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
In The Lap Of The Gods
Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4 (12/8)
Key: C-Major, F-Major
Form:
Intro I-II-III | Verse | Verse' | Chorus - Outro |
This song starts with a relatively long intro followed by two traditional verses and a strange long chorus section. The rare live versions omit the intro and start with the verses. The intro is progressive rock or classical music influenced, the verses are piano ballad, the chorus...
Intro
The multi-subsectioned intro is backed with pseudo-virtoso piano arpeggios in fast triplets throughout.
The first run of chords are built on the anti-diretional counterpoint between Taylor's soprano and the bassline. The chords are arranged for vocal harmonies beside the piano arpeggios. The chords don't establish the homekey, but they settle down temporarly (m.5-10) on Dm where the mode of the lead vocal and fanfare-like guitar harmony also suggest d-minor tonality.
| A | G | F# | E |(F) : Vocal
| F# | G | G# | A |(D) : bass
| F#halfdim | G | E | Am |(Dm)
| Dm | - | - | - | - | - |
| i...
The Dm bars (m.5-11) can be subdivided to two two-bar vocal phrases in m.6-7 and m.8-9 (AA) the latter overlapped by the fanfare-like guitar phrase in m.9-10.
The next phrase starts with a parallel chord change (C > Cm) and the shifted down variant of the aforementioned "A" vocal phrase. The backing beat is tad difficoult to tap along (try it out!) especially in m.14-15 where the piano arpeggio pattern changes. The guitar line is rhythmicllly reinforced by tympanies.
m.13
G# C D# F# D# (Bb)
| C | Cm | - | - | Cdim7*| - | - |
The next two phrases both start with a the same guitar upbeat figure. The vocal phrases are the same, the second time echoed in a lower inversion.
/----- 2x -----\
| Bb1 | - | : guitar on downbeat
| Gdim7 | - | : vocal harmony
| Bbm | - | : simplified harmony, what most of us sense
The next phrase is very triumphant vocal harmonies and tympany tremolos. The tympanies are tuned to the Bb an Eb respectively. It sounds like an establishment of the Eb-Major key, but it's very short-lived as...
| Bbdim7 | - | Eb | - |
...the next chord and its ornament (Bbm) turns the harmony ambigous again. The sustained vocal harmony chord fades out almost completly then fades in. (Decrescendo-crescendo)
| F (Bbm) | - | - | - |
The F chord finally resolves downward (!) to G. For the closing four measures the piano arpeggios slow down and reduced while the harmony vocals fade out. Restrospectively seen the G chord is the dominant chord of the soon establishing C-Major key.
/----- 2x -----\
| G | Gdim | G | - | - | - |
| V | vdim | I | - | - | - |
Verse
We have two normal verses. The triplet-mode used the intro is changed to normal 4/4 with frequent tempo changes. The phrasing is A A-ext B. In the first verse the first phrase omits the first beat, and m7 is a half measure. The second verse omits these anomalies.
The first verse is accompnied by piano and wind-noise mimicking percussion. Second verse adds bass.
3/4
| C Cdim C | F |
| I | IV |
| C Cdim C | F Dm | Am |
| I | IV ii | vi |
2/4
| Dm F/C | Am | Fm G |
| ii IV | vi | iv V |
The last phrase of the second Verse ends differently:
| Dm F/C | Am |
| ii IV | vi |
For the last two beats the arrangement is completed with drums.
Chorus
The chorus consists of harmonized vocal title phrases repeated shited in different positions. The way how the melodic phrases parallel eachother is reminiscent of "Funny How Love Is". Position-wise the repetition pattern of the two bar phrases is: A A B A B'B' where the third and fourth phrases are intervened by one measure. The melodic phrases close with 3+3+2 syncopation and partly this is what provokes us to apply a double-time tempo change from the chorus on.
The arrangement of the chorus features strummed acoustic guitar, lead guitar throughout with sustained tone and lots of trills, and also some soprano countermelodies sung by Roger. The harmony is ambiguous until m.14 thus no roman numerals.
/------------ 2x -----------\
| Gm7 |- | C7 | - |
| F#dim7 | D7/F# | Gm | - |
| C7 | - |
| Gm7 |- | C7 | - |
/------------ 2x ------------\
| Fm7 | - | Bb7 | - |
From here (m.14) we have the second half of the phrases repeated eigth times in a row. The melodic phrases start two measure later compared to the earlier 3+3+2 rhythmized subphrases. Beside the repetitive lead vocals there is non-repetitive lead guitar lines and Taylor's soprano vocals. The vamping harmony establishes the key of F-Major.
/------------ 8x -----------\
| F | - | Bb | - | F | - |
| I | - | IV | - | I | - |
Outro
The repetitive closing sequence of the chorus is segued into a piano-driven outro. The same 3+3+2 syncopated rhythm is applied in three different chord change each with a leap of fourth. The finally establishing homekey is c-minor.
| Bb | Bb Eb/Bb Bb | - | Gm Cm/G Gm | - |
| Cm Fm/C Cm | - | - | - |
| i | - | - | - |
| Cm | - | Cdim | Cm |
| i | - | idim | i |
The lead guitar is played util the last bar. The second melodic phrase (guitar) is pentatonic ascending, the last one is descending slowly in chromatic steps.