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
Who Needs You
Composer: John Deacon
Album: News Of The World (1977), 9th track
Meter: 4/4
Key: A Major, E Major,
Form:
| Intro | Verse | Solo 1 | Bridge I - II |
| Solo 2 (Verse')| Bridge |
| Verse | Outro |
"Who Needs You" is one of those surprising songs that Queen pulled out without seemingly any stylistic presage. Paradoxically this was not surprising to do by them. Most of hard rock and progressive rock bands who took themself so serious, would never write a "light" song like this. Note that this song musically is not THAT lightweight, not routinly written and arranged. The sections are long and the lead melody material is enough for two other routin-wise written "caribic" songs. We have nice chords, nice harmonies, tricky rhythms, some tricky lead guitar licks. Freddie's lead vocal features many ornaments and momentary changes to falsetto.
This very atypical Queen song is one of the most typical Deacon song in terms of his songwriting trademarks:
- the latin-influenced 3+3+2 beat as in "In Only Seven Days" (1978).
- fingerpicking guitars as in "In Only Seven Days" and "Spread Your Wings" (1977).
- the IV > vi > V/V(sus4) > IV > V progression in the key of E major as in "I Want To Break Free" (1984).
- long sections with some double phrases as in "Spread Your Wings".
- Songform with vocal sections not repeated more than twice.
- G#halfdim chord as in "Spread Your Wings" albeit in different key.
- Short solo section with individual chord progression as in Spread Your Wings.
- the melodic motif at the very end of the song/outro is mainly identical with the title-motif of "You And I" (1976).
It's a remarkably long list of cross-references including some interesting points.
The main instrument of the accompaniment is acoustic guitar, more accurately 2-3 of them played with lots of fret noises. One of these plays "spanish" (in modal aspect it's not flamenco-esque) lead fills with many long scalar runs, four string arpeggios occassionally in irregular rhythms. The fingerpicking style guitar was a relatively short-lived (1977-78) trademark of Deacon's songwriting, but we know he would play fingerpicking guitar (eg. "Classical Gas") back in the sixties. Similarly to "... Seven Days" the guitars here played some staccatto chords creating that latin beat. The rhythm section consists of maracas and cowbell, hi-hats (mostly closed). The arrangement is enriched with both vocal and guitar three part harmonies that never overlap eachother. The latter creates a mellow pedal-steel-guitar-like tone which suits the song perfectly. The non-inclusion of bass guitar shows nicely Deacon's "less is more" aesthetics that in part also characterizes the whole album compared to "...Races". The asymmetric panning of the lead vocal and the lead guitar throughout the song is an unprecedented feature in the Queen catalogue (shades of mid-to-late sixties recordings).
Walkthrough
-----------
Intro:
It's a two measure guitar hook closed with a "caribic" drum figure. This guitar fill is recycled at the end of every Verses. At the end of the solo and the final Verse it is arranged for antiphonal guitars and reduced to one measure (the second measure of the original hook consist of only one note). The final hook is also harmonised. The percussion instruments rest during all three
Verse:
It's long 18 measure section with 4+4+2+2+2+4 AABBCD where the "C" phrase has close chord progression to "B".
/----------- 2x ------------\
| A | D A | D A | B7 E |
| I | IV V | IV A |V/V V |
/------- 2x --------\
| D G#haldim | A |
| IV "V" | I |
| D G#halfdim | A F#m |
| IV "V" | I vi |
| Bm7 E7| C#m7 F#7| Bm7 E7 | A | (both E7 and F#7 chords omit 5th degree)
| ii V | iii V/ii| ii V | I |
The lead melody of the "A" phrases make heavy use of both pre-downbeat and off-beat accents reinforced by the guitar accompaniment:
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
* **** * ***** * ***** * * *
The rest of the section uses subtle 3+3+2 beat. Freddie on cowbell repeats the same simple two measure pattern, and shakes 1/8 beats with the maracas.
The harmony consists of simple chords, including many sevenths usually combined with chord changes in fifths. Note the five-pieced chain of fifths that closes the section.
The second Verse is instrumental, and omits both 4th and 5th phrases. The guitar solo is played very nicely with some tricky arpeggios. Its tune is just vaguely reminiscent of the lead vocal's.
The last Verse alters the lead tune slightly here and there, including some speech-like sung sub-phrases. Also some lead guitar fills are added, and guitar harmonies in the last phrase.
Solo 1:
It's four measure long connector, and played only once in the song. The second Verse-Bridge couplet is not intervened with a connector.
| A | E | A | E |
| I | V | I | V |
E: I |
The rhythm track is identical to the Verse's. Freddie adds some spanish words and "silly" phonemes to underscore the spanish and "silly" feel of the song.
Chorus:
It's square 16 measures long with 4+4+4+4 AA'BC. Inter-section contrast is created by the key change (A > E), and the added harmonies. Contrast between the subsections (ie. Bridge I and II) is created by the double speed maracas shaking and that the guitar harmonies change to vocal harmonies for the second subsection. Lead guitar fills also added in the second subsection, the last of which is the upbeat of the main guitar solo.
E:
/---------------- 2x ---------------\
| B/D# A/C# | E | F#m G#m | E |
| V IV | I | ii iii | I |
| C#m | A | C#m7 | F# (4>3) |
| vi | IV | vi | V/V |
| A | B | E | E7 |
| IV | V | I |V/IV |
A:| V |
Look, there we have the "Breakfree" progression (from its Bridge section) in measures 10-14.
The guitar harmonies are mostly parallel with consonant vertical chords. The vocal harmonies have more dissonances and chromatic steps.
Back to the guitar harmonies: note how the right channel track changes its position from bottom to top top then again bottom.
The second Bridge demonstrates nicely the band's approach to vary the sections both in tune and in arrangement. This time they change the lead tune, both guitar and vocal harmonies with altered guide-voices compared to the first Bridge (compare the two Bridges harmony block by harmony block!). Note the echo-like vocal harmonies in measure 13-14. Another change in the arrangement are the lovely guitar harmonics played throughout the first two phrases.
Outro:
It is four measure long, instrumental and ends with a fermata on the tonic. The first half of the intro makes this section related with the Solo 1 connector section, the second half is built around the "You And I" motif in the bass. It is mirrored in the top voice which arrives in an added sixth (on acoustic guitar - hard to hear).
top voice: D E F# F#
| A | E | D C#m7 Bm7 | Aadd6 |
| I | V | IV (iii ii)| I |
It is scored for two acoustic rhythm guitars, lead guitar, three part guitar harmonies. The persussion closes with high-frequency maracas shaking.