Queen for a Day - Who Wants to Live Forever?

"Impetuous boy! Ah, well... who wants to live forever? DIVE!" Prince Vultan. Flash Gordon. 1980

I've always wondered why no one seems to make the allusion that this song's title and chorus comes directly from the script of the previous movie Queen scored.
Sure, it can be applied to Highlander but, still. I have to wonder...

"There's no time for us...there's no place for us..."

Isn't that Sondheim?

Obviousness has never been alien to Queen. They've always managed to appropriate and, with tongue firmly in cheek, make something their own.

And Brian does that here.

Soaring strings, elegiac vocals, WWTLF is not quite a ballad as a song set to images of a sweeping epic. I can see immortals trudging across ice floes and climbing mountains in search of destiny.

It succeeds in that respect and also as a bloated love song for the 80s.

It's a gigantic track with a modulation that, inexplicably, works in heightening the desperation and despair. And it feels less like an album track, which it ended up being, and more like part of a score, which was the intent.

Grade: A

Bonus versions!