Queen: The Complete Works (82 page)

Lyrically, Roger again sings of the problems affecting the world, and it’s at times such as these that one appreciates Freddie’s talent for editing the written word. While the lyrics to ‘Revelations’ aren’t the worst Roger has ever written, they certainly do border on cringe-inducing, especially the first verse. In a bizarre twist of foreshadowing, Roger predicted the criticism of his shortcomings as a lyricist: “Now you can label me stupid or naïve with this song / But when children are starving / I know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

The song, like the rest of the
Happiness?
album (except for ‘Freedom Train’), was performed live on the 1994–1995 tour, but wasn’t revisited for Roger’s next solo outing. To some, this might come as a relief, since ‘Revelations’ didn’t translate well into the live setting, losing the power and magic of the original studio rendition.

REVOLUTION
(Lennon/McCartney)

Originally issued as the B-side to The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ in 1968, ‘Revolution’ was performed live by The Cross at the Gosport Festival on 30 July 1992.

RIDE THE WILD WIND
(Queen)

• Album:
Innuendo
• B-side (Roger): 11/94 [32]

Closing the first side of
Innuendo
is this up-tempo rocker, whose lyrics beg the main character’s girl to throw caution to the wind and “live life on the razor’s edge.” The words are sung in a hushed tone by Freddie, with prominent backing and secondary vocals from Roger (suggesting it was his song, confirmed when it became a regular in his solo concert set lists). A powerful rhythm section is built up, with John’s bassline complementing the song well and Roger overlaying a combination of programmed and real drums.

Brian, as usual, contributes a wonderful guitar solo, which was often the saving grace on many of Queen’s dodgier recordings. However, ‘Ride The Wild Wind’ is an ace song, with the lyrics recalling images of Roger’s video for his 1984 single, ‘Strange Frontier’ (the video was a throwback to the James Dean film,
Rebel Without A Cause
), and it would have been an ideal single if not for the other, more obviously chart-friendly, songs presented on
Innuendo
.

THE RING (HYPNOTIC SEDUCTION OF DALE)
(Mercury)

• Album:
Flash

Lasting only fifty-seven seconds, ‘The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction Of Dale)’ leads in from Freddie’s prior track, ‘Ming’s Theme (In The Court Of Ming The Merciless)’
and consists of a piercing synthesizer riff underscoring suggestive moaning from Dale Arden.

RIP IT UP
(Blackwell/Marascaico)

Little Richard’s 1956 No. 17 hit single was performed live by The Cross during their inaugural 1988 German tour as the final number of the concert, just before the encore performance of ‘Stand Up For Love’.

ROBBERY

From the same batch of demos as ‘Self-Made Man’ and ‘My Secret Fantasy’, ‘Robbery’ is a fast-paced rocker similar to ‘Headlong’ or ‘The Hitman’, and it’s likely that, due to such a comparison, the song wasn’t completed. The lyrics are largely improvised, and authorship claims for the song vary between Roger and Brian.

ROCK-A-BYE DIXIE:

see
EXTRACTS FROM GARDEN LODGE

ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY
(Rodgers)

Written by Paul Rodgers and taken from Bad Company’s 1979 album
Desolation Angels
, ‘Rock And Roll Fantasy’ was a suitable choice to be played live by the Queen + Paul Rodgers band, though it only appeared three times in the set list. It made its debut in Aruba, and was included in the two stateside shows in 2005. It’s a surprising omission, since the song was a hit single in 1979, reaching No. 13, and also earned a rightful place on US album rock radio, helping Bad Company to remain in the limelight for many years.

ROCK IN RIO BLUES
(Queen)

• CD Single: 12/95 [6]

For years, Queen’s live sets often included well-rehearsed impromptu pieces (that terminology is an oxymoron; however, given the tight structure of a typical Queen show, complete improvisation was generally kept to a minimum) which would often be based on a sole piano line, turning into a tour de force by the song’s conclusion with nonsensical vocalizations from Freddie (a good example of this is on the
Live At Wembley Stadium
CD).

When the band appeared at the Rock In Rio Festival in January 1985, they rehearsed a special version of the improvisation which featured a unique set of ‘lyrics’ to the already customary backing. This presentation, officially titled ‘Rock In Rio Blues’, was released on the CD single of ‘A Winter’s Tale’ in December 1995 and as the B-side of the US issue of ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’ in January 1996, but the song is largely superfluous next to any other live improvisation and should be considered for completists only.

