The Book

Introduction What is it all good for? Scope of work Project History

Music theory in nutshell Harmony Chord notation used in the analyses The degrees of notes Chord functions Keys, Sharps and flats, neighbour keys Guitar friendly and piano-friendly keys Modulations, key changes Parallel key modulations Relative key modulations Neighbour key modulations Combined modulations Step-up/down modulations Unusual modulations Key-shifts Pivot Modulation Borrowed chords Cliche chord progressions Modes Ambigous harmony Rhythms Exercies Syncopations Shuffle beat Metrical modulations, metrical anomalies Compound meters Disorienting Rhythms Songforms General aesthatics of popular and rock music

Repetitions and variants

Queen - The four of them as musicians Brian May Roger Taylor Freddie Mercury John Deacon

Songwriting Analyses Smile Ibex "No Synth" era Queen Keep Yourself Alive Doing All Right Great King Rat My Fairy King Liar The Night Comes Down Modern Times Rock'n'roll Son And Daughter Jesus Seven Seas Of Rhye Silver Salmon Hangman Mad The Swine Queen II Procession Father To Son White Queen (As It Began) Some Day One Day The Loser In The End Ogre Battle The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke Nevermore March Of The Black Queen Funny How Love Is Seven Seas Of Rhye See What A Fool I've Been Sheer Heart Attack Brighton Rock Killer Queen Tenement Funster Flick Of The Wrist Lily Of The Valley Now I'm Here In The Lap Of The Gods Stone Cold Crazy Dear Friends Misfire Bring Back That Leroy Brown She Makes Me In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited A Night At The Opera Death On Two Legs Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon I'm In Love With My Car You're My Best Friend Sweet Lady '39 Seaside Rendezvous The Prophet's Song Love Of My Life Good Company Bohemian Rhapsody God Save The Queen A Day At The Races Tie Your Mother Down You Take My Breath Away Long Away The Millionaire Waltz You And I Somebody To Love White Man Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy Drowse Teo Torriate News Of The World We Will Rock You We Are The Champions Sheer Heart Attack All Dead All Dead Spread Your Wings Fight From The Inside Get Down Make Love Sleeping On The Sidewalk Who Needs You It's Late My Melancholy Blues Feelings Jazz Mustapha Fat Bottomed Girls Jealousy Bicycle Race If You Can't Beat Them Let Me Entertain You Dead On Time In Only Seven Days Dreamers Ball Fun It Leaving Home Ain't Easy Don't Stop Me Now More Of That Jazz Live performances in the 70s Modern-era Queen The Game Play The Game Dragon Attack Another One Bites The Dust Need Your Loving Tonight Crazy Little Thing Called Love Rock It (prime Jive) Don't Try Suicide Sail Away Sweet Sister Coming Soon Save Me Human Body Sandbox Flash Gordon Flash's Theme In The Space Capsule Ming's Theme The Ring Football Fight In The Death Cell Execution Of Flash The Kiss Arboria Escape From The Swamp Flash To The Rescue Vultan's Theme Battle Theme The Wedding March Marriage Of Dale And Ming Flash's Theme Reprise Crash Dive On Mingo City The Hero Hot Space Staying Power Dancer Back Chat Body Language Action This Day Put Out The Fire Life Is Real Calling All Girls Las Palabras De Amor Cool Cat Under Pressure Soul Brother The Works Radio Ga Ga Tear It Up It's A Hard Life Man On The Prowl Machines (or 'Back To Humans') I Want To Break Free Keep Passing The Open Windows Hammer To Fall Is This The World We Created? I Go Crazy A Kind Of Magic One Vision A Kind Of Magic One Year Of Love Pain Is So Close To Pleasure Friends Will Be Friends Who Wants To Live Forever Gimme The Prize (Kurgan's Theme) Don't Lose Your Head Princes Of The Universe The Miracle Party Khashoggi's Ship The Miracle I Want It All The Invisible Man Breakthru Rain Must Fall Scandal My Baby Does Me Was It All Worth It Hang On In There Chinese Torture Hijack My Heart My Life Has Been Saved Stealin' New Life Is Born Dog With A Bone Guess We're Fallin Out Innuendo Innuendo I'm Going Slightly Mad Headlong I Can't Live With You Don't Try So Hard Ride The Wild Wind All God's People These Are The Days Of Our Lives Delilah The Hitman Bijou The Show Must Go On Lost Opportunity Face It Alone Self Made Man My Secret Fantasy Made In Heaven It's A Beautiful Day Made In Heaven Let Me Live Mother Love My Life Has Been Saved I Was Born To Love You Heaven For Everyone Too Much Love Will Kill You You Don't Fool Me A Winter's Tale My Life Has Been Saved It's A Beautiful Day (reprise) No-One But You Live performances in the 80s

Appendix Special instruments Special effects Special playing techniques Classical quotes Musical terms Index References

Path: Queen Songs - The Book - Songwriting Analyses - A Kind Of Magic - A Kind Of Magic - A Kind Of Magic: Friends Will Be Friends

Friends Will Be Friends

Composer: John Deacon and Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4
Keys: G-major
Form:

               | Intro - Verse | Chorus -
               - Intro'- Verse | Chorus -
      - Break | Solo 1 (Verse) | Chorus -
      - Chorus - instr. Chorus x 2 with Solo 2 |

Solo 1 (Verse): lead vocal added for last phrase.

