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 - Hot Space: Staying Power

Staying Power

Composer: Freddie Mercury
Album: Hot Space
Single (B-side of Back Chat):  9 August, 1982
Meter: 4/4 (with occassional 2/4 and 5/4 measures)
Key: E mixoydian
Form:

        | Intro I (AAAA) - II(BBB') | Verse - Chorus - Tag (AA) |
                 | pre-Verse (BBB') | Verse - Chorus - Break |
| Intro'I (AAAA) - pre-Verse (BBB') | Verse - Chorus - Bridge I (CCC' inst.) - II |
                 | pre-Verse'(BBB') | Verse - Chorus - Tag-Outro |


Staying Power as the opening track of the album had and still has much influence on the listener's first impression on this album. The fan basis who were used to more rocking Queen albums were not very impressed by the new trends that can be perfectly seen on this song. The succes of "...Bites The Dust" inspired Queen to experince with more minimalistic arrangements (less harmonies, more synths), more repetitive songforms with riff-driven sections, and repetitive beat. Staying Power embodies these trends. While the "black" influence is undeniable on this song, we will see this is not a routin-wise written disco song, the experimental feel is there.
Major surprise on a Queen record were the feaure of "hot and spacey" horns that were arranged by Ardiff Mardin a wellknown arranger of those days (worked with Bee Gees among others). If you listen to the pre-Mardin demo of the song, you can hear that Mardin's orchestrations were added as overdubs and have not affected the framework.
In the arrangement synth substitutes the bass, there are no guitar harmonies (except the demo version). The guitar tracks are fregmentary, clean guitar (played by John) plays funky staccatto chords and double stops. While rock-oriented fans are often not very keen on this song, many point out that the live version with poverfull drums rocks. Roger recalled it as a hard to drum live song.
The songform is based on four long cycles with one Break and a Bridge. There is a long verion mix of the song.


Walktrough
----------

Intro
It has two subsection repeating two riffs. The first subsection repeats a two measure arch-shaped riff four times. Guitar doubles the synth riff from measure 3. Additional double stops (clean guitar) and stereo panning makes the arrangement more interesting.
The second subsection repeats a two measure riff three times. Horns in harmony and octaves added.
This section has weak modality. The first subsection has no chordal backin except a couple of guitar double stops, the D dominates in the bass, the melody line makes use of flat third and seventh. (The riff starts with major third.)

D:
/----- 4x ----\
| "D7" | -    |
|  I   | -    |

In the second subsection subsection we have chordal backing (on chords), but the tonal ambiguity goes on.

/----- 3x ----\
| E7   | -    |

The B riff is pentatonic E-G-A-B-D which has no new pitches compared to previous subsection. Again both minor and major third is presented here, the latter in the funky E7 chord.


Verse - Chorus
The Verse has two phrases. The first of these has four mini-phrases backed with four-times played one measure riff, and vocal harmonies. At last we have something we can call cadence. For first listen it might sound like a G-Major cadence, but from a wider perspective D major is the tonic.

D:
/---- 4x ----\
| D   C  G   |
| I bVII IV  |


| G    C  | G  C    |
| IV bVII | IV bVII |

Later verses are changed in details, for example the third verse has unisono (ie double track) lead vocal in measure 5 and 6, while the last verse has a short crazy harmony (shades of Body Language):

   top:  F    E  F#
middle:  D    C  D
bottom:  B    G  C
chords: Bdim  C  D57


The last phrase of the Verse has a arch shaped parallel third harmony between guitar and lead vocal. I wrote below the chord progression that follows that harmony. Note Freddie adds a dotted eight before stepping to B, which gives ****
 
               voc:  A  G  (F)   (2nd and 4th verse)
 voc:  | A  B D  E | F  E   D   |
 gtr:  | F  G B  C | D  C   B   |
 CRD:  | F  G G  C |Dm  C   G   |
(d/)D: bIII IV bVII| i bVII IV  |

The Chorus is not sharply separated from the Verse. Its upbeat is also the closing of the Verse. The harmonic backing is very sparse, only one chord arranged for horns.

|  Dm6  | -    |  (more accurately Dm6/G)

The next phrase has a similar parallell third harmonies we saw some measures earlier.:

voc: | F  E  D  C B |     Dm7|   (more accurately Dm7/G)
gtr: | D  C  B  A G |        |
CRD: |Dm  C  G Am G |        |

The first and last Choruses are extended with a tag that is similar to the first half of the Intro, but half as long (2x2 measures) and has lead vocal. Check out that long ornament on the last syllable.

Pre-Verse
This tag is followed by a pre-verse (BBB), that is close variant of the second half of the Intro. The first "B" phrase is instrumental, the next two phrases have almost almost identical lead vocal.


Break
The second Chorus is followed by an instrumental break with some interesting chord progressions of major chords and occassionally disorienting rhythm.


|  G  F   D   C | Bb  G  N.C.   |
| IV bIII I bVII| bVI IV (I)    |

                  half
|  G  F   D   C | Bb  G  |
| IV bIII I bVII| bVI IV |

The first two phrases are almost identical except the last half measure of second phrase starts a new phrase.


| N.C.  | N.c.   |

         5/4
| N.C.  | N.C.   |

These two phrases (3rd and 4th) are almost identical except the closing. The horn-harmonies are moving in parallel fourths and octaves with the bass, while in the original harmonies (guitar harmonies of the demo version) parallel fifths and thirds (major and minor) were used. Parallel harmonies Brian used in Dancer too (with only major thirds in that case).



| N.C.  | Bb7    | -     | G1  C1  | A1  D1 |
| -     | bVI    | -     |"IV bVII   V   I" |

The last phrase starts with octave harmonies. Measures 2 and 3 have a climactic dissonant build up orchestrated for horns. The original dissonance was just a B7, Mr. Mardin added a couple of other dissonant notes (eg. C and G#). The last two measures were originally not harmonized. With full chords it would be the "chromatic bVII" progression (1-5-b7-4, see in "Pain Is...") in reversed form. The last measure has triplets.


Bridge I-II
We already had a bridge-like break section. Freddie thoght that the second half of the songs also needed something fresh material: this Bridge. In this section Mardin could use his creativity more, and added some unusual orchestration foreshadowed by a crazy horn-fill in the third chorus. That fill is repeated (sligtly rhythm-altered) in the last Chorus.
The first half of the Bridge (could be called pre-Bridge) is backed with three times played two measuree synth figure ("C" riff). Horns in octave harmony enter in the second phrase, the third phrase is a variant of that (with different ending). Only the fregmentary synth-bass line with many off-beat accents came from Freddie. The hot and spacey horn orchestration is in rhythmic contrast with it.

The second subsection has no chordal backing. The unisono horn harmonies in the first phrase are arranged antiphonally with the lead vocal. The second phrase is similar to the first. It's a whole step higher, and the lead vocal is different: the second syllable is sustained long and ornamented. 

/- 4x -\
| (G1) |

/- 2x -\          half
| (A1) || -     | *    |



Instead of returning to the home-centre setting "A" figures (ie. the main riff of the song), the half-measure ending of the section drives to the last pre-Verse with tonal center on E (= bVII of D) causing one feeling a whole step key-shift downwards.