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
Funny How Love Is
Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4
Key: C-Major
Form:
Intro || Verse | Verse | Verse (fade out)|
Seemingly this is song is the least progressive and least rocking composition of the album due to the title, strummed guitars and the relatively repetitious lyrics (beside the title phrase it's not that repetitious).
The intro of this song mixing-wise belongs to the previous track "... Black Queen" a kind of outro. Music-wise it's much closer to our song establishing its homekey, and foreshadowing its harmonic design. Lyrics-wise it's halfway between the two songs.
The body of the song consists of three long (almost 1 minute) cycles what I transcribed as Verse. It also has certain "chorus" flavor to that, and... and also certain "ABBA" flavor before the world knew what is "ABBA"-flavor as such.
Intro
The intro starts with am instrumental phrase which strats with a ragtime-influenced 3+3+3+3+2+2 rhythmized piano chord. These syncopations and the lead melody suggests a fast 4/4 beat. The end of the phrase is added guitar.
| C#dim | - | G7 | - |
| i#dim | - | V | - |
Harmony wise the intro consists of two close variant subsections but melody wise there is no repetition here.
The lead melody consists of two and four bar phrases. The first phrase features the familiar I > V6/3 > vi cliche.
We have a diatonic chord stream in m.5-10 from ii to V. Note the first notes of the melodic phrases also following this motion. The second half of the section is dominated by "backing" harmonies including an oscillating harmony block which is an early Queen trademark.
| C | G/B | Am | - |
| I | V6/3 | vi | - |
| Dm | - |
| ii | - |
| Em | - |
| iii | - |
| F | G |
| IV | V |
| C | - | G | Am |
| I | - | V | vi |
| Dm | - |
| ii | - |
| Em | - |
| iii | - |
| F | G |
| IV | V |
Verse
Mixing wise the song starts with the verses, more precisely with a four bar intro exposing the main instrumental texture of the verse which consists of strummed acoustic guitars and piano moreover bass and drums the latter two being softly mixed. The strummed guitars are also a part of the rhythm section due to their percussive sound is at least as loud as the chords itself.
/---- 2x -----\
| C | - |
| I | - |
The harmony of the melodic phrases seem to be hijacked by the strummed guitar chords (> Mustapha). The phrases accompanied with with D chord also sound being in D-Major due to the (major) pentatonic lead melody and the strummed chord having shifted up from the previous C-Major phrases. More closely listening reveals that the piano is still using natural C instead of C# which sounds here as a subtle modal infection. The pitch set of the phrase with strummed Em chord also suggest e-minor (harmonic minor) tonailty. The pitch set of the next two phrases with F chord is the same with the F-Major key. The last phrase is an exception as its pitch-set is C-Major, note the melodic natural F note used instead of F#.
On high level the C-Major homekey is still dominating the whole setion and for this reason this transcription does not applies any modulation. The chord progression reuses the chord-stream used in the intro with a minor change (D instead of Dm).
The verses consist of eighth four-measure phrases. Ph.1-2 are close variants. Ph.3-4 are shifted up variants of Ph.1-2. Ph.5 is contarsting compared to the other phrases with minor harmony. Here enter the backing harmonies present until end of the section. Ph.6 is a variant of Ph.1: the first half of the melody phrase is parallel, the second half is the same as Ph.1. Ph7 is a variabt of Ph.6 with lead harmonizing vocal is added for the first two subphrases. The last phrase is not a variant.
/------------ 2x -----------\
| C | - | - | - |
| I | - | - | - |
/------------ 2x -----------\
| D | - | - | - |
| II | - | - | - |
| Em | - | - | - |
| iii | - | - | - |
/------------ 2x -----------
| F | - | - | - |
| IV | - | - | - |
| G | - | - | - |
| V | - | - | - |
The later verses apply some notably changes and variants. First the second verse:
Ph.1-2 are completly altered only the rhythm remains the same. Ph5 adds simple lead guitar that is played until the end of the song. The first half of Ph6 is shifted down version of Ph7, while the second half is close variant with that of Ph7. Ph7 drops the harmony lead vocal and adds echoing vocal part for the first two subphrases.
In the third Verse you can hardly hear the piano, but the backing harmony vocals are sung throughout. The first phrases apply minor variants, but the rest of the section remains close to the first Verse.