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

In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited

Composer: Freddie Mercury
Album: Sheer Heart Attack, 12th track
Key: D Major
Meter: 3/4, shuffle beat
Form:
 
      Verse | Chorus |
      Verse'| Chorus | Chorus | Chorus |
            | Chorus | Chorus | Chorus |


Many think that this song could have been a succesfull single because it's catchy (and repetitive) enough. Sheer Heart Attack was the album where Mercury explored his talent for popular songwriting, coincidenting his experiments with shuffle beat ("Killer Queen" and this song).
The form starts cyclic (ballad form) and ends with long repetititions (six times in a row) of the singalong chorus. Major influences for the latter must be "Hey Jude" (Beatles) and "All The Young Dudes" (Mott The Hopple), and also "Father To Son" from the previous album. Queen never again wrote a repetititive song like this. For the live versions they shortened the ending to only 3-4 choruses.
The only twist in the simple form is the ambiguity of where do the title phrase belong. Some choices:
1) to the end of the Verse: it sounds so at the Verse-chorus transitions.
2) to the beginning of the chorus:
pro: the closing sequence of choruses suggests that this phrase belongs to the chorus. The absence of this phrase at the end of both first and last choruses suggests that it does not belong to the END of the chorus.
The guitar motif at its end is parallelled in the "wo-wo-wo-la-la-la" phrase.
3) to the end of the chorus: the "wo-wo-wo" phrase starting on the downbeat has a very strong "beginning of the chorus" feel.

In my interpretation the title phrase belongs to both Verse and the end of the Chorus.

The Verses are arranged for piano as main instrument while the choruses are dominated by guitars and more intense drumwork. This formula was used also in Brian May's power ballads on the Game album. The Wembley version is arranged for guitar throughout with a brief intro. Earlier live versions feature piano intro.
The D-Major tonality is clear thoughout with the ii chord getting much emphasys by getting preceded by secondary dominants and the way how the chorus opens with Em. My quest for musical crossreferences with the other "In The Lap Of The Gods" from the same album was without result.


Walkthrough
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Verse
The Verse is 23 measures long with square harmonic phrasing except the last three measure title phrase. The song starts with vocal pick up. Beside some surrogate dominants we have only one dominant chord in m.23 where the doubletracked rhythm guitars enter introducing the chorus. The bass line often walks away from the root of the actual chord for example a chromatic bass progression in the fourth phrase. The first two phrase prolonges the tonic chord with sus4 added in the even numbered measures.


D:

| D   |sus4 | -   | sus4|
| I   | -   | -   | -   |

| D   |sus4 | -   | sus4|
| I   | -   | -   | -   |

| Em  | -   |/D#  | *   |   * : D#aug > C/D# > D#aug
| ii  | -   |V/ii | -   |

| Em  |/D1  |/C# *| -   |   * : Em/C# is mainly C#-halfdim chord nice to hear in the Wembley version.
| ii  |     |"V"  | -   |

| D   |/C#  |/C   | B   |
| I   |     |     |V/ii |

| Em  |   D | A   | -   |
| ii  |   I | V   | -   |

| D   |/C /D| B1  |
| I   |     | V/ii|


The melodic phrasing is AABB'.. after the fourth phrase the melodic phrases are covering more harmonic phrases. The "B" phrase is parallelling the A while the B' phrase alters the B phrase similarly to the opening phrases of "Killer Queen" (XZXY subphrasing).
There is a very nice interplay to observe between lyrics (BUT sentences) and music.

"It's soo easy" - high
"But I can't do it" - low

"So risky" - high
"But I goitta chance it" - low

"So funny" - high
"But there's nothing to laugh about" - low


Both the bassline and the lead melody is spikey. For the live version Freddie often omitted the octave jumps up as he could not hit those high notes.
The second Verse adds a stunning additional three part harmony vocal block with straight beat (ie. not shuffle beat), which creating similar effect as triplets in a non-shuffle beat environement. This block was omitted in the live versions.


Chorus
Similarly to the Verse the chorus also has square phrasing except the last three-measure phrase. The harmony is very much counterpoint driven between lead vocal and bass. We have many incomplete chords in the chart.

| G    | F# G F# | E   | A   | : lead vocal
| E    | D  E    | C#  | A   | : bass
| "ii" | I       |     | V   | : chords

      ...C#...                   : guitar
| F#   | E   F# | G    | F#  G | : lead vocal
| D    | A   D  | E    | D#  E | : bass
| I    | V   I  |"ii"  |       |  

| B ...
| G   | - D | A   | -   |
| IV  | - I | V   | -   |

| D   |/C /D| B1  |
| I   |     | V/ii|

As pointed out the first and the last Chorus omits the last phrase. The transition back to the verse is aided by a D guitar chord let ring throughout - see also in "Spread Your Wings". The final sequence of six choruses change in microscopic details. For example from the second cycle on the lead vocal is joined by unisono/octave vocals. The next chorus adds stereo panning for the voices. The last chorus omits the last phrase and remains unresolved on the dominant chord (see also "We Are The Champions"). Instead of resolution there is an explosion-like noise achived by tape saturation. This fading out noise closes the whole album.