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

Killer Queen

Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4 (12/8) (shift of accents during Connector 2)
Keys: Eb-major, F-major, d-minor, c-minor
Form:

   Intro | Verse - Bridge | Chorus | Connector 1 |
         | Verse - Bridge'| Chorus (first half) |
         | Solo 1 ((Bridge")') - Connector 2 |
| Solo 2 (Verse')| Bridge"| Chorus | Connector 1 | Outro |

In the making of the second album Freddie and the band as a whole learned much about songwriting and arrangement. After the full of experiments "Queen II", they made a less complex and more "catchy" album, the "Sheer Heart Attack". Killer Queen was not the first masterpiece by Freddie, of course. This time he directed his talent to produce this camp kind of musichall song. This was their first not guitar-driven single although there is a lot of guitar work in the production. The form is a real showcase of the Queenesque use of section and subsection variants. In this respect Killer Queen is one of the most clever pop-songs ever.

Section by section walkthrough

Intro
It's very simple: six fingerclicks (one and a half measure). The last one is overlapped by the upbeat of the first Verse. Note that fingersnaps can be heard throughout almost the whole song!

Verse
It's eight measures long plus a half measure that sustains the section-closing chord and provides space for the upbeat of the Bridge. The fisrt Verse starts with "right hand" piano; then third beat of the fourth measure adds bass and drums; two beats later enters the single-noted guitar which plays a similar descending figure to that of the bass.

Second Verse features more overdubs than the first: triangle, a guitar fill in the fourth measure, and slowly oscillating three-part backing vocals (see also the intro of The March Of The Black Queen) from the fifth measure.

Eb:
| Cm  | Bb7  | Cm  |Bb7 Eb |
| vi  |  V   | vi  | V  I  |
      half
|Eb  Gm/D | E7/Db   Ab| Abm Eb/Bb| Ebsus4/Bb Bb| +7 |
| I iii6/5| V-of-IV IV| iv  I6/5 | IV-of-V   V |  - |

The first four measures have an AA' form. The second four measures start with a line-cliche progression driven by chromatically descending inner motion. You may have difficulties if you try to sing the phrase "Met a man from China, went down to..." without the chordal backing, say, in the bathroom. The tune is syncopated:

3 .4 .1 .2 .3 .4 .1...  ("She keeps...")
  ** ** ** *  *

Bridge
It's like a three-measure extension of the Verse. The last measure can be divided into two half-measures: the first one belongs to the Bridge, and the second one - to the Chorus. This measure contains the pivot modulation from Eb-major to F-major.

   |  G     Cm | Bb Eb |   D     Gm  F |
Eb:|V-of-vi vi | V  I  |V-of-iii iii...|
F:                     |V-of-ii  ii  I |

This section and parts of it appear later in the song:
1. The second Bridge has a modified lead melody in the second measure, and the third measure features almost "talking" lead vocal.
2. The first measures of Solo 2 are a variation of the first measures of the Bridge, more closely to the third Bridge.
3. The fisrt five measures of the third Bridge are an extended variant of the first Bridge.

Chorus
The Chorus is eight measures long but not in a predictable symmetric way:
the phrasing is 5+3; moreover, an above-mentioned half-measure also
belongs there, and the Connector is not isolated from it, either.
The key is rather d-minor than F-major, since the tonic of the latter
doesn't appear till Connector 1.

  | Bb Dm | Gm Dm | Gm A-Dm | G7      C | C-Bb   |
d:| VI i  | iv i  | iv V-i  |V-of-VII VII   VI   |
F:| IV vi | ii vi | ii   vi |V-of-V   V |   IV   |

  |  A     Dm | G       C | C-Bb  || F...
d:|  V     i  |V-of-VII VII   VI  || III
F:|V-of-vi vi | V-of-V  V |   IV  || I

The lead melody is backed up by three-part harmonies plus some background and antiphonal harmonies. The other two Choruses have very similar arrangements.

Connector 1
It is four measures long with a 2x2 AA' phrasing. The piano part is interesting because without the guitar harmonies it sounds very incomplete (if you can, listen to it using the karaoke trick). It makes one think that this part was composed interactively with Brian.
The piano plays many not-full chords in the first two measures and left hand piano bass and bass guitar enter on the fourth beat of the second measure.
We know that Brian was still in hospital while the others recorded their parts. Apparently Freddie already knew what kind of guitar harmonies the song needed and played a piano track that supported rather than drove them. The piano part, however, has got an interestingly syncopated rhythm that makes it look more complicated than it really is: a cyclic harmonic texture.

F:
| F   Bb Eb/F  | F  Bb Eb/F | F  Bb Eb/(C+G) | F  Bb Eb/(G+C) |
| I  IV flat-VII...

Solo 1 and Connector 2
The second half of the second Chorus is changed for a guitar solo that first seems to be a variant of the substituted measures. Actually the first two and second two measures are variants of the first two measures of the still-to-come last Bridge.
In the third measure there is a key-shift to c-minor. The second half of the section is rather a connector than a real solo. In the fourth measure the accents shift "left" by one beat. The accents keep shifting until the end of the section. This can be explained as varied meters:

3/4 > 4/4> 4/4 > 5/4

Even using this approach the tune remains disorienting. The temporary shift of meter does not disturb the listeners' enjoying the song as they don't suspect that such tricks take place "in the backround". See also The Prophet's Song, Save Me, or Now I'm Here for other examples of accent shifts.

 | A Dm | A Dm | G Cm | G Cm |
d: V i  | V i  |
c:             | V i  | V i  |

         bass: | F.................................
gtr harmonies: | Eb  | Eb  | Eb > G-dim > G#-dim > *F |

more accurately:
*F = Fm > F

Solo 2
The framework we've got here is the same as in the Verse, also including the half measure; only that it's extended with two more measures:

Eb:
.. | Eb/Bb  | Bb7  |
   | I      |  V   |

The lead guitar's melody is also a variant of the lead vocal of the Verse. The technique as the main theme is recycled shifted up and down in this song is more closely associated with symphonic style than rock. The arrangement of the three-track guitar solo is clever. Check out the three-parted descending hord build-ups in the fifth and sixth measures. Brian told in an interview this bit was influented by A.P. Mantovani (1905-). Brian May on stage would create many varinants of this solo. It's worth to browse through the extensive collection of live recordings to compare them.

Bridge"
The third Bridge is seven and a half measures long, and the first five of these are the extended variant of the first Bridge. The form of these five measures is: AA'BB'C.

Eb:
| G      Cm | G Cm | Bb Eb | Bb Eb | D       Gm  F |
|V-of-vi vi | -    | V  I  | V  I  |V-of-iii iii...|
                                 F: V-of-ii  ii  I |
F:              half
| Bb F | Bbm F | - |
| IV I | iv  I | - |

Outro
It is preceded by the second Connector 1, which closes with a similar virtual drop-out of one beat as on the border of Solo 1 and Connector 2. The outro itself builds up from series of double stops (ta-daaa) on Eb chord completed with a repeated descending guitar figure starting on the first beats. This figure is hocket-like arranged for two guitars (or just simple mix-table trick?). Note that the fingersnaps (as well as some unidentified noise) can still be heard.