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 - The Works: Bicycle Race

Bicycle Race

Bicycle Race

Written by Freddie Mercury

Album: Jazz (November, 1978) 4th track
Single: October, 1978
Meter: 4/4, 3/4, (plus occassional anomalies)
Keys: Ab-Major, bb-minor, (Bb-major), F-major, C-major, D-major, (B-major)
Form:

| Chorus | Verse | Chorus | Bridge |
| Chorus'(first half) | "Race" (including solo)|
         | Verse | Chorus |

In respect of rhythm and harmony, this song is maybe the most sophisticated 3-minute pop-rock hit song. This is maybe a too brave thing to claim, but I challange you to find a close contest (preferably non Queen. This piece provides a lesson of how to connect sections of different key and meter together. The number of 5-7 keys in a radio-hit song is extremly rare, the meter change is less rare, but still unusual.
The song starts with an intro-like Chorus section (see also Fat Bottomed Girls and I Want It All (single version)). There are two long sections that are not repeated at all. Each section can be divided to subsections. Queen performed this song live several times, but just an extract version (Chorus + Verse) as a part of a medley.

Walkthrough

Chorus
There are four Choruses in the song. Except the third one, they can be divided into two big parts. Each chorus consists of two triplets of "bicycle" phrases (upon two triplets of different chords) intervened by the phrase "I want to ride my..." which is curiously taken from the second half of the chorus. The last syllable of this subphrase ("my") is a half-step lower (Db) and in next beat is resolved to D.
The "bicycle" phrases are backed by five-part harmonies: two static and three moving parallel one upon the other. The highest part is the leading one and goes downward on the three notes of the actual chord, similarly to the other two.

chords: | Eb    | Daug   | Bbm   | Ab  Bbm7| D     | B    | Ab    |
bottom: | Ab    | Ab     | Ab    |         | D     | B    | Ab    |
bass:   | Eb    | D      | Db    | Ab      | D     | B    | Ab    |
  Bb/bb:| IV    | "I"    | i     |VII...
                      Ab:| ii    | I    ii | ?     | ?    | I     |

Figuring out the key is trcky becuase we have two havily non-diatonic chord progressions. Later in the song this Chorus is preceded with a Verse which closes with the phrase ("all I wanna do is") backed with an F note with strong dominant (V of Bb-major) flavor created by the F1>G1>A1 motion converging to Bb and the nearby Eb7 chord. The first three measures of the intro don't make it clear whether it is a major or minor key, as the progression is driven by a chromatic double line-cliche. Similar can be found in Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon, too. The last three measures feature a very interesting chord progression: a downward chain of flat-3 steps: D > B > Ab. We can find a similar chord progression upwards in The March Of The Black Queen (1974). This progression creates an exciting feeling of continuous modulation because they are all "alien" chords in each-others harmonic territorry.

The second half of the chorus shows a AA'A"A form.

b:
/-------------------- x2 -------------------\
 Ab  "Bbm7" |  Ab    | Ab  Bbm7-5 |  Ab     |   "Bbm7" = B+Ab+Db
 I    ii    |  I     | I    ii    |  I      |

The intro-chorus starts "a capella" (without instrumental backing), which makes it sound more powerful and brings out the beauty of human voices in harmony. The bombastic effect is strengthened by stereo mixing.
Variants: as it was mentioned, the first chorus lacks the instrumental parts in its first three measures. In the second chorus the first three "bicycle" phrases go unisono (octave-parallel). During the second three "bicycle"-s the bottom part gets an ornament. The last note of this second chorus is overlapped by the upbeat of the bridge. The fourth and final chorus is "regular" except a scale up on the guitar that nicely reprises the motif of the guitar solo. The third chorus is the most different:
1) It lacks the second half.
2) The first three (two) measures go with different chords: F, C/E, Ab/Eb, so at last we arrive at the same Ab chord as in the "normal" choruses. This clever solution is hardly noticeable unless you take a closer look at the song. Note the chromatic descent in the bass-line.
3) The second block of three "bicycle"-s ends differently: it slows down and the last "bicycle" chord is G7 (instead of Ab). It is resolved to a C, with a strong tonic flavor (of a short lived key of C-major). This ritardando aims to picture the bicycles stopping before they give the concert with their rings.

Verse
There are two verses in the song, both of them followed by a chorus section. The form of the verses is ABAB' with 3+2+3+3 phrasing. Let's see first the A prhase. One can very quickly recognize there's something tricky going on with the rhythm even though neither the meter nor the tempo change(!). The first verse is preceded by a half measure of pause to give place for the upbeat. Both bass and drums apply some off-beat accents. In the third measure of the A phrase the drum beats the 6th eighth (three-and). It sounds simple but it's enough for most of us to lose the beat.
The spare harmony material of this phrase is only a Bbm, that's the actual key here. The economic arrangement and the tight rhythm remind me of Get Down Make Love (1977). In the second half of the second verse we can find a few  bass extravaganzas featuring a double-string picking (2:20), which is a lick used by John very rarely. The vocal arrangement is antiphonal. The harmonic map of the B phrase:

bb:
|Gb7  | Eb7/G   A1 ("F")|| Bb1 Bbm...
| VI  |   ?     "V-of-i"|| i

The B' phrase:
|Gb7    | Eb7/G  | F1... || Eb
| VI    |  IV    | V     ||
     Bb:|  IV    | V     || IV

At the end of the second measure the piano and the bass play A unisono, which can be easily interpreted as the major third of an F mostly because in the B' segment the third chord is an F (the actual tonic). The Gb7 > Eb7 progression features double cross-relation: (F >) E > E-flat and G-flat > G. The last notes of the B' phrase (F, G A) have a dominant flavor, and the way they converge to Bb results in a vague feel of Bb-major key.
In the first verse these last notes are backed by the piano; in the second verse the guitar takes over this role (in the first verse there's no guitar).

