at under five minutes, while the second version is extended past six minutes and includes an in-song greeting from each band member to Fan Club members who attended the 1988 Fan Club convention. Though ‘Dog With A Bone’ was never intended for The Miracle, the preliminary sessions from which this song originates, it would have been a fun diversion as a B-side release, but its uniqueness to the Queen Fan Club remains special – so much so that it still has yet to surface on an official release.

  DOING ALL RIGHT (May/Staffell)

  • Album: Queen • Compilation: BBC • CD Single: 6/96 [9] • Compilation (Smile): Ghost Of A Smile

  When Queen started work on their debut album in the summer of 1972, the Brian May/Tim Staffell co-write from Smile ‘Doin’ Alright’ was a well established live favourite by this time, and was deemed worthy enough to sit alongside newer compositions. (“It never struck me as a particularly brilliant song,” Tim Staffell later said, “though the royalties did help out in a bind!”) Set over a delicate piano introduction, played by Brian, and a gorgeous vocal from Freddie, ‘Doing All Right’ (as it was retitled) soon turns into a fully-fledged rocker, with The Red Special in great form, reverting to a ballad for the conclusion. The harmonies are perfect, and the band performance is a major accomplishment considering their infancy.

  A version for the BBC was recorded on 5 February 1973 and released on Queen At The Beeb in 1989, though the actual performance uses the album backing track with a re-recorded vocal. This performance is unique in that Roger sings the last verse, providing a stark, harsher contrast to Freddie’s angelic tones.

  DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD (Taylor)

  • Album: AKOM

  An exercise in the banal, synth-pop dreck that clogged up the charts in the mid-1980s, Roger’s abysmal ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ only further confirms that, while the singles on A Kind Of Magic are outstanding, the remaining songs remain unknown for a reason. The majority of the song is repetitive, especially the lyrics, which are directly related to the Highlander film, but, on another level, urge love-torn couples to keep cool in tense situations. Brian and John have been pushed to the side in favour of a tinny-sounding synthesizer, while the programmed drums threaten to overpower a strong vocal performance from Freddie that is the only saving grace of the song. Joan Armatrading assists on vocals, but her contribution is minimal, begging the question: why did she bother?

  Incidentally, the line “Don’t drink and drive my car / Don’t get breathalysed” was inspired by a drunk driving incident in 1985 involving the mild-mannered John and a Porsche. The bassist, who normally fancied Volvos, bought a Porsche for himself and visited Phil Collins at one of his London concerts. The two went out to celebrate afterwards, and when John was pulled over on the way home, the officer gave him a sobriety test, which he failed, earning John an expensive ticket. ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ quite rightly faded into obscurity, only to be released as the B-side of the US issue of ‘Pain Is So Close To Pleasure’ in August 1986, and on the European ‘One Year Of Love’ single that October.

  DON’T SAY NO: see BANANA BLUES

  DON’T STOP ME NOW (Mercury)

  • Album: Jazz • A-side: 1/79 [9] • Live: Killers

  • CD Single: 6/96 [9] • Bonus: Jazz

  After hiding behind little ditties and songs of faeries, ogres and bicycles, Freddie wrote a thinly-veiled autobiographical song that would sadly be overshadowed by his other achievements. ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ is, perhaps, the vocalist’s finest song, a joyous call to arms for fellow partygoers everywhere, and is a highlight of the Jazz album. Brian, for once, wasn’t convinced: “It’s very much Freddie’s pop side and I remember thinking, ‘I’m not quite sure if this is what we should be doing.’ I think there was also a feeling that it lyrically represented something that was happening to Freddie which we kind of thought was threatening him, and probably it was in a sense. But having said that,” he conceded, “it’s full of joy and optimism...” It very well may also have been the decided lack of guitar that got under Brian’s skin, though this was rectified with the emergence of a long-lost guitar mix from the sessions, duly released on the 2011 reissue of Jazz.

  When issued as a single in January 1979 with John’s ‘In Only Seven Days’ as the B-side, it became a Top Ten hit, peaking at No. 9 and charting higher than ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ / ‘Bicycle Race’ had in October 1978. The American release, coming a month later with Roger’s ‘More Of That Jazz’ as the flip, peaked at a disappointing No. 86. Accompanied by a standard performance video directed by Dennis DeVallance and shot during soundchecks in Brussels on 26 January 1979, the single became a fan and live favourite, and was performed at every date on the Jazz European and Japanese tours, as well as during the Crazy tour and Crazy tour of London in late 1979, but was dropped by the following year. In 2005, viewers of Top Gear voted ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ as “The Greatest Driving Song Ever”, and co-host James May duly flew out to Sardinia to present Roger with an award (“The cheapest, nastiest trophy they could find”).

  DON’T TRY SO HARD (Queen)

  • Album: Innuendo

  A melancholy chaser to the joyful ‘I Can’t Live With You’, ‘Don’t Try So Hard’ is a fantastic and underrated ballad featuring a magnificent vocal from Freddie. Debate has raged as to the actual writer of the song: rumours circulated for years that John was the creator, while David Richards recently revealed that the song was the work of Brian and Freddie. Nobody from the band has responded, so until an official confirmation from Brian or anyone else comes forth, it will remain a Queen composition with a question mark.

  The message of the song is not to reach too far for success, as “it’s only fools [who] make these rules.” With an understated instrumental performance, atmospheric use of keyboards, and otherworldly vocal performance from Freddie, ‘Don’t Try So Hard’ is a fantastic latter-day Queen song, truly one of the most outstanding non-single album tracks to have been written since the late 1970s, when the emphasis was on presenting an album as a cohesive piece instead of as a collection of songs. The UK vinyl release featured the song after ‘Delilah’ on the second side, with ten seconds inconsequentially edited out.

  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 us
ed 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’.