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
We Will Rock You
Composer: Brian May
Meter: 4/4
Key: e-minor (pentatonic), A-mixolydian Major
Form:
Intro | Verse | Chorus (AA)|
| Verse | Chorus (AA)|
| Verse | Chorus (AAAA) | Solo |
"We Will Rock You" embodies one of the most important stylistic turning point for the band, a major experiment in minimalistic songwriting. In this point of view it was the most extreme example in the Queen songbook as the music is not much more than a mere combination of a rhythmical ostinato and a lead vocal, no harmony backing except the outro solo.
The result is one of the most original and distinct single of the history of rock. On the other hand the song may have been influenced by army-chants or "Give Piece A Chance" (Plastic Ono Band).
Intro
The intro exposes the one measure ostinato rhythmical pattern by repeating it 8 times. They multitracked it many times to achive a really mass sounding effect. The rhythmic motif itself is very simple, very basic, one wonders where else before they used this pattern as ostinato. A good challange for musicologists...
Verse
The eight measure Verse doesn't have much to analyse. The start of the second lyrical phrase ("playing...") fall on the third beat of the second measure. The pitch-set is pentatonic. The closing of the section descends an octave below the starting notes.
Chorus
Its very simple tune sung twice, four times in the last cycle. The vocals are unisono and octave harmonies overdubbed many times for creating a mass-chant effect. The pitch set of the lead vocal is added the 2nd degree.
Solo
After a long fading in feed back E-note the lead guitar enters in m.7 of the last Chorus:
| C | - |
e: VI | - |
A: bIII | - |
The solo itself is built around the A and D/A chords (the famous lick again), with lots of double and triple-stops, pedal bass on the open A-string, hardly any single note passages (eg. in m.10). The solo ends with trice played phrase reminiscent of the triple-tag endings (eg. in "Seaside Rendezvous"). The 2nd, 3rd and 6th phrases are also variants of this phrase.
| A G1 | A |
| I 7th | I |
| A D/A | A |
| I IV | I |
| A D/A | A |
| I IV | I |
| A | D/A |
| I | IV |
| A | |
| I | |
| A D/A A | A |
| I IV I | I |
/-------- 3x -------\
| A D/A A | A D/A A |
| I IV I | I IV I |
BBC-version
meter: 4/4
key: E-Major with aeolian inflection (or e-minor with ionian inflection).
Form:
Intro I-II-III (AA) | Verse | Chorus -
- Verse | Chorus - break | Solo (BBBC) | Chorus -
- Verse | Chorus (AAA) - Outro
What is the original "We Will Rock You" famous for: the boom-boom-clap motif and the killer guitar solo? What does happen if we take both these key ingredients away? Prior to the album version they already played this song in a completly different approach without the ostinato rhythm and the outro-solo. The so called fast-version also known as the BBC-version that opened many live-shows in the late seventies. The track is introduced by the "slow" version shortened to only one cycle of Intro/Verse/chorus/Solo. Then Roger reads up a quote from a book, then starts the song itself.
The form is completed with a bass break section followed by a guitar solo. The transition between verses and choruses are executed with overlap.
The tonality is ambiguous considering that the tonic is always Major (see the sus4 riffs!) while the pitch and the chord set is much closer to minor mode (melodic minor thirds and sevenths). This transcription goes with the Major mode. There is no dominant chord (B) in the song and the subdominant chord (A) shows up only in the outro.
Intro
The first phrase starts with solo rhythm guitar plaing the blusey 5-6-5-6 motif. Drums enter for the upbeat of the second phrase.
E:
| E5-6 | - | - | - |
| I | - | - | - |
/------ 2x ------\
| E(sus4) | E5-6 |
| I | - |
This double phrase riff is reminiscent of the triple-phrase closing of the slow version. Note the A > D/A lick combines both the 3rd > 4th and the 5th-6th motion. The rhythm is also similar but this time we have pre-downbeat emphases:
4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
* * ** * ** *
The first phrase riff is repeated this time with proper backbeat.
| E5-6 | - | - | - |
| I | - | - | - |
The next two phrases are the backing riffs of the Chorus.
| G5 D5 | C5 G1 F#1 F1 | E5-6 | - |
|bIII bVII| bVI m3rd... | I | - |
| G5 D5 | C5 G1 F#1 F1 |
|bIII bVII| bVI m3rd... |
Verse
Except the chodal backing there is nothing new compared to the slow version.
| E5-6 | - | - | C5 G5 |
| I | - | - | bVI bIII |
| E(sus4) | E(sus4) | D5 | ... E5 |
| I | - | bVII | I |
Chorus
The chord-chart is shown above in the intro. Except this the most important changes on the album version is the overlapped shortened ending, end the harmony vocals. Note the last chorus is harmonized differently: with pedal point on top.
The last chorus is extended with an extra phrase that also works as outro:
| G5 D5 | C5 G5 |
|bIII bVII| bVI bIII |
| A5 | C5 | E5 |
| IV | bVI | I |
The last three chords are fermata-prolonged and backed with with impulsive drum-rolls.
Break
Next to the second Chorus there is a bass guitar break. The melodic content is economic: a group of C notes, then another group of C notes an octave lower. The two groups are intervened by three with drums and heavy C5 chord. These C notes resonate with the C chord that closes the last chorus of the album version. The rhythmical twist is created by the down-beat like emphasys that falls on the third drum beat in the middle as it divides the break to a 15/8 and a 17/8 part. More detailed groupings of emphases: 3+3+7+2 + 4+3+4+4+2 = 15+17 = 32/8 = 4 measures.
The live versions were often more irregular.
Solo
The guitar solo is totally different from the album version. One of the most simple to play solos May ever created with many bent doublestops. The rhythm guitar chords:
/---------- 3x --------------\
| E5-6 | - | - | G5 D5 |
| I | - | - |bIII bVII|
The last phrase prolonges the tonic with metallic palm-muted downstrokes and drum crescendo:
| E | - | - | - |
| I | - | - | - |