Bridge
There is only one bridge section in the song, and it is built of three subsections:
1) the first one is 2x8 measures long has got a AA form, and the key is F-major. The meter is 3/4 throughout the whole Bridge. Half of the phrases in this segment are backed with four-part harmonies.

F:
/------------- 2x -------------\
| Gm7  | C7 (D1)| F   | Bb (A1)|
| ii   | V      | I   | IV     |

2) this segment is almost instrumental except some phrases shouted.

F:
| Bb   | A    | Dm   |C1 F  | Dm .. |..Dm  | Bb... |
| IV   |V/vi  | vi   |   I  | vi    |  -   | IV    |

This is rather a harmonized melody (with thirds) than a real chain of chords. The guitar, however, plays the roots along the piano part, which also features the thirds. The rhythm is tricky again: just try to pick up and hold the beat: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-... etc. The first three measures are OK, but from the fourth on you'd likely loose the beat for first attempt unless you have a strong sense of rhythm. The beat map (from the word "Go", the downbeat of the third measure) may help:

1   2   3   1   2   3   1   2   3   1   2   3   1   2   3   1
D           C   F     E D       C   A   D     C Bb      C   Bicycle...

Think over how difficult it is to compose a melody that sounds natural, catchy, easy to memorize, but one can hardly pick up its beat. For example the famous riff from "Smoke On The Water" by the Deep Purple: try to hum it and hit along the beats with your leg. Lacking big portion of talent, one would never come up with such a riff/tune, rather than melodies with more quantized rhythm. Give it a try! This fanfare-like guitar-fill is composed by Freddie, while Brian arranged the harmonies for guitar and did a fine job on that.
3) The third segment consists of three "bicycle race" phrases in three measures shared between two unisono groups of vocals. The new key is C-major:

| G  | C/G | G7  |
| V  | I   | V   |

This part is closed by the same melody as the verse; only the "all I wanna do is" lyrics are missing. There are three problems that Freddie had to solve when returning to the chorus:
1) The meter is different. The last measure here switches it back to 4/4.
2) By the start of the Bridge the tempo was slowed down, not much but abruptly. The return is done gradually.
2) the key (C-Major) is a whole step higher than it "should be" (Bb). These problems are solved in the halved Chorus (see above).

"Race"
This part also consists of more segments:
1) the bicycle rings. As I counted, there are bicycle rings of seven different pitches in action here. Ordered as they enter: A, D, F, E, Ab, C^, G^. As originally bicycle rings aren't made for playing music on, most of them are a bit false. The concert of the bicycle rings starts with some musical concept but soon gets totally chaotic, so there's no need to analyze it. An earlier appearance of a bicycle ring can be found in "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon". The end of this segment overlaps with the next one.
2) The guitar solo starts with a four-part guitar harmony built up from bottom to top. The chord consists of only two different notes: A and Eb (A A^ Eb^^ A^^), and each note is thrilled by a half-step. The A-Eb relation however is called "diminished fourth" or simply tritonus (the distance of three whole steps). This chord aims to picture the tension of a start of a bicycle race. Following this chord, four upward D-major scales come, starting from degrees 1st, 5th, 1st, 5th respectively. The 1st and 3rd (and later 5th and 6th ones as well) measures are backed with similar (parallel "thirds") figures in the bass and piano parts. The 2nd and 4th measures feature arpeggio in the bass and an extra guitar figure (have you noticed before?). The ones starting on the 5th are so-called Mixolydian scales.
These first four scales are eight notes long, each one preceded with an extra note four steps below their starting tone. The next four scales are each four notes long. The first two of these consists of the first four notes of the D-major scale, the second one an octave higher. The third and the fourth mini-scales have the same concept upon the B-major scale. The next four "scales" are just two notes long and are backed with an Em piano chord. Three of the four scale-pieces (the 1st, 3rd and 4th) feature the same two notes shifted by one and two octaves. These scales can be associated with the bicycle race itself as they are racing, too, one overtaking the other and vice versa. Similar effect is often used in cartoons. If you listen to the individual channels muting the other ones, this part sounds funny. The gambit is called hocket, a recurring element in Queen songs. In the song A Kind Of Magic (1986) we find another guitar solo of similar concept. Although Brian was usually given free hand composing solos, Freddie might also be credited for composing this one. Unfortunately, I don't have information about such details. After the scales comes a dissonant four-part guitar harmony again (this time the notes enter from top), resulting a F#aug-add7 chord with three neighbor notes in it. The special effect here is that the notes are bent. Examples for four-part dissonant guitar chords with bent notes: Dead On Time, The Dark (Brain May's solo track from 1992/1980). Example for guitar harmony chord with more neighbor notes (cluster): Long Away. The finale of the "Race" part acts like a connector. We can find more similar ascending riffs closing a section or a smaller chunk in this song (riffs behind the phrases "all I wanna do is" and "president of America", but also the title phrase of the song Let Me Entertain You). Here we can hear another rhythmic anomaly: 3+3+3+4+3+3t+3+2 patern of eights that creates meters of 6/8 > 7/8 > 6/8 > 5/8 . The last '2' is rather a '4' that is overlapped by the next section (verse). The last few beats feature quickly dampened crash cymbals. The harmony of the "Race" section after the tritonus harmony:

D:
| D  | A  | D  | A  |
| I  | V  | I  | V  |

| D  | B      | Em  | F#aug-add7
| I  | V-of-ii| ii  |
   B:| I      | iv  | "V"

A programmatic section similar to this "Race" can be found in Ogre Battle (1974) where we can find a section of, well, "Battle".