HOME TABS PIANO ALBUMS ANALYSIS STUDIO INFO PAGE FORUM

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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 expandcollapse 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 Night At The Opera: Death On Two Legs

Death On Two Legs

Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4
Keys: b-minor, g-minor, D-major
Form:
 | Intro I-II-III |
 | Verse I-II | Chorus I-II | Chorus II' | Solo 2 I-II |
 | Verse'I-II | Chorus I-II |

Intro III = Chorus riff x 2 - Solo 1

This masterpiece is definitely the best introduction to a much (although not enough) celebrated cultic Queen album: A Night At The Opera. The layered and powerful arrangement, tension-and-resolution, and catchy melodies make the song both very enjoyable and valuable. Only the vicious lyrics may hurt some people's ear, but the music is simply immaculate. In spite of the numerous subsections, the form is not very complicated. The concept of the long (one minute) multi-intro is recurrent element of the Queen catalogue. The Choruses have different lyrics with common lines including the title phrase (like in "The Prophet's Song" of the same album).

Intro I
Preludium-like piano arpeggios are fading in. The chord progression is based mostly on chromatic descending note-motions. There's no established key yet. The arpeggio pattern is the same for the first six chords. Fast piano arpeggios prior to this can be heard in the intro of "In The Lap Of The Gods" (1974).

                        half
| Ebm   | Gb/Db Dbsus4 | Db | Fm/C C |

| Em/B  | G/D  |

Intro II
Ostinato guitar riff enters on the fourth beat of the last measure of Intro I. This riff presents a tritonous step, which was already established as a favorite element of heavy metal (e.g. Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song"). This riff sounds particularly head-blowing on live records (CD: Live Killers).
As the guitar enters, the tempo increases abruptly; the piano plays on for a short while. During the twelve measures of Intro II the disharmonic tension is enhanced by some noises and guitar extravaganzas:
1) Sliding up and down enter in the fifth measure of Intro I
2) Sustained (three-track) G-chord fades in from the fourth measure.
3) A "mechanical" noise enters in the fourth measure.
4) During the last five measures enter some guitar noises. The very last of these increases the tension to the edge when all the loud cacophonyc chaos suddenly turns off, and Intro III starts. Examples for similar concept: "A Day In The Life" (Beatles) and "Speak To Me" (Pink Floyd), but we can also mention "Ogre Battle", "The March Of The Black Queen", Play The Game and "One Vision" featuring a sharp change.

Intro III
The first two phrases of this section present the riff of Chorus I played twice (2x4 measures). Its lead rhythm is in contrast with the underlying beat. The riff is built upon a Bm chord and a descending chromatic motion (B>...>F#) and slightly resembles the riff of Fun It or More Of That Jazz (1978). The arrangement is completed with bass, rhythm guitars, and drums in the second repetition. The second half of Intro III (six and a half measures) features a guitar solo with simple chordal support. The key is b-minor with flat-6th degree (harmonic minor); that's why there are V chords instead of v.

/-------------- 2x ----------------\
inner line:   B   A# A  G#    G  F#
    chords: | Bm  | -  | -   | -   |
         b: | i...

b:                             half
| F# | -  | G  | -  | F# | -  | Em |
| V  | -  | VI | -  | V  | -  | iv |

The last half measure gives place for the upbeat of the first Verse.

Verse I-II
Verse I is seven measures long, but it's actually eight if we complete it with the last four beats of Intro III. Freddie enters on the second beat. The fisrt phrase features pentatonic lead vocal. In the fourth measure the g-minor chord and the lead vocal take a strange, short excursion to the "distant" g-minor (no sixth degree included). The next F# chord and the C# note in the lead vocal try to bring the key back to b-minor, but it cannot recover "properly" and finally remains g-minor.

b:
| Bm | -  | -  |
| i  | -  | -  |

| Gm | Gm | F# | F# |
g: i | -  |
b: vi| -  |  V | -  |

The tempo is virtually halved in the second phrase. Note the 3+3+3+3+4 emphasys pattern in the piano part in the last two measures.

Verse II could be considered a Bridge due to the one measure pause preceding it, but both its rhythm and harmony resemble Verse I; its second phrase is also a variant of the second phrase of the Verse I. The sustained D chord drives the harmony to the relative major key of b-minor. Note the flat seventh degree in the lead vocal during the first phrase, and the absence of the sixth degree in the second phrase.

D:
| D  | -  | -  |
| I  | -  | -  |

g:
| Gm | -  | Cm |
| i  | -  | iv |

Second Verse II is extended with half a measure ("shark!").

Chorus
Chorus I is eight measures long. Different from Intro III, Chorus I starts with only one and a half "main" riff. The lead vocal completes it very well because the "active" periods of the two (piano and lead vocal) hardly overlap.

b:
| Bm | -  | -  | -  |
| i ...

| Bm | -  | A  | D  |
| i  | -  | VII| III|

Chorus II is ten measures long with a 4+4+2 phrasing with many measures of repeated (or variant) melody. During the first phrase the lead vocal is powerfully harmonized (four parts), and the words can be found in the first half of each measure.
In the last phrase the expletives are emphasized with "strong" chords on the first beats and a special percussion (no synth, of course).

b:
| F# | -  | Bm  | -  |
| V  | -  | i   | -  |

| A  | -  | D  | -  |
| VII| -  | III| -  |

| Bm | F# |
| i  | V  |

The repeated Chorus II and the final one, too, are shortened at the eighth measure with a F# chord ("feel good", five parts). The song also closes on this chord (F#, V)
The fourth measure features antiphonal vocals. There are more anthiphonal parts in the final Chorus.

Solo 2 I-II
The I part is rather like a spacer with lead guitar fill. The piano part is sparse but interesting. The third short piano figure (Bm) enters on the 3rd beat of the third measure

b:
| F# | F#  |  Bm| no chord |
| V  | V   |  i | ...

Part II is nine measures long. The phrasing is 4+4+1, but the last measure in fact belongs to the second Verse.
The lead guitar plus the cleverly written rhythm guitar and bass play in kind of counterpoint. (If you can, listen to this part using the karaoke trick)

D:
| D ...|...|D...|...|
| I ...

| D ...|...|... | F#1 | Em7 || Bm
| I ...         "V-of-vi"...||
               b: V   | iv  || i

Note how the backing rhythm (provided by bass and rhythm guitars) leaves many of the first and third beats empthy. Around the 6th measure curiously only these two beats are empthy (including the inter-beat eighths as well)! beat map for measures 3-8:
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
*    *** *** * **    *** *** *** *** ****#**

It is reminiscent of the main piano riff's rhythm as well:
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
*    *** **     *    **** **
At the end of the section we reach the next Verse with a relative key modulation.