Queen for a Day - We Are the Champions

Timeless. Anthemic. Remarkable. The song that cemented Queen's indelible mark on the world for all time. It will be played at stadiums and sports events forever. And it should be. It is absolutely nothing more than it aspires to be. And what it aspires to be is what it is.
Nothing more really needs be said.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - We Will Rock You

After conquering Japan and Europe what was left? The big one. America.
Is there a rock song from the 70s that sounds more American than We Will Rock You? Hardly. It's big, it's boisterous, it's cocky, it's great.
A virtual rap, sung a Capella over a poundingly effective drum beat/hand clap, the tune isn't a song, really. It's a couple verses, an infectious chorus and a big ass guitar solo at the end.
My problems with this and the forthcoming songs is the prodution. Jettisoning Roy Thomas Baker to self produce, the album is dry. Almost as though it was recorded in a vacuum. It's airless. And one thing I want above all else from Queen is flavor. I don't need them to try to be the Stones. I already have that. I don't have enough of what Queen is and can do.
But it's still tremendous.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)

Queen was big in Japan before anywhere else. Knowing where their bread was buttered Freddie wrote a love song to his fans. Doubling as a standard issue love song, the chorus is sung alternately in English and Japanese, at once pandering and loving.
On top of that, Teo is a gorgeous mid-tempo work which ends their masterpiece with elegance and aplomb.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Drowse

A loopy, calliope of a tune, Roger avails himself of recent travails. It's still a bit morose, rog ain't the happiest of guys. The "fantastic Drowse" "bores you to rages of tears". See what I mean?
The good news is this song pretty much winds down the album and the playing and production elevates it above a retread of I'm in Love...which it sounds awfully like, to be honest.
Roger's voice fits his song well, I guess, and this precursor to The Wall has a lot of the prog rock elements Floyd would employ.

I would say they should have covered it, but it's not as good as anything Roger Waters could come up with.

Grade: C+

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Queen for a Day - Good Old Fashion Lover Boy

A ditty. Not as cute as, say, Seaside Rendezvous or Lazing, but not disposable, either. And light years from Killer Queen.
It's an overblown, over produced, kitchen sink of a love song with a toe still wading in the 20s striped full body bathing suit era Freddie seems to love. And as close to cabaret as they've ever come.
It's a treat but it's really not about the song. It's the call and answer backups that make it work. And work it does.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - White Man

I hate this song. It's the Sweet Lady of this album. An apology ode to Indians the song is basically another in a long line of Brian May blues rockers. Pick a riff, write a song.
There's nothing fun on it, it's the song you fast forward on cassette. A track that made you hate 8 tracks as much as you did when you had to listen to The Prophet's Song. (a lot of these are May contributions...)
I've spent too much time talking about a song that cribs from every cliche in the rock songbook. This is Queen as Jimi Hendrix meets Mick Jagger. Ugly through and through and not very fun to listen to much less write about.

Grade: D-


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Queen for a Day - Somebody to Love

And then there's this. This was my late daughter's favorite Queen song. Took me a while to be able to listen to it again. I'm glad I can.
If Bohemian Rhapsody represented a level of superstardom for the band it also was something of a novelty tune. With it's opera section and bombast and all.
Somebody to Love is like that song in that it's a centerpiece and an epic and a masterpiece replete with guitar solo and equal bombast but it's also a clearly perfect piece of gospel/rock. The band couldn't have done this without the previous hit. They needed the hubris that a song like that takes. And the practice.
The multi-layering vocals of the band as choral group on this song works so well it's astonishing. it's as though all that they've done before prepared them for this.
This song alone might be their crowning achievement.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - You & I

Ugh, this is one of those treacly, obnoxious, John Deacon songs. It's also grammatically incorrect. It smacks of everything that was cheesy in the 70s. All it's missing is Kiki Dee.
We get it. John loves his wife. She's his muse. But the "de-doo-doo"s and the galloping ramp up to the solo are at once ironic and earnest.
This is a Bay City Rollers song elevated by the band's craft and skill.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - The Millionaire Waltz

I've always though of this song as Races' answer to Bohemian Rhapsody. It's not the showstopper that comes a few songs down, but it's different, and better. Starting and stopping semi-fitfully, it's a song made for the broadway stage, not rock and roll. Forget the 3/4 time waltz tempo, which in and of itself could render it "uncool", the song explodes in the mid section because, well, Queen are a rock band.
Make no mistake, though, this is a piece of eclectic glam rock, supported by money and ego and hubris and talent.
When it turns in on itself for it's most baroque section, Brian is right there with a killer solo that bridges the 19th and the 20th centuries.
When it crumbles into itself and Freddie turns into a German accented cabaret mc it only gets weirder and more sublime.
Definitely a tune that would turn off headbangers and leave rockers scratching their heads, but, for the rest of us, it's sublime.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Long Away

Now we get to the song that I alluded to on an earlier post. The one that galvanized my adoration for the band above all others.
It's not the best song in their catalog. Not by far. But, it was a complete surprise to me at the time I heard it.
I knew of Queen. I wasn't a fan yet. I was into New Wave and punk. My younger brother liked them. He was 9 at the time. I was 14. It was 1980.
He had the 8 track to A Day at the Races and I put it on one day on the downstairs stereo. Then I went up to my room after I cranked it up loud enough for me to her it while I was reading some science fiction magazine.
No one was home and I would often do this, much to the chagrin of my neighbors.
When Long Away came on, I thought I had made a mistake. This wasn't Queen. I knew the song, I had heard it on the radio, but it couldn't be Queen. I always thought it was Fleetwood Mac. Queen were the guys who did that glammy stuff. Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen, right?
But it was and is them.
An acoustic guitar driven song, like the last album's '39, Long Away is obsessed with stars and the universe, etc. But it's prettier; a jaunty 70s acoustic rock epic that gets it's power and success from Roger and John's simple but effective rhythm section. And his reedy, weak voice works on this record where it has failed him so much in the past.
Brian would try this kind of song many more times on future records but never get it quite as right as he did here.

Grade: A



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