by Georg Purvis
LIFE IS REAL (SONG FOR LENNON) (Mercury)
• B-side: 4/82 [25] • Album: Space
The death of John Lennon on 8 December 1980 shook the music world. Queen had often cited him, and The Beatles, as their main influences, and when they learned of Lennon’s assassination the morning after, they incorporated his 1971 single ‘Imagine’ into the set list at London’s Wembley Arena that night. Therefore, it was inevitable that a tribute to Lennon in some form would be written. ‘Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)’ is that tribute, and recalls many of Lennon’s earlier piano works (the song borrows heavily from his 1970 confessional, ‘Mother’) while incorporating the oblique imagery that Lennon favoured in his latter-day Beatles works.
Written by Freddie in late 1981 during a well-documented transatlantic plane ride to New York, the original opening lines were sexually graphic, but Freddie’s assistant, Peter ‘Phoebe’ Freestone tactfully suggested that he make it something a little less offensive; thus, the opening line was altered to “Guilt stains on my pillow.”
Driven by an ostentatious piano line and accentuated by a lovely acoustic guitar solo, the song is unfortunately dated with synthesizer flourishes, firmly placing the song to a specific time in 1982. Nevertheless, ‘Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)’ is an unrecognized highlight of Hot Space, and was issued as the B-side of ‘Body Language’ in 1982. The song was introduced into the 1982 Hot Space tour set list, but only for a half dozen dates that August, before being dropped for good.
LILY OF THE VALLEY (Mercury)
• Album: SHA • B-side: 1/75 [11]
Freddie’s gorgeous conclusion to the Sheer Heart Attack medley is ‘Lily Of The Valley’, a sombre plea for love set to a dulcet piano backing, with drums, bass, and guitar used sparingly. “Freddie’s stuff was so heavily cloaked, lyrically,” Brian told Mojo in 1999. “But you could find out, just from little insights, that a lot of his private thoughts were in there, although a lot of the more meaningful stuff was not very accessible. ‘Lily Of The Valley’ was utterly heartfelt. It’s about looking at his girlfriend and realizing that his body needed to be somewhere else. It’s a great piece of art, but it’s the last song that would ever be a hit.” Indeed, the song was released as the B-side of both the UK ‘Now I’m Here’ single, and the US reissue of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, both with unique single edits: the first starts with the last guitar chord from ‘Flick Of The Wrist’, while the second is a true stand-alone edit, without any segue from the preceding song.
A LITTLE BIT OF LOVE (Fraser/Kirke/Kossoff/Rodgers)
Taken from Free’s 1972 album Free At Last and released as a single, reaching No. 13 in the UK, ‘A Little Bit Of Love’ was performed live by Queen + Paul Rodgers.
LITTLE BOOGIE: see BACK TO STORM
LITTLE EGYPT (Leiber/Stoller)
Originally by The Coasters, ‘Little Egypt’ was played live by 1984.
LIVING ON MY OWN (Mercury)
• Album (Freddie): BadGuy • A-side: 9/85 [50] • A-side: 7/93 [1] • Compilations (Freddie): Pretender, FM Album, The Solo Collection • Compilation (Queen): GH3
“Basically,” Freddie said in 1985, “if you listen to ‘Living On My Own’, that is very me: it’s living on my own but having fun ... It can be a very lonely life, but I choose it and so, that song, it’s not dealing with people who are living on their own in sort of basement flats or things like that. It’s me living on my own, and ... I’m not complaining. I’m just saying I’m living on my own and I’m having a bogey time. Does that make sense, honey?”
It sounded like even Freddie had no clue what he was talking about, but there’s no denying that, despite all his fame and fortune, he found the rock star lifestyle a solitary one. While John and Brian attempted to juggle a family life on top of jet-setting around the world, Roger and Freddie were more the archetypal rock stars – party all night, sleep all day, and get some work done whenever the mood strikes. Deep within Freddie’s convoluted explanation lies a veiled sense of despair, as if he wanted to just give it all up and enjoy the rest of his life with someone, but that, for now, he was happy enough living on his own. It’s no surprise that shortly after Mr Bad Guy was released in April 1985, he began a happy relationship with Jim Hutton, who was with Freddie and his only partner until the end of his life.
The album version of ‘Living On My Own’ is certainly a fun slice of rock-disco (notable for its joyous scat vocalizations, which appeared during Freddie’s vocal improvisations as early as the 1982 Rock ’n America tour, and piano ‘freak out’ by Fred Mandel), but upon its original release as the third single from the album in September 1985, it would only reach No. 50 in the UK charts, peaking at No. 85 in the US. However, it was remixed in April 1993 by the No More Brothers team (Serge Ramaekers, Colin Peter and Carl Ward), transforming it from a disco record into a decent techno remix. Eight versions – Album Remix, Radio Mix, Extended Mix, Club Mix, Dub Mix, L.A. Mix, Underground Solutions / Roger S Mix, and Techno Mix – were produced, and the results were so strong that it was released as a single in July 1993, giving Freddie his first and only (albeit posthumous) No. 1 single. A hybrid mix, combining an early take (recorded 6 April 1984) with a later take (recorded 29 May), was included on The Solo Collection and features some interesting lyrical alterations, but the preferred presentation would have been for these two different takes to have remained separate.
