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
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
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4
Keys: Eb-major, (B-major)
Form:
| Verse | Chorus | Bridge 1 | Chorus ||
| Bridge 2 I-II | Solo (Chorus ext.) |
| Verse | Chorus'|
"Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is the last example of Mercury's vaudeville/musichall influenced pieces. He started the series with "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" (influenced by the Pointer Sisters!) and partly "Killer Queen", then continued with "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon" and "Seaside Rendezvous". The end of this series marked one of the important changes that characterize Queen's post-Races period.
In the song we can find many of Queen's trademarks: catchy melody, playful arrangement, nice harmonies, a guitar solo with the distinct guitar sound and style, and high built-in lead melody content. The home key (Eb-major) stays clear most of the time throughout the song.
The non-model-like song form has a long non-repeated content, while we have four choruses (one of them is instrumental).
Walkthrough
Verse
We have two verses before the first and the last Chorus. This section is square eight measures long and consists of two parallel phrases that start with the same melody and harmony.
Eb:
| Eb | Ab Gm Cm | Fm(7) Bb7 | Eb Bb7 |
| I | IV iii vi | ii V | I V |
| Eb | Ab Gm Cm | Fm(7) Abm Bb7| Eb Bb7 |
| I | IV iii vi | ii iv V | I V |
The first phrase is dominated by chain of fifths root motion (See also the intro of "Don't Stop Me Now"). The step to the dominant for the end of both phrases creates pre-tension, for the next phrases/sections start with the dominant, it's a usual compositional trick, just like the use of 'iv' chord to create chromatic lead (C-B-Bb) (see the ii-iv progression in "Love Of My Life" - Outro). The harmonic rhythm varies much during the phrases.
The first verse starts with only piano and lead vocal, the low-volume mixing is tad disturbing. Sliding-mode guitar enters on the downbeat of the second phrase and plays a counter-tune which is the lullaby-motif that we will hear in Bridge 2. The same type of clever foreshadowing appears in "Under Pressure" (the counter-melody of backing vocals appears later in the lead vocal). The guitar becomes double-tracked, then goes into harmony for the end of the section.
Bass and drums enter on the last beat before the Chorus.
The second verse has just a few extras: stepwise descending counter-vocals with separate lyrics in measure 2, tick-tack-noise plus a clock-bell. Those counter vocals foreshadow the last Chorus, (with stepwise ascending bit).
Chorus
This is the most focused section of the song that catches one's ear almost immediately.
Eb:
| Eb Bb7/D | Cm Gm Ab |
| I V | vi iii IV |
| Eb Bb7/D | Cm G7/B |
| I V | vi V-of-vi|
| Cm Gm Cm Gm | Fm(7) Abm Bb7 | Eb |
| vi iii vi iii| ii iv V | I |
The Chorus is seven measures long. The first two phrases harmonic-wise show an AA' form similarly to the Verses, but the lead melody is different. The last phrase with three measures breaks the square phrasing. The lead melody and the harmony of the last two measures are close variants of those closing the Verses and Bridge 1.
The piano accompaniment uses syncopated ragtime-esque rhythm figures (also in Bridge 1) which are primarily responsible for creating the vaudeville-feel of the song:
1 2 3 4 1
* * * * * ** * ...
The backing vocals are harmonizing the lead vocal most of the time during the first two phrases. It's a nice but quite straightforward arrangement that slavishly follows both the lead vocal (with hardly any appoggiatura) and the chord progression. The last measure closes with a diatonic walk down from Eb to Ab.
The second Chorus is closed by a repeated piano figure taken from the next section (Bridge 2). This figure makes the second Chorus one measure longer.
