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

Bring Back That Leroy Brown

Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4,
Key: C-Major
Form: 

      Chorus (AA)| Verse |
      Chorus (AA)| Verse | instr. Break 1 / solo |
      Chorus (AA)| Verse/Bridge | Vocal Break |
      Chorus (A) | Verse/Break 3 / banjo solo | Outro

"Leroy Brown" is the first of Mercury's Tin Pan Alley influented songs, and as such it is one of the songs that marks the beginning of the second major period in the band's carreer. The only song (more preciselly song fragment) that presages this style is the piano intro of the "Funny How Love Is" (which more precisely belong to the outro of "... Black Queen"). Mercury mentioned the Pointer Sisters as an influencial source for this song. Title-wise it must have been inspierd by "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" (US No1 in 1972).
The songform consists of four cycles, but only the first one is "normal". For the sake of variety the rest is developed differently in each cycle with the inclusion of different breaks and solos, Bridge, part of which developed from the Verse. This kind of design will return in Mercury's later works in the eigthies.
The arrangement features banjo (see also "Good Company"), piano, bass (also double bass for a moment), drums plus lots of barbershop vocal harmonies. The bass line is particularly busy. The banjo accompaniment sounds remarkably genuinely as if Brian had been playing for many years in a dixiland band which he had not.
Surprisingly they DID play this song live several times. The played it instrumental skipping the third cycle, but including the banjo solo.

Chorus
Each four cycles of the song start with a chorus. The first one also serves as the intro. The chorus consists of a doubled up phrase repeating the title phrase except the last one. The phrasing is 4+4, AA'. The lead vocal is harmonized except the last subphrase of the first phrase. The rhythm of m1-2 make use of the 3+5 type syncopation. Banjo and drums hold a short pause from the downbeat of m3 on.

C:
/---------- 2x ----------\
| C G | C G | C   | Gaug |
| I V | I G | I   |  V   |

Changing details in the arrangement:
2nd cycle: the title phrase in the second phrase is sung (no harmonies this time) two octaves lower reaching a "C" on bottom. If it was not varispeed it would be the lowest sung note on a Queen record. It is thought sung by Freddie.
3rd cylce: the firs phrase-closing antiphonal harmony ("yeah") is replaced with a guitar harmony.
4th cycle: no changes except the second phrase dropped.

Verse
We have four 16 measure Verses the first two of which is "normal" the rest is altered. The syncopeted lead vocal is harmonized throughout, plus some antiphonal "yeah"-s and "Woo-woo"-s are added at the end of each phrases. 
 
| C   | Gaug | C   | E/G# Am |
| I   | V    | I   | V/vi vi |

| C   | Dm7  | C*   | *    |
| I   | ii   | I chromatic |

| Am  | G#dim| Am  | F#halfdim |
| vi  |"V/vi"| vi  |           |

| C*  | *    | C   | Gaug |
| chromatic  | I   |  V   |

In m7-8 the vocal harmony uses of chromatic cliche (pedal point on top, two ascending chromatic line below). The bass in the second phrase plays a long diatonic scalar walk. In the 2nd cycle this vocal harmony is replaced with a banjo solo with blue-grass style arpeggios. The third Verse has an odd-rhythmized backing harmony block in m3-4. In the fourth Verse this cliche is repeated a fourth higher in double tempo (this is Break 3) leading into a strummed banjo solo. In the 3rd and 4th cycle .

| C   | Dm7  | C*  | *   | F*   | banjo |
| I   | ii   | I   | -   | IV   | -     |

Interestingly this is the only time in the song where a subdominant chord (IV) is played. The last beat/measure of the vocal extension is overlapped by a funky four measure strummed banjo solo:

| F7  | A   | D7  | G7  |
| IV  |V/V/V| V/V | V   |


Solo / Break 1
After the second verse we have a guitar solo section. Bass repeats a boogie-woogie-like one measure ascending pattern for eighth measures while piano and banjo rest. Speedy guitar solo with a little touch of shuffle beat starts in m2. Vocal harmony phrase starts in m3, and a variant of it in m7 where the ending is overlapped by the next phrase which is characterized by the return of the piano. The guitar solo ends on the downbeat of the next phrase, in m11. This next two measure phrase plays a descending semi-chromatic double-bass scale on the quarter beats.


| C1  | -   |

| C6  | -   | -   | -   |

| C6  | -   |

| Am  | E/G#|

| Am  | *   |

The last phrase has a crazy piano break (a jangle piano and a grand piano).

| Gdim| E1 F1 G | *   | Gaug |

Its rhythm is tad difficoult to transcribe as it starts with a 3+3+2 pattern of paino arpeggio. This beat map may help you getting oriented:

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
******* * * ***** * ** *  *      : piano
                * * ** *  *      : bass
        * * *                **  : drums
                          *      : vocal


Bridge
The third Verse slows down from m7-8 where the chromatic cliche is replaced with a diatonic one: the familiar I > V6/3) > vi proression.

| C G/B | Am   |

After this lead-in we have a slow ad-lib tempo section very tipical for the Tin-Pan Alley genre. The phrasing is four-squared except the very last phrase extended with a soprano "whoo" (G). The accompaniment is piano and backing vocal harmonies.

/----- 2x ----\
| Dm7  | Am   |
| ii   | vi   |

| Dm7  |Adim/C|
| ii   | vidim|

| B7   | G7   |      |
|V/iii | V    |      |

vocal Break 1
After the Bridge we have a vocal break before the next cycle starts. The first two measures shows an ascending semichomatic cliche (the same with the one in the Verses m7-8) executed twice. The ascending bass puts the second cycle in a higher inversion. Brian adds a short guitar harmony reinforcing the piano chords in m3-4. The second phrase starts with an acapella vocal phrases followed by a short arch-shaped chromatic instrumental figure.

| C*   | -    | Am7 Am | E/G# Am |

|      | G1   |


Outro:
The outro has previously not used musical material.
The first two phrases (AA) build on a chromatic descending harmony. The second half of the vocal phrases are harmonized.

/---- 2x -----\
| C B | Bb Am |
| I   ...  vi |

The third phrase makes use of the 3+3+3+3+2+2 patterned rhythmical cliche. The harmony is oscillating.

 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 = two measures
| E/G# Am E/G# Am E/G# Am |

The fourth phrase starts with the I > V6/3 > vi cliche, and ends with a cute three part vocal harmony build up.

| C G/B | Am F#halfdim | Am C | C  G|
| I  V  | vi           | vi I | I  V|

| G   |  G/B C | C   |
| V   |   V  I | I   |

The last measures have hard to follow rhythm (try to count along the beats!).

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
* * * * ** *  ****  ****  ***** * * * ** *      ***
                                           *  *     *