On some meanings in the song: No... it is only a joke... I like driving fast cars and racing...
I remember my car at the time, because I think we've got the exhaust on the record, and that was a little Alfa Romeo. But I think it was more about people in general, for instance boy racers. In particular we had a sound guy/roadie at the time called Jonathan Harris, who was so in love with his car, and that inspired that. I think he had a TR4, Triumph TR4.
He's a car fanatic, y'know, and it was the sort of song he'd wanted to do for a long while. Jonathan is the sound engineer and he knows us inside out. He's into cars like nobody else. Roger's into cars as well and just felt that he'd dedicate that one to him.
He claims that he wrote it to dedicate it to our sound mixer, who is car enthusiast. I think it's a little bit of Roger and a little bit of that in it. Nice track. He's got a Range Rover and he's just bought himself a Ferrari, which he's very excited about. At the time, he couldn't have had any of those, he had an old Alfa, I think.
Sometimes I wish that would've been a single in its time. Of course, I made just as much money on it. It was the backside of Bohemian Rhapsody, so I probably made more money that way.
They were great to work with, although like most bands there was an element of internal bickering. I always told them that it was too embarrassing for them to have an argument in front of everyone in the studio. So I would always make a room available for them to go to and argue in private. I think most of their arguments were about who had the B-side - that royalty thing. I remember Roger moping about because he really wanted his song, I'm in Love with My Car, on the B-side of Bohemian Rhapsody. He locked himself in the tape closet at Sarm and said he wouldn't come out until they agreed to put it on!
I remember my car at the time, because I think we've got the exhaust on the record, and that was a little Alfa Romeo. But I think it was more about people in general, for instance boy racers. In particular we had a sound guy/roadie at the time called Johnathan Harris, who was in love with his car, and that inspired that. I think he had a TR-4, Triumph TR-4.
He'll tell you it was written about someone else, you know, but we know the truth, don't we Rog? I mean, Roger was always into fast things - fast cars, etc. It's very tuneful, but of course the vocal is the thing - the vocal is the song, and that's a very memorable piece of writing there.
It was slightly different from your average rock song ‘cause it's basically in 6/8 time, which is basically waltz time. It's a great time signature to play in: it rolls, it has a certain unstoppable rolling quality. I made a sort of rough demo of it, and I remember turning around to Brian, “so, what d'you think of that?” He looked at me and said, “you are joking, aren't you?” I said, “no, Brian, I'm deadly serious - it's about a car and somebody who's in love with it.”