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
Seaside Rendezvous
Composer: Freddie Mercury
Album: A Night At The Opera, 6th track
Meter: 4/4 shuffle beat
Key: C Major, F Major
Form:
Intro | Verse | Bridge |
| Solo (Verse)| Bridge |
| Verse - tag |
Seaside Rendezvous is one of those 4-5 songs that Mercury wrote under vaudevillian/musichall influence. "Authentic" vaudevillian songs are usually not very creative in musical point of view due the heavy use of square phrasing and chain of fifths (and other chormatic cliches), and simple songforms. Our song too has simple songform: two bridge model with a triple-tag ending. It also makes use of chromatic scale fragments and several cliches. The phrasing is more or less square, not perfectly so tough (see the Verse). Chain of fifths are remarkably sparely used. Queen-esque detail is that these sections and their lead melodies are quite long, and the song is quite non-repetitive, and the arrangement is exceptionally much altered between the same sections. The beat is shuffled and the rhythm is often syncopated, but it's another vaudeville influented detail.
The arrangement is rich and playfully creative (kind of tour de force). The main instrument of the accompaniment is the piano, there's no guitar in the mix (rare occassion). Some intruments are imitated by vocals resulting in an extravagant a-capella touch. The homekey is C Major, the Bridge modulates to IV (F) (as Bridges often do), but returns to C Major.
Freddie's vocals are heavily colored with bent notes, vibratos, tone changes, brief falsetto singings, talk-like phrases.
Roger's drumming shows his capability to adapt this style perfectly.
Walkthrough
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Intro
The instrumental Intro is four measures long and is preceded by a two beat pick-up. The piano figure makes use of parallel thirds (and also fifths in the final descending figure: F > Em > Dm > C ( > G)) and chromatic steps instead of playing just chords. The chordal center of the whole intro is the dominant chord (G).
...| G* | - | - | - |
| V...
Beside the piano and drums the arrangement features jangle piano and a "bassy" instrument (?).
Verse
There are three 20 measure (6+4+2+4+4) Verses, second of which is "instrumental". The first two phrases start on downbeat with similar rhythm. The harmonic rhythm starts slow, but fast in the last two phrases partly due to some cliche-like run. The ones in the 15th and 19th measure resonate with the ending of the intro. Freddie "bents" many notes in the third sung phrase.
| C | - | - | - | G7 | - * |
| I | - | - | - | V | - |
| Dm | - | G* | - |
| ii | - | V | - |
| C | -7* |
| I | V/IV|
| F G | C Am | F Em Dm C | Bb Gm |
|IV V | I vi | IV... |bVII v |
| C B | Bb A | Em Ebm Dm G | C |
| I chromatic| "V" | I |
The modal infection (flat 7th degree) in measure 16 is definitely not something vaudevillian-influenced. What I've labelled as C7* in measure 12 omits the root (C):
E F G
C D E
Bb Bb Bb
Overdubs: vocal harmonies in measure 6, backing vocal harmonies in measure 9, 15-18. Note the rests of the bass and drums at the end of phrases 2, 3, 4, 5.
The last Verse has busier and completly different voval harmony arrangement, also the lead vocal is altered here and there. The trumphet vocals return briefly in the fourth phrase. The third phrase closes with drumroll and a single slash on triangle.
The last phrase is completed with two repetition (tag) of the title phrase added various fills. In these repetitions the bass follows the lead vocal in different (ascending) inversions. The very last beat (bass+ drums) sligtly precedes the downbeat of the 25th measure, in symphaty with the title phrases also ending off beat.
The solo-Verse is arranged very differently and the lead tune is also slightly varied in the first two phrases, exchanged during the rest of the section until the return of the title-motif at the end.
The jazz big-band imitating arrangement makes this section closely asociated with "Good Company" from the same album, just like those sweet closed mooth harmonies.
Overdubs: lots of vocal overdubs, jangle piano (m.1 and m.7), and Roger's (varyspeed?) tuba imitations (m.7), slide-whistle (double tracked, end of the section).
Freddie originally wanted Roger to do a tap dance solo, but the idea was altered to a drum-stick solo in measure 15 (and another drum-fill in the first phrase of the Bridge).
Bridge
We have two 12 measure Bridges with square 4 measure phrases, the first and the last with ascending chromatic upbeat. The tonality is weak. Note the abandonded chain of fiths (m.m. 7-8). Also note the chross relation between the Bb (m.9) and B (m.11).
F:
| F | - | C | -7 |
| I | - | V | - |
| C7 | - | A | D7 |
| V | - |...
| I | - |V/V/V| V/V |
| Bb A | Ab G | G... | - |
| chromatic | V | - |
The second Bridge is differently arranged, but the differences are not as striking as those between the verses. Measure 2 adds happy whistling, measure 3-4 adds semi-chromatic ascending bassline, measures 5-6 mouth-trumphets.