Towards the end of the Eighties the piano got less role on Queen records. This song is one of their last "piano" songs even if synth and guitars play dominant role on the backing track. The piano plays simple figures and chords. Drums too play simple patterns.
The song form is not unusual, with Verse-Chorus couplets, we have only two non-istrumental sections. Most of the transitions are overlapped, and each time the tonic chord is used, except the final string of Choruses.
The harmony uses many chromatic inner voices picked up by either the bass, lead vocal, and lead guitar. The key stays firmly G-major (an unusual key for Freddie).

Walkthrough

It's three measures long, but at its end it flows into the Verse. The harmony of the first two measures is taken from the mid part of the Verses; the third measure starts a double plagal cadence (IV-of-IV > IV > I). The harmony is created by piano and synth.

G:
| G  B7  | Em  G7  | C     F   C || G...
| I V/vi | vi V/IV | IV  IV/IV IV|| I...

The lead guitar tune starts with descending chromatic couplets: B-Bb A-Ab G-Gb F-E. Try out: the straight chromatic line could not work here. The guitar and the bass create a nice counterpoint:

Guitar: B A G F E  F E D
  Bass: G B E G C  F C G

The modal flat 7th (F) appears both in the lead part and in the harmony.

The second iteration of the Intro adds an Am chord, which makes the hook half a measure longer:

m.3            half
... | C  Am  | F   C || G...
    | IV ii  |IV/IV IV|| I...

The lead guitar holds a pause during the Am chord.

Verse
This section is square eight (4+4 or 2+2+2+2) measures long. The first phrase uses the six diatonic major/minor chords. The first two measures have the Queen-cliche I > V > vi progression with the step-wise descending bass (see also in Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy).

G:

m1
| G  D/F# | Em  Bm G | C  Am  | D     |
| I  V    | vi iii I | IV ii  | V     |

m.5
ld.voc.: D  D#  | E   F...
       | G  B7  | Em  G7  | Am    | D     |
       | I V/vi | vi  I7  | ii    | V     |

The D-chord in measure 4 gets descending parallel thirds. During measures 5-6 the lead vocal executes a chromatic rise from D to F. Remember that the Intro (the variant of this passage) operated with a descending guitar tune. The harmonic rhythm slows down at the end of both phrases. First Verse starts only with bass, drums, and piano which back the lead vocal. The second phrase's first half adds clean guitar chords. Measure 7 adds a strange guitar noise: Brian picks the strings over the bridge, which he also does several times later in the song. Last measure adds distorted guitar introducing the climactic Chorus. In the the second Verse the guitar is played differently: it enters earlier in the first phrase, produces more of those strange noises, and uses wah-pelal on the chords from measure 3 on (these can be heard much better on the karaoke version). Freddie adds a seventh to the G chord in measure two.

Chorus
The song has six Choruses: two of them build an instrumental outro; another two make a couplet before the outro. This section is seven measures long (eight if we add the ending with the resolution, which belongs to the actual next section - Intro', Break, Chorus). The phrasing is not square (2+1+4). The guitar (partly reinforced by the bass) plays a chromatic line that drives the harmony. Even the tonic (G) sounds like a passing chord. The harmonic rhythm is constant: two chords per measure until the last two chords where it slows down. The ii > V progression that closes the preceding Verses and converges to the tonic doesn't get resolved as the Chorus begins with the subdominant chord.

G:

gtr: C  C#  | D  E  | D  D# |
   | C  A   | G  Em | D  B  |
   | IV V/V | I  vi | V V/vi|
 

gtr: E   D# | D  C# | C...
   | Em  B  | G  A  | C    | D    || G...
   | vi V/vi| I V/V | IV   | V    || I...

Compared to the Verses, the arrangement is joined by synth and distorted guitar; the piano is hardly heard. As for the backing vocals, the popular gradual thickening is used. First Chorus adds just short pieces of doubletracking to the lead vocal (for the title phrases). Second Chorus adds vocal harmonies at its ending. Third and fourth Choruses adds backing harmonies to each title phrase, lead guitar figures (second phrases of 3rd and 4rd Choruses), and Freddie drops in some extra syncopations (3rd Chorus) and a triplet (4th Chorus) for climactic effect.

The synth plays broken chords throughout the choruses. In second measure of the third Chorus the "chromatic" guitar jumps up to B instead of E. The next Chorus here has a short guitar-figure. Roger holds pause at the end of the first three Choruses to create a touch of tension.

The two outro-Choruses are instumental, guitar solo is played (with wah pedal during the last one). Note in the final chain of Choruses the closing dominant chord is not resolved (D > C).

Break and Solo 1
It's a short pre-solo: four measures (2+2, AA'). The rhythm puts some off-beat accents. Th harmony has modal inflection as can be seen below:

/------- 2x ------\
| G5 F5 | C  A#   |
| I bVII| IV bIII |

The chords in the last measure are ornamented with the same hammer-on lick that Brian often uses with the A chord.

The solo is an instrmental Verse. During the fist two measures nice "surround" reverb is used. The solo-tune has lovely arch-shaped passages. The lead vocal returns for the last two measures of the section.