always be in the red, so we were fortunate that we made the album of our lives. And I think it is”
BRIAN MAY
As ever, even in triumph, there’s a downside to be dealt with. In May’s case, it’s the fact that demands on his time are likely to become even more challenging.
When we broach the subject, he becomes serious.
“It does concern me a lot, yes. At the moment we’re doing a couple of dates in America, as a sort of teaser I suppose, and then we’re moving on to Japan. Of course, the whole thing now is do we go and do the American tour, which is big-time, three months minimum really:
a lot of investment of time?” He sighs: “I’m really not sure and, much as I would love to be in those arenas again, time’s ticking on. I treasure my private life and that time with my family.
“I do find myself torn, and I’m involved in other projects, too. I’m writing an astronomy book with Patrick Moore, which is great fun, and I’m also looking very seriously at my old astronomy PhD project that I never finished. The opportunity has come up to effectively finish that off in Tenerife and I’m very drawn by that idea. It’s unfinished business for me, and I’m not the sort of person who can leave things alone.”
May’s self-confessed fascination with making anything he’s involved with as good as possible is a recurring theme as we move on to chat about A Night At The Opera. The year of 1975 was make-or-break for Queen. On the back of their biggest single to date – Killer Queen, from third album Sheer Heart Attack – the band were poised on the brink. From the outside, things may have looked pretty rosy, but, as May recalls, it was a different story within the inner sanctum.
“Business-wise, we were in crisis. We’d had a lot of success but we were in a management situation that seemed to have no light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. “We weren’t getting any of our royalties and, although money isn’t everything, it’s not good to feel you’re in what you perceive to be a slave-labour situation. So, A Night At The Opera really was make-or-break in that sense. John Reid, who’d just taken over our management at our request, said that he’d sort out all the debts, and that we should go away, make the best album we’d ever made and we’d all be fine! But there was that feeling that if it didn’t succeed we’d always be in the red, so we were fortunate that we made the album of our lives. And I think it is really.”
Other albums released by classic English bands in 1975 include Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, Wish
It’s a kind of magic: Brian May’s Red Special is the guitar he played on almost all of Queen’s hits
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Guitarist Presents Guitar Gods
You Were Here by Pink Floyd, The Who’s By Numbers and, ironically, Straight Shooter by Bad Company. Were Queen aware of all the great music surrounding them?
“We were much more aware of things like that before we got into the high-pressure touring situation after Sheer Heart Attack. As soon as you’re into that – touring for virtually nine months of the year, recording for the other three, taking a deep breath and starting all over again – you really don’t have much time to take in what’s around you. It was very seldom that we’d get off to see another band as we were too immersed in our own stuff. Earlier, we used to see Zeppelin and The Who and loved it – still do – but by the time we were making A Night At The Opera we were within almost a sealed bubble. We were working on energy within us and not very aware of anything else.”
If you’ve never sampled the musical delights that define classic Queen, A Night At The Opera is, in effect, the band’s majestic style in microcosm. As well as Bohemian Rhapsody, the album includes heart-breaking ballads, raunchy Zep-flavoured rock, a nod at vaudeville, an alien-themed folk song, a jazz band comprising just guitars and much more.
The opening track, Death On Two Legs, is an insult-laden offering from Mercury’s pen that was dedicated to an ellipsis on the album
sleeve, but to the band’s ex-management company Trident in reality.
“We did suffer a sharp intake of breath at a couple of [lyrical] things and I still do,”
May laughs. “It’s pretty severe stuff and it hadn’t really been done up to that time: you didn’t hear Frank Sinatra putting his bitterness about his record company into his songs. I think we felt it was on the edge and we were told to be very careful not to name anybody; we narrowly escaped being sued for slander as it was.”
Throughout an album littered with what would come to be regarded as Queen trademarks,
the harmonies have to be the most important. Whether revelling in the operatic mid-section of Bohemian Rhapsody or spotting simple phrases within the likes of Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon, perfectly-tuned passages are everywhere.
“We were so steeped in harmony from our
childhoods, from stuff that our parents listened to, that we’d become aware of the rules and already enjoyed the fact that we could break them,” Brian explains. “So it wasn’t too hard to have something in your head, to know how to proceed in order to get it and then to try a few experiments to see what happened. It was all very instinctive, not at all theoretical, and I was always obsessed by it.”
Next up in the running order is I’m In Love With My Car, written and sung by Roger Taylor and filled with all sorts of schoolboy-style double-entendres. To support the theme, May conjured up an especially abrasive guitar tone.
“It was real tape phasing if I remember, and just using a fairly harsh guitar setting. I played near the bridge, too, which is something I play around with live as sometimes it’s nice to go into that area.”
The song will also go down in Queen infamy as the B-side to Bo Rhap, thus earning Taylor the same royalties as Mercury, the writer of the A-side. May laughs knowingly as he recalls the story: “Roger took a lot of stick for that, but he still pocketed the money! It’s probably the most lucrative song that was never a hit!”
Following on from You’re My Best Friend, the album’s second single written by bassist John Deacon, is ’39, a dyedin-the-wool album track that seems to have a place in every Queen fan’s heart.
“It’s surprising that it’s still such a favourite, because it’s difficult for a song that isn’t a single to do that,”
concedes May. “I would’ve loved it to have been a single, but the politics of our group were such that I don’t think I even dared mention it!”
The story of the song describes a race of aliens flying off to find another planet, something that can become hidden beneath the deceptively simple structure.
“I remember writing it: it came into my head so quickly with all the words at 3am – the spacemen trying to find a new world. It’s a folk song of the future. The middle section took some putting together as there are all sorts of quite subtle multitracked guitars in there, as well as Roger’s amazing vocal piece. He had this incredible super-high range and I got him to sing that strange unearthly cry that expresses the general relativistic journey through space back to the last verse when they return.
“I’ll always remember…” he pauses. “There’s one note in there that Roger refused to sing – I could point it out to you if we