ROCK IT (PRIME JIVE)
(Taylor)

• Album:
Game

“‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ is totally elemental,” Roger explained in a 1980
Sounds
interview. “It’s the most basic song ever that just says you can enjoy rock and roll. That’s all.” An apt description for what may be one of the drummer’s most underrated songs, opening up the second side of
The Game
with a deceptively rudimentary set of guitar arpeggios as Freddie croons, “When I hear that rock and roll / It gets down to my soul.” The song then explodes into life as Roger assumes the vocal responsibilities.

Sounding like an outtake from Roger’s
Fun In Space
album, the song glides along at a raucous clip with a tight rhythm section and some soaring guitar, including an especially jarring solo. Oddly, the real star of the show is the synthesizer, which adds interesting, spacey flourishes to the recording; co-producer Mack recently revealed that they were added because there was too much empty space between verses.

Two versions of the song were recorded: one with Freddie on lead vocals throughout, and the other with Roger on vocals. Freddie and Brian agreed that the former was superior, but John, Roger and Mack fought for the latter, since it added to the diversity of the album. (And, besides, Brian sang on ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, so why shouldn’t Roger get to sing lead on one of his songs?) A compromise was struck, and Mack joined together the introduction from Freddie’s version with the main vocals from Roger’s.

It mattered little in concert, since Freddie took the reins. It was played sparsely, though, receiving only a handful of airings between 1980 and 1981, then resurfacing as the opening number on the 1982 Rock ‘n’ America tour and three of the six Japanese
Hot Space
shows.

ROLLIN’ OVER
(Marriot/Lane)

• Album (Brian):
BTTL

Originally recorded by The Small Faces in 1968 for their concept album
Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake
, ‘Rollin’
Over’, in its original state, was a mid-tempo rocker lasting less than two minutes, albeit with some fine vocals by the song’s writers, Steve Marriot and Ronnie Lane. In Brian’s hands, however, the song becomes a scorching tour de force of guitar riffs and exploding drums, turning into what might as well be an outtake from one of Queen’s earlier albums (indeed, Smile played it in their touring days).

Unfortunately, the song has received little in the way of fan appreciation, most regarding it as too weak a song to close such a pivotal album, Brian’s first. Considering the sombre route Brian took with ‘Just One Life’, the song that precedes ‘Rollin’ Over’, it’s perhaps best that he closed the album with an all-out rave-up, as if to say that, despite his personal issues at the time, he can still find solace in good old-fashioned rock‘n’roll.

With Chris Thompson assisting Brian on vocals, ably backed up by Miriam Stockley and Maggie Ryder, the song opens with the tinkling of Mike Moran’s piano before striking out fully courtesy of the rhythm section of Gary Tibbs on bass and Geoff Dugmore on drums. Brian takes any opportunity possible to steer the song back in his direction, soloing after most of the verses, and even throwing in a lick of The Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’. It’s quite possibly Brian’s most enjoyable cover, second only to ‘All The Way From Memphis’.

‘Rollin’ Over’ was played live by The Brian May Band in Buenos Aires and Santiago in November 1992, but was dropped after the first two dates, never to be performed again.

ROUGH JUSTICE
(Taylor)

• B-side (The Cross): 1/88 [84] • Album (The Cross):
Shove

Roger’s third solo project was a hit-or-miss affair, but ‘Rough Justice’ was one of the better songs to come out of the sessions, closing the patchy
Shove It
album in the way it deserves: with a good old-fashioned rocking finale. Recorded entirely by Roger and Spike Edney, the song is set to a merciless, driving rhythm that comes to a quick conclusion. Roger sings of life as a criminal on the streets but, apart from the shouted chorus, little else is memorable.

‘Rough Justice’ was released as the B-side of ‘Shove It’ in January 1988 and was performed regularly by The Cross over the years. The version that concludes the US version of the album features a brief, fifty-second reprise of ‘Shove It’.

