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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 - News Of The World: Spread Your WingsBookmark and Share

Spread Your Wings

Album: News Of The World (1977), 5th track
Single: February, 1978
Meter: 4/4
Key: D-major (with a touch of B-minor in the Bridge)
Form:

Intro | Verse | Chorus | Bridge - Solo1 |
      | Verse | Chorus | Outro (Solo2)  |

"News Of The World" was the first album featuring two songs by John. Musically, this one seems to be a "standard" rock ballad, spiced up with some non-standard chord functions. Both Verse and Chorus sections are remarkably long and built out of two subsections. The sections build up two long cycles similarly to the form of "You're My Best Friend". The song does not contain any backing vocals, only some slowly moving three-part guitar harmonies. The latter are closer to simply splitting the "strummed" chords into single notes. The individual guitar-harmony parts often pick up the built-in chromatic motions of the actual chord progressions.

Walkthrough
-----------

Intro
It's a very simple piano figure exposing the tonic chord.

| D5    | -     |
D: I

Verse
The first of the two subsections is square, eight measures long and has AA phrasing. The first Verse starts without electric guitar and bass, only piano, fingerpicked acoustic guitar, and hi-hats.

/--------------2x---------------\
| D     | E9    | G  Gm | D     |
| I     | V/V   | IV iv | I     |

Tonic opens and closes the subsection, so this is a closed harmonic shape. Gm is a leader chord for D. The cross-relation B > Bb > A is "amplified" with acoustic guitar, and the lead vocal also uses the flat-6th degree (Bb). Examples for Queen songs with IV-iv (parallel) chord progression: You're My Best Friend (F), Save Me (G), Play The Game (F). Note that the parallel minor in these examples is often completed with the 6th degree.
The second subsection is nine measures long. Enter the rest of the drum kit, bass, and rhythm guitars (double-tracked). In the second Verse only the rhythm guitars' entrance is held back until this subsection.

| Bm  /A| Bm/G# | G  A  | D    |
| vi    | -     | IV V  | I    |

| Em(7) | C7    | D Em  | Gm   | D    |
| ii    | bVII  | I ii  | iv   | I    |

The Bm/G# is also known as half-diminished G#, and curiously can be found in "Who Needs You", too. That jazzy C7 is functionally close to Gm(6) (iv), and its 7th creates the same correlation with the next D chord as we saw before with Gm > D. Note how Roger uses asymmetric drum lines (emphasis on the 4th 1/8 beat) in the uneven measures. The second verse features some three-part guitar harmonies. The first one is a hocket: a single melody shared between the three tracks. The special effect is formed by the sustained last notes building up a D(6/3) chord.

Chorus
The first subsection has an AA' (2x4 measures) form, and a cliche chord progression (see also "Love Of My Life"). The guitars introduce each chord with short figures.

/-------------2x-------------\
| D   | Bm    | E(m)7 | A    |
| I   | vi    |V/V(ii)| V    |


the second subsection:

gtrs: | Gm  | D    |"Gm6" | D    |
bass: | D   | E    | D    | D    |
      |iv6/4| I6/4 |iv6/4 | I    |

Note how the bass puts the chords into their second (6/4) inversion. The guitar in the third measure omits the root of the Gm6, but still sounds much as a regular Gm6 (in its second inversion). The piano, however, does play the G but cannot be heard well until the second chorus at 3:20. In the BBC take of this song the piano track and the G-note in question are much more audible, though. The chorus closes with two extra measures, providing a kind of "thinking time" for the listener. The "bass" line walks through borrowed (from minor mode) notes: b6th > b7th > 1st. In the last measure the piano plays the reversed intro pattern.

| Gm/Bb Gm/C | D     |
| iv6/4      | I     |

The second chorus starts with an upbeat "so honey...". The second "A" phrase adds lead guitar behind the lead vocal.

Bridge
This section begins with an upbeat and has a square 2x4 measure AA' form. The arrangement is completed with slowly moving three-part guitar harmonies. The melody of the first two measures is a variation of the beginning of the third phrase of the verse. This part has a strong B-minor feel.

/--------------------x2----------------------\
gtrs: | Bm  /A |B5/G#     | A     | F#sus4 F |
D:    | vi     |vii-of-V  | V     | V-of-vi  |
B:    | i      |vii-of-VII| VII   |  V       |

Solo1

D:
| G  A  | D  Gm/D | G#dim/D  E7   | A     |
| IV V  | I   iv  |vii-of-V V-of-V| V     |

The D > Gm > G#dim sequence is created by two parallel-moving chromatic lines with a sustained D; the guitar harmony also shows this approach. Note that the solo guitar doesn't pick up the leader note (Bb) of the Gm but plays arpeggio-like all the notes of the E7 chord and arrives on the 3rd degree of the A. This section is closed by a let-ring-throughout measure like the chorus. The A chord (V) is waiting to be resolved to D. That is called open ending.

Outro
Except the upbeat ("come on honey") and a short phrase ("fly with me"), the outro is instrumental. The chord progression is the cliche taken from the chorus' first half. This song provides the rare example in the Queen-canon where a cliche progression is repeated many times in a row. Fade-out starts at the fourth repetition, and the song ends in the middle of the sixth. The long guitar solo with many let-ring notes is pretty unusual for Brian; actually this is his only guitar solo in this playing style. The rhythm guitars do chromatic runs before most of the D-chords.
The BBC version features longer guitar solo and a use a double time feel in the outro until the very last measures. The rhythm and the style of the piano part subtly foreshadow "Don't Stop Me Now" (1978). The video shows John playing the piano (until the bass enters). The CD-booklet does not credit him for playing the piano, though, so it must be Freddie.