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 - "No Synth" era - A Day At The Races: Drowse

Drowse

Composer: Roger Taylor
Album: A Day At The Races (1976), 9th track
Meter: 6/4
Keys: D-major, E-major, (e-minor)
Form:

Intro | Verse 1 || Verse 1 || Bridge || Verse 2 | Outro (Spacer') |

|| = Spacer (Intro')

This soulful song is many fans' secret favorite. Musically and lyrically, it is definitly one of the finest songs Roger has penned. The piece is at the same time very Rogeresque in respect of both harmony and melody. The arrangement is simple, without any multitrack harmonies. The form is also simple,containing only four non-instrumental sections, (see also Tenement Funster and Modern Times RnR), each of them being bordered by instrumental spacers. The range of the lead vocal is over one octave (A-D^), which is no problem for Roger.

Section by section walkthrough

Intro
The six measure long intro sets the key to D-major by simply alternating two chords (I > V > I > V > I > V ); the bass puts these into their second inversions.

Verse
The Verse is square sixteen measures long, and the phrasing is AABC. The first phrase has arch-like melody. Each phrase closes with a pause of half-to-one measure often filled with drum and guitar figures. The used syncopation unifies the phrase.

D:
/-----------  2x  ----------\
| D    | C#m  | Bm   | G  A |
| I    | vii  |  vi  | IV V |

| D    | C#   | Bm   | A    |
| I    | VII  | vi   | V    |

| G    | D    | Dmaj7/A | A    |
| IV   | I    |         | V    |

The most "exotic" measures are definitely the ones with C#m and C# chords. C#m is possible to replace with F#m (iii) or A/C# (V 3/5), both of them being more traditional choices in a "non-Roger" Queen song. Such non-traditional chord choices became sort of a trademark of Mr. Taylor's songwriting.
The C# chord is harder to replace, as the lead vocal uses its 3rd and 5th degree. Such D > Dmaj7 progression can be found in Tenement Funster (1974) and She Makes Me (1974).

The last Verse has almost completly different melody (another example for this: Tenement Funster, Pain Is So Close To Pleasure; a non-Queen exapmle is Careless Whisper by Wham) that gradually turns into plain talking toward the end of the song.

Spacers
The sections are separated by spacers that are variants of one another. The first two spacers are only four measures long. Third spacer is five measures long because it starts on A, since the Bridge closed on D.

Bridge
The climactic Bridge is introduced with a cressendo drum figure. The section is in E-major and twelve measures long. The phrasing is AA'B. In each phrases the lead vocal pick up is after the downbeat. All the chords are major (another Roger-example: Coming Soon, 1980); no wonder they sound "strange".

 /------------- 2x -------------\
 | E    | G#   | A    |  C    D |
E: I    | III  | IV   |         |
e:                    | VI  VII |

 | E    | G#   | A    | F#    D      |
E: I    | III  | IV   | II (flat-VII)|
                    D:  ...   I

Some non-diatonic chords and notes and the lack of the dominant make the sense of a definite key ambiguous. The G# (III) can be interpreted as the surrogate dominant of the next coming A chord. At the end of the first two phrases there is a measure with two borrowed chords (and notes) from the relative minor key. The last measure harmonically "hangs in the air", getting far from the key of E-major. Note the cross-relation between D-chord and C# in the lead vocal.

Outro
It is the 11-12 measures variant of the Intro/Spacer with Roger talking while the song fades out.