The solo-Chorus has different chords from measure 6. The guitars play some appogiaturas.
m.6.
| Fm (Abmaj7) | Gm Abm (9>8) |
| ii | iii iv |
| Eb Bb/D Cm G(7>b2)| Fm(9) Ab Bb7|
| I vi | ii IV V |
The guitar solo is not just one of Brian's most melodic but also one of his most sophisticated arrangements with antiphonally alternating harmonies and solo guitars. Among the guitar harmonies we can find simple inversion-changing ones and some tightly harmonized melodies, all these spiced with stereo imaging and with the sweet tone of the Red Special. The rhythm of the solo in measure 3 is shuffled a little bit. The end of the rising figure in measures 3-4 gets off-beat:
1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 1 . . . 2 : beats
5 4 3 2 3 4"0"1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 8 : degrees in c-minor
The last Chorus features extra conter-vocals with different lyrics (see last Verse). The last phrase is modified:
Eb: half
| Cm Gm Cm Gm | Fm Abm | Bb7 | Eb || Eb
| vi iii vi iii| ii iv | V | I ||
Measure three has hocket vocals. The song ends on a first beat.
Bridge 1
In the middle of this ten-measure long section the harmony modulates to bVI (B), the pivot chord is the Abm (iv of Eb, vi of B), a relatively unusual modulation for Mercury. For the end of the phrase the tune modulates back into Eb-major.
| Abm | Eb/G |
Eb: iv | I |
| Abm Gb7 | B Gb7 | B Gb7 | B Bb7 |
Eb: iv... ...bVI V |
B : vi V | I V | I V | I |
>
| Eb | Ab * C7 | Fm(7) Abm Bb7 | Eb Bb7 |
| I | IV V-of-ii ii iv V | I V |
The vocal harmonies are mostly antiphonal here. Let's take a quick look at the "to go-romancing" harmony.
to go romancing
Lead : Ab Ab Eb C G (E)
#1 : ... Ab Ab C Bb
#2 : Ab, C Eb Bb G
#3 : Eb, Ab, C G E
B.gtr: Ab G F Eb G C
Special effects: vibrato onthe last syllable, a lovely slide up and tight harmony on the "MAN" syllable from "roMANcing". The "to go rom..." syllables articulate the same chord in different inversions.
The rhythm piano applies the same ragtime figure (e.g. in m.4) that we saw in the Chorus. The bass plays a 3+3+2 rhythm figure in measure 2. The ending of the section is basically the same as the Chorus (and Verse).
Bridge 2
The second bridge consists of two subsections. The first one is characterized by slowed down harmonic rhythm, frequent use of 3+3+2 and 3+5 accents, spare use of drums (just a few beats), tight harmonies, and a mellow guitar counterpart with sustained tone. This section of eight measures is introduced with the piano motif that both melodically and rhythmically foreshadows what is to come soon.
The tune of the first two measures is a 4/4 variant of Brahms's "Rock-A-Bye Baby" in 3/4 (two 3/4 measures are compressed into one 4/4 measure with 3+3+2 accents). The bass figure in measure 4 seems to continue Brahms' tune while the lead vocal in measure 5 starts with the beginning of the tune again. The introducing (and accompanying) piano figure is not from the lullaby, but its high notes parallel its lead tune (intervals: 8, 4, 6, 5, 5 respectively)
piano G Eb Eb' C' Bb
vocal G, Bb G F Eb
Strange coincidence that Brahms' tune also modulates to bVI although not the same way. (Talking about melodic similarity: "I can dim the lights and..." from the verse much reminds me of a guitar motif in "Innuendo").
Eb:
| Eb | - | Bb7/F | - |
| I | - | V | - |
| Eb | Bbm7 | F7/A | Bb7/D C(7>8)|
| I | v | V-of-V | V V-of-ii|
The harmony seems to steer away slightly from Eb toward F-major (then f-minor).
Interesting harmonies in measure 3-4 (Bb7 in 2nd inversion):
Long hot summer nights
lead: C Bb
Bb Ab F F ?
Eb D C Bb Ab
gtr: Ab___________Eb D
bass: F______________
The second subsection breaks the sentimental tone of the first. The first phrase (with AA' sub-phrasing) has unisono "Greek tragedy" choir (starring Mike Stone). The second phrase (1 and a half measure) uses the familiar from other sections ii-iv-V progression, this time with a non-variant melody. The last syllable joins with the next section (solo-Chorus)
| Fm(7) | - |
Eb: ii | - |
f: i | - |
half
| Fm7 Abm | Bb7 (6>5) |
Eb: ii iv | V |