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 - Jazz: If You Can't Beat Them

If You Can't Beat Them

This is seemingly a straighthahead rock song as the half of the song is using only the three basic chords and the songform is cyclic. The most interesting aspects are the syncopations and the change of key with a half step interval.

Intro
The intro introduces the backing track of the Verse. Throughout the song the rhythm guitars are double tracked, but in the intro only the guitar on left is played. The song starts on the second beat which is tad disorienting, beacuse one's sense of rhythm tends to interpret the first note to be the downbeat. The harmonic rhythm is syncopated which does not help to get oriented either, just like the drums entering on the eighth after the downbeat:

2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1
DDDA G G GA D D DA G G A ... : Guitar chords
**** * : drums

The rhythmical difference between the ending of both riff phrases is carried through almost all verses and derived sections.

Verse:
The phrasing is harmony-wise 4+4+4+4+3 A A A A B, melody-wise A B C C' D in the first verse, A B C B' D in the second verse. In the first four phrses we have the three basic chords. In the closing phrase we have a descending progression from B down to E with a halfmeausre closing the section.

D:
/----------- 4x ----------\
| D A | G A | D A | G A |
| I V |IV V | I V |IV V |

2/4
| Bm A | G F#1 | E1 |
| vi V |IV 3rd | 2nd|

The first solo is an instrumental Verse. The bassline is often swithes to step-wise mode putting both A and G chords in first inversion. The solo itself is a chain-solo (see "The End" Beatles) the solo phrases overlap eachother. The last phrase is three part harmonised creating a crossrelation between G and G# notes in the G and E chords respectively.

Chorus
The chorus consists of four two measure phrases ABAC. The first A phrases are unisono sung the second A phrases are sung in three part harmony the lead vocal being on top. In the third chorus both A phrases are harmonized with an additional layer on top, moreover the last phrase modifies both the lead guitar figure and the semi-spoken lead vocal.

E:
| E B E | C#m D |
| I V I | vi bVII|

| A | E |
| IV | I |

repeat m.1-2

| A1 | - |
|(4th) | - |

The rhythm of the A phrases is similarly syncopated as the the Verse-riff:

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
**** * * *

In the closing phrase the lead vocal is doubled by lead guitar (or vica versa). Due to the modal lead (featuring both b3rd and b6th of E) the harmony is departing from E-Major, but it's still uncertain where exactly to.

Connector
We have a predominantly instrumental connector closing each cycles. The phrasing is 2+2+2+2 AAAB. We dont have a clear chord-drive harmony here. The modal center is F# but due to the chromatic content we can't sense the. The
closing scale suggests E-mixolydian.

/--------- 3x ---------\
| F#1...A#1 | B1...G#1 |
| 1st M3rd| 4th 2nd |

| F#1... | E5 |
| 1st | m7th |

If we count out the eighths along the end of the preceding chorus we may conclude that the last measure is only 7/8 long. But it's just a case of a syncopation often referred in the analyses as "pre-downbeat accent", or "push". The beat map of the riff shows:

3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1
* **** * **** *...

In the second cycle there is a lead guitar added playing a single note (F#) until the last phrase.
In the third cycle we have two lead guitar playing the same note antiphonally. The last measure the guitars go into three part harmony.

Connenctor 2 - SOlo 2
After the third cycle there is a long section which also serves as an outro. The rhythm guitar work of the verse is carried almost throughout but after some phrases its getting simplified and blurred thus after a while even the rhythmical alternation can't be heard. The bassline is again dominated by the scalar variantm but the beginning and the song-closing phrases are playing the original root-following variant.
In the seventh phrase the rhythm guitars switch to the chorus motif (this tine in D-Major) for three phrases where also some flanging effect is applied. The subtle re-appearing of the chorus motif is a clever application of repetition, which is so characteristic of Queen.
Lead guitar enters for the third phrase, but it's still too simplistic to consider a part of the solo 2. It merely repeats single notes in unisono bend until the chorus motif.
The outro-solo starts after 13 phrases which is tad surprisning (uneven). Mix-wise it replaces the right side rhythm guitar. The solo is typical three-fingered with lots of bent and released notes, but non-pentatonic. It closes with characteristic bent double-stops where brief fade out and flanging is applied.