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

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 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

Path: Queen Songs - The Book - Songwriting Analyses - "No Synth" era - Queen: Modern Times Rock'n'roll

Modern Times Rock'n'roll

Composer: Roger Taylor
Key: very bluesy E-major, and G major
Meter: 4/4
Form:
 
Intro | Verse || Verse | Chorus || Solo | Verse | Outro |

|| = Spacer (Intro`)

This song is Roger Taylor's first contribution to Queen both as songwriter and as lead vocalist. This is not his first self-penned song, yet one of his first efforts. The lead vocal line shows a strong talking blues influence, thus do not expect beautiful tunes here. In modal and tonal point of view the song is mixed. One of the two rhythm guitars adds blues-scale-based fills rooted on the actual chord's tonic and featuring both major and minor thirds. The lead vocal also blues scale oriented with a center seemingly shifting with the chord progression. The chords are mostly power chords, only the last Verse features the full chords played on piano. The key is transcribed as being in E-major with Dorian inflection (flat 3rd plus flat 7th), which creates a minor flavor. Major tonic would be also possible, though.
Later on Roger would write some more complex and better songs (never faster, though). In an interview, he considered his first songs - probably this one and "Blag" (Smile song from 1969) - being no masterpieces. It's a bit surprising that this song still features modulation, or at least something like that. Like probably all Roger songs from the Seventies, it was composed on guitar. The remarkably fast tempo and the inter-beat hits on the snare drum create a proto-punk flavor.
The arrangement features two semi-symmetric rhythm guitar parts. Later on Queen/Brian May preferred the symmetric rhythm guitars, but on this debut album we can hear more or less asymmetric ones.
The song shows some influence of Led Zeppelin's "Rock And Roll": the title, bluesy flavor, the piano appearing for only the last Verse, (the 3+3+3+3+4 rhythm figure), while the lyrics borrow lines from Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven".

Intro
It is three measures long. The first measure features the end of the guitar riff that becomes the leitmotif of the song and evokes comparisons with the guitar riffs in "Tenement Funster" (1974) and "I'm In Love With My Car" (1975). The riff keeps playing during the first measures of the Verse.

Verse
Length: twenty measures. The lead melody is pentatonic and features many "blue" flat thirds of the actual chord. Many times the melody is oscillating between only two or three notes. The built-in blue notes make the chords sound major rather than minor. In the third verse piano chords are added, playing the third degrees, too. The tonic E turns to be a minor chord.
E/e:
|Em(E5)| -  | -  | -  |
| i... | -  | -  | -  |

|Em(E5)| -  | -  | -  |
| i... | -  | -  | -  |

| A   | -  | -  | -  |
| IV  | -  | -  | -  |

| B   | -  | -  | -  |
| IV  | -  | -  | -  |

| D   | -  | -  | -  |
|bVII | -  | -  | -  |

The lead vocal's last syllable usually falls on the middle downbeat of the phrases. The IV > V > bVII progression will reappear in a Queen (Roger) work - "A Kind Of Magic" (1986, D > E > G). The first verse ends with a short pause. The second verse is also introduced with the guitar riff, this time played in two measures. The second verse also ends with a pause, which is overlapped by the upbeat of the Bridge. Note that the verse is not duplicated toward the end of the song in order to avoid redundancy. Also note the 3+3+3+3+4 rhythmic pattern in the piano part in the last Verse.

Chorus
This section is preceded by a five measures long instrumental pause filled by Roger singing solo. He uses the pentatonic scale (rooted on A), featuring "blue" degrees of flat-3 and flat-5. The "body" of the Chorus is very simple iteration of four measures with the title phrase, which is backed with three-part harmony (G-chord). In the fourth measure the power chords don't require Roman numbers because those function more like single notes than triads.

  /---------- 2x -----------\
  | G  | -  | A5 C5 | D5 C5 |
G:| I  | -  |   (IV)|   (IV)|

During this section the lead vocal gets heavy reverb. The chorus is closed with an extra two measures with the familiar guitar riff, now rooted on A instead of E.

Solo
We have two solo guitar tracks. The second imitates the first one; it almost sounds like a delay-machine was applied, but you can hear some differences. There's no close harmonic relation between the two. The length is square 16 measures and the chord progression is very simple:

G/g:
|G5(m)| -   | -   | -   | -   | -   | -   | -   |
|  i  | -   | -   | -   | -   | -   | -   | -   |

| C5  | -   | -   | -   | D5  | -   | -   | -   |
| IV  | -   | -   | -   | V   | -   | -   | -   |

The solo is mostly pentatonic and the "pentatonic root" moves parallel with the power chords similarly as, say, the lead vocal in the song "You Real Got Me" (Kinks). The tonic is Gm, but the last harmony is G-major chord.

Outro
That last harmony enters still in tempo. John Anthony (second producer) shouts, "Look out!" towards the end. This is one of the rare guest appearances on a Queen record in the Seventies.