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
Some Day One Day
Composer: Brian May
Meter: 4/4
Key: A Major
Form:
Intro I (AAAA) - II (BB) | Verse (BB) / Chorus |
| AA | Verse / Chorus |
| AA | Solo 1 (BBBB) |
| Verse / Chorus'| Outro-Solo2 (BB-BB-BB-BB-BB-BB...faded out)
With its strummed guitars and cyclic ballad form this song is clearly folk-influenced, but the unique arrangement (guitar harmonies) saves it from sounding generic. Brian May's natural-ranged voice with fine vibrato fits the song.
The cycles consist of verse-chorus hybrid sections. There is two guitar solos, the first one in the third cycle, the second one serves as the outro. We have six chords, five of which is diatonic in context of the homekey: A-Major. The rhythm makes frequent use of 3+5 syncopation. The tuning of the guitar must be altered or capoed to A.
Intro
The intro, and the following cycles start with a strummed A chord - the tonic of the song. The two bar figure starts with 3+5 rhythm pattern, the second half has a built in stepwise figure: 8 > 7 > 6 > 7 (major sevenths).
/----- 4x ----
| A | A* |
| I | - |
The arrangement is thickening (see also "Keep Yourself Alive"). The third phrase adds percussion, the last one drums.
The second cycle opening re-intro adds drums and ascending scalar bass figure with minor 7th.
The third cycle opening re-intro adds a descending bass figure with (minor) pentatonic first half and chromatic second half. Drums enter only for the second phrase.
The second susbsection of the Verse introduces us the backing track of the verses. The arrangement is completed with bass. The symmetric figure featuring pedal bass throughout is repeated twice and adds lead guitar. The second melodic fragment of the lead guitar foreshadows the verse's tune. The phrasing is 4+4 AA'. The rhythm uses the 3+5 accents throughout.
/----------- 2x ------------
| A | G/A | - | A |
| I | bVII | - | I |
The verses and the solos are also developed from this four measure figure.
Verse
Compared to the second subsection of the intro drops the lead guitar and adds two phrases of lead vocal (AA').
Chorus
Melody-wise the chorus is straight extension of the verse, but the harmony and the arrangement (added guitar harmonies) is contrasting enough to speak of a individual section. Also the lead vocal is in higher range. The 3+5 accents are still used. The first phrase is characterized by its lack of the tonic and a chain of thirds (sixths) in m.1-3. The second phrase is the title phrase ending unresolved in symphaty with the incomplete sentence.
| E G | Bm | D | C# E |
| V bVII| ii | IV |iii V |
| A G | D | (D) |
| I bVII| IV | - |
The second chorus adds vocal harmonies at the end.
The third/last chorus is extended with a concluding line of lyrics ("...you come home") and with just very loosely syncronized rising guitar "harmonies" (three guitars) that are carried forward in the subsequent outro-solo.
Solo 1
The backing track of the first solo repeates the intro-phrase four times. There are maybe four lead guitars with sustaining tone playing partly independently partly in harmony with eachother. The leading one first plays the intro hook, then another guitar takes over the leading role that also overlaps the first phrase of the last verse.
Solo 2
The outro solo is very similar in concept to the first solo. The leading guitar is probably semi-improvised, the other "lead" guitars are probably thoroughly improvised. After 12 cycles of the intro harmonic phrase the song fades out.