That’s probably another reason why I didn’t really take it that seriously in the beginning. I like doing that, but I didn’t feel I was very organically anchored into the song. There’s just one little spot in the middle where the guitar takes over the vocal line. This particular song is all about piano, drums, bass, and vocals. That’s something you have to deal with if you’re in a band. Also, selfishly, there wasn’t a lot for me to do on it. You suddenly realize as soon as people hear “Don’t Stop Me Now” that they come to life. My mind shifted when I started to experience it at parties. Over the years, it’s climbed and climbed, and it’s on a level with “ Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Another One Bites the Dust” as one of the most played Queen songs. It brings people joy, so why would I stand in the way of that? Now I accept “Don’t Stop Me Now” as one of the great Queen anthems. It took me a long time to realize that this is a magnificent anthem in its way. I didn’t really feel that it represented what we were at the time - probably unjustly because it is indeed quite representative. So I think in the back of my mind, I had a block on this song. At the time, Freddie was zooming out into a different universe. There’s also an indication of recklessness there. But next to a lot of the other stuff we were doing, it’s quite light and fluffy. “Don’t Stop Me Now.” When I first heard it, I knew it had a real tune to it. Collectively, we started to work on achieving that dream from the first album onward. But we wanted to build on it with melody and harmony and tunes, which move people, tell stories, and make people feel something that they never quite felt before. We wanted that base layer of what’s new - like the beginnings you can find on Jeff Beck’s Truth album, on Led Zeppelin’s first album, or Black Sabbath’s first album. It felt very dangerous and very exciting. It’s purely instrumental music, but at the time it had a great edge to it. You also wouldn’t think the Shadows were heavy. I mean, you wouldn’t call Buddy Holly heavy now, although at the time people thought he was very cutting edge and dangerous. It’s hard to imagine a world where we just didn’t have heavy music here. I suppose inspired by all the stuff that was happening as we were starting to evolve as a group, which was that heavy music was being born. And underneath all that would be something very imponderable, thrilling, heavy, and challenging. We had a dream that we would be songwriters. Being able to hear Little Richard for the first time on the radio and Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley - the beginnings of the stirrings of the voice of the generation that was going to be ours. We grew up with our influences as everybody does, but we were lucky enough to grow up just as rock and roll was being born. We had a vision in our heads and a collective dream in the very early days because we were in an atmosphere of change, innovation, and new freedoms. We entered into so many areas believing we could innovate. There are a lot of facets to Queen’s music. It encapsulates a lot of what we are, what we have been, and what our dream was. I’m sure everyone will tell me it’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and it probably is. Song that doubles as Queen’s thesis statement “I’ve found that the best science,” he explained, “is always done with an artistic instinct.” It’s a schedule fit for a polymath like May, who, in addition to co-founding Queen, holds a PhD for his work in the realm of astrophysics. In addition to May rereleasing his Star Fleet Sessions supergroup project on July 14, Queen will embark on an American arena tour beginning in October with Adam Lambert once again belting out the hits that were popularized by Mercury. “And there was never a reason to look back.” It’s just what good monarchs do. “We opted for this business of having the audience as part of the show,” he recently told me. After the band’s founding in the early ’70s, Brian May, Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon were more than happy to oblige their subjects’ need to shout and stomp during a live performance - with May, in particular, relishing the unified grandeur of his guitar with the aura of a well-coiffed Georgian prince. Photo: Roy Wells/Mirrorpix/Getty Imagesįew rockers possess this crazy little thing called crowd awareness quite like Queen. We entered into so many areas believing we could innovate.” “There are a lot of facets to Queen’s music.
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