A video was produced and directed by Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher – better known as both DoRo and The Torpedo Twins (see the entry for ‘One Vision’ for more information) – at Henderson’s nightclub in Munich on 5 September 1985. The occasion, more importantly, marked Freddie’s thirty-ninth birthday, and the theme of the party was black and white, with the guests instructed to ‘dress to kill’ – and in drag; the only person dressed ‘normally’ was the birthday boy. The video for the single shows Freddie and his guests – over 300 flown in from various corners of the world, including all of Queen and their entourage – partaking in the excesses provided. (The next day, a sobered-up Freddie returned to shoot the singing scenes.) Unbeknown to the guests, though, cameras were secretly placed in various locations throughout the club, which got Freddie in a bit of hot water when CBS Records banned the video from American television since they didn’t want to promote promiscuity. The video was re-edited in 1999 to match up with the 1993 remix for inclusion on the Greatest Flix III video.
LONDON TOWN, C’MON DOWN (Taylor)
• Album (Roger): Electric • B-side (Roger): 3/99 [38]
A funky, beat-dominated rocker concluding Electric Fire, ‘London Town, C’mon Down’ is a lengthy epic championing the perks of modern-day London, superbly sung by Roger and Treana Morris. While it remains largely bubbly and upbeat throughout, about halfway through the song cuts to half-speed for a reading of an excerpt from a Mervyn Peake article, ‘London Fantasy’. The liner notes credit the voice to Peake himself, who died in 1968; the voice actually sounds more like Roger, fed through distortion.
An edited version, running just over three minutes and cutting out the extended finale, appeared as the B-side of ‘Surrender’ in March 1999. The song was performed during the 1999 Electric Fire tour, featuring Treana Morris on more prominent vocals, and served as a fine way for Roger to introduce the band.
LONELINESS... (Taylor)
• Album (Roger): Happiness?
A short but sweet track languishing on the second side of Happiness?, ‘Loneliness...’ is an underrated composition, serving as a therapy session for Roger following the death of Freddie: despite having so many people around him, having to face his friend’s death alone was “the greatest curse.” The song was performed live on the first few dates of the 1994/1995 Happiness? tour, but was replaced by ‘Man On Fire’ early on.
LONG AWAY (May)
• Album: Races
Of the four members of Queen, Brian was the most ill at ease with stardom. The guitarist was never comfortable with the trappings of a rock lifestyle, and strove to balan
ce his domestic and professional lives. He had first addressed this on ‘Good Company’, a jovial coming-of-age story, but by 1976, Queen’s popularity had only increased, and Brian found himself longing for the days of obscurity. He often channelled his frustrations and insecurities with stardom into song, but it’s on ‘Long Away’ that he’s able to obliquely do so; as he often strove for universality in Queen songs, he wrote ‘Long Away’ so that his discomfort was masked by introspection, with a well-used astronomical allegory thrown in for good measure.
For the first (but not last) time on a Queen recording, Brian’s main guitar of choice wasn’t his trusty Red Special, but was a Burns twelve-string guitar, used to achieve the jangly, Byrds-esque sound. However, a Burns guitar wasn’t his first choice. “I couldn’t play Rickenbackers because the necks are too thin,” Brian told Guitar World in 1998. “I like a very fat and wide neck. My fingers only work in that situation. I always wanted to play a Rickenbacker, because John Lennon did. Roger collects extremely fucking rare guitars, and he has a Rickenbacker. But I can’t play it.”
In the US, the song was released as a single with ‘You And I’ on the B-side, making it the first (and only, until ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ in 1997) Queen single in any territory to feature a lead vocal by anyone other than Freddie; it failed to chart. The band reportedly rehearsed the song for the UK leg of the A Day At The Races tour in May 1977, but it was ultimately kept out of the set list. Surprisingly, Brian threw in a snippet of the song before ‘Love Of My Life’ on the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers European tour, in Pesaro, Italy, with a further five appearances tossed in sporadically. It received its first full live performance in May 2010, when Roger and Brian appeared as guests at a Taylor Hawkins and The Coattail Riders gig in London.
THE LOSER IN THE END (Taylor)
• Album: Queen2
One of the numerous lyrical themes on Queen II is the passing of a legacy from generation to generation, which is addressed full-on in Brian’s opening salvo, ‘Father To Son’, but is more loosely applied to Roger’s sole contribution to the album. A less-than-heartfelt ode to maternal figures worldwide, ‘The Loser In The End’ is a raucous, almost Who-like composition that splits fan opinion. Some love it, others hate it, but there’s no denying that the song is a much-needed shot in the arm after the relatively downbeat ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ and ‘Some Day, One Day’.
Sung by Roger (as all his compositions in the early days were), the song opens with a tricky drum pattern in the style of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, while an organ quivers in the background among wild guitars and a chunky bass. Record Mirror wasn’t impressed with the song, reporting in a contemporary review, “[‘The Loser In The End’] must be the worst piece of dross ever committed to plastic – like ‘She’s Leaving Home’ meets Black Sabbath?”
‘The Loser In The End’ was never performed live, but was released as the B-side of the Japanese issuing of ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’.
LOST OPPORTUNITY (Queen)
• CD Single: 3/91 [22]
This swaggering blues workout was written and sung by Brian, marking the guitarist’s final full lead vocal on a Queen song. Recorded in January 1991, after Freddie insisted that the band return to the studio to record some B-sides for the Innuendo singles, ‘Lost Opportunity’ deals with Brian’s post-depression state of mind; having survived the late 1980s despite personal turmoil (his divorce from wife Chrissy, the death of his father, and unconfirmed rumours that all was not well with Freddie, hence Queen’s retirement from the road), Brian was still finding it a struggle to remain positive, and the lyrics of ‘Lost Opportunity’ aptly sum up an average day in the life.
‘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 ve
rsion, 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.
