The album ends with a Japanese thing, a track from Brian called `Teo Torriatte,' which means `let us cling together.' It's a very emotional track, one of his best. Brian plays harmonium and some lovely guitar. It's a nice song to close the side.
[Brian]'s written a lovely Japanese song, which is at the end of the second side. It's got Japanese verses, actual Japanese verses which we had to do, we did a lot of research actually and we had our Japanese interpreter. We flew her over from Japan.
We have some good Japanese friends. Our interpreter, when were in Japan, called Chika, helped me with the words, when we're there - that was one of the few things which actually did get done on tour - and she taught me how to pronounce the words. I just wrote the English and she translated it, roughly, and we worked on it until it sounded right. A plastic piano is a very strange little keyboard, it's my bud's Vox, actually, which they lent us, and I was fiddling around on, and from that, from fiddling around it came the basic idea of the verse for that song. When we came to record it, it was very difficult, and you can just hear it on the track beneath the ordinary piano, sounding extremely plastic.
At the end of that song, Teo Torriatte, we did have a few friends in to sing. But mind you, it was just about six or so.
Brian's best song.
If I'm honest, I think I would like to be remembered for a few of the songs, none of which were really hits, but some of which had a lot of emotion in them: White Queen and Let Us Cling Together and Long Away off the A Day at the Races album. And We Will Rock You.
For the record, as far as I remember, I played piano on: Doin' All Right, Father to Son, Now I'm Here, Dear Friends, Teo Toriatte, All Dead All Dead. Notably NOT on Sail Away Sweet Sister - I got Freddie to learn it and play it with Roger and John for the backing track - I wanted his marvellous rhythm and percussive feel on piano - but yes on Save Me, Las Palabras de Amor, Flash and The Hero (plus organ on the Wedding [sic]). But from here on in we began using synthesisers and there were many excursions from us all into keyboard territory… The only pure piece of piano from this era from me is Forever - which was a doodle done live in the studio which I rescued for a bonus track later on.
Teo Toriatte (Let Us Cling Together) was the result of feeling “untimely ripped” from our lovely Japanese fans. I had never experienced anything like the love that was showered upon on when we were a young Rock Group in Japan. So suddenly, I felt I wanted to say (on behalf of Queen) that I missed them, and we would not forget. Of course, once a song is being born, all sorts of other ideas come into the head, and one becomes conscious that the song has other meanings. There are always strong personal feelings in my songs. And I like to make a song something universal, if possible - that's the kind of music that moves me. This means the song has to be, in some way, non-specific. But there are all sorts of ways around this ! One of my favourites in this area is a song which at first sight seems VERY specific - The song Maria from West Side Story. You might at first, if you just saw the film, or the stage show, think that the song only has a meaning inside the show. But the writers (being two men of genius - Stephen Sondheim, and the musical giant Leonard Bernstein) crafted it so wonderfully, that, once you have absorbed the idea that you have given the name Maria to the girl of your dreams, the song absolutely speaks your thoughts ... it's magic .... especially clever since the song is all about her name ... you know that magical feeling when even a name glimpsed in a newspaper, or on a mobile phone screen for that matter, can make your whole body feel an electric pulse! Well, the song gives you that! Well, I digress ... my song is about being parted from someone you love .... more than that, it would be hard to say ... it's in the song ... songs can say so much more than prose.
And Japan? It was so intense and emotional for us, it was very hard to leave. We grew completely attached to our Japanese team of interpreters and security, and by the time we'd said goodbye to them to get on the plane home we were all emotional wrecks. And, you know, that's never changed. Every time we've been back to Japan we feel this way. I wrote the song Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together) about this strong bond we as Queen felt with the Japanese people. My lovely interpreter Chika Kujiraoka worked with me on translating half the choruses into Japanese. I think I never thanked her enough. And at some point, when we go back, we always sing a version of this song, and our fans, now a whole new generation, sing it with us, gently, and perfectly in tune.