RUNAWAY
(Shannon/Crook)

• Download (Q+PR):
Cosmos

Brian vaguely alluded to “toying with including a cover song from the 1950s” on
The Cosmos Rocks
in a June 2008 interview in
Classic Rock
, and this was proudly trumpeted on the press release as being the first time Queen ever recorded a cover song for an album. (Not entirely true: ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was recorded for the debut album, and ‘New York, New York’ was intended for the
Highlander
soundtrack.) As with most things Queen-related, these plans changed, and nothing but original material was released on
The Cosmos Rocks
, leaving ‘Runaway’ – written and first recorded by Del Shannon in 1961 (not the 1950s), then covered by Lawrence Welk, the Small Faces, and Bonnie Raitt – on the cutting room floor. Which is a shame, because the performance is exuberant, with a lively rhythm and searing guitar licks, as the band clearly relish singing the “wah-wah-wah-wonder” falsetto backing vocals. The song was released as a bonus track on the iTunes-only release of
The Cosmos Rocks
, a deserved position, though it would have also been well-suited as a non-album B-side of ‘C-Lebrity’.

SAIL AWAY SWEET SISTER
(May)

• Album:
Game
• Bonus:
Game

An underrated highlight from
The Game
, Brian’s delicate ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ is subtitled on the lyric sleeve as “To The Sister I Never Had”, finding the guitarist offering up advice to his absent sister. Brian takes the lead vocal, the last time he would do so on a Queen song until 1991’s ‘Lost Opportunity’, over a carefully constructed backing track consisting of bass, drums and piano (often thought to be performed by Brian, but recently revealed to be the work of Freddie). The first take, erroneously labeled as being recorded in February 1980, with Brian on guide vocals (and doing little more than “la-la”ing his way through lyrics that had yet to be finalized), was released on the 2011 reissue of
The Game
.

Brian’s vocal performance is touching, with Freddie interjecting in the bridge, turning in a gorgeous four lines. The guitarist later expressed regret that he hadn’t pushed for the song to be released as a single, before conceding that its prevention from candidacy was because he, not Freddie, sang the lead vocals. Worse still, the song was never performed live – a shame since it would have worked perfectly alongside ‘Save Me’,
which was recorded at the same session in the summer of 1979 – but Brian finally gave it its debut on his 1998
Another World
tour.

SANDBOX

This spirited outtake from a 1979 Musicland jam session for
The Game
features Freddie on piano and shouted interjections, Roger on drums, and John on what can only be described as lead bass. (Brian is completely absent from the recording, hence John’s increased role.) Queen archivist Greg Brooks played the recording at a 2003 Queen Fan Club convention, and hinted that it was a predecessor of ‘Coming Soon’, but there’s nothing to suggest this in its performance or structure.

SATURDAY NIGHT’S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING
(John/Taupin)

Elton John’s 1973 classic first made its first appearance in the Queen Lizzy tour in 1977, and was performed only a handful of times during that year before being dropped indefinitely. It was then performed again between 1982 and 1985, generally on Saturday nights, though it usually amounted to little more than an instrumental version. Some renditions do feature Roger and Freddie duetting (quite loudly) on the words, and the band would always turn in an enjoyable performance.

SAVE ME
(May)

• Album: 1/80 [11] • Album:
Game
• Live:
On Fire, Montreal
• Bonus:
Game

More popular yet equally as emotive as Brian’s ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, ‘Save Me’ closes
The Game
beautifully. Another piano ballad, exploding with a memorable chorus, the song finds the main character in the midst of a broken relationship. “We actually wrote very separately in those days,” Brian told Redbeard on the syndicated North American radio series In The Studio, “and we never really talked about what the songs meant. I think we were quite shy about what we were trying to say in them. We tend to talk about things more now ... I wrote [‘Save Me’] – to cut a long story short – I wrote it about a friend, someone who was going through a bad time, and I imagined myself in their shoes, kind of telling the story. Someone whose relationship is totally fucked up and how sad that person was.”

Recorded in the summer of 1979 in Munich, ‘Save Me’ was performed during the same concerts that introduced ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’; it was retained in the live setting, with Brian on piano, until the conclusion of the 1982
Hot Space
tours. It was also released as the second single from
The Game
in January 1980, although only as a UK single, peaking at No. 11.

A video was filmed at Alexandra Palace on 22 December 1979, directed by Keith McMillan and using animation in a Queen video for the first time. With a storyboard by Brian and animated by a Japanese company called Cucumber, the video was subsequently issued on the
Greatest Flix
video in 1981, and was restored for the 2002
Greatest Video Hits 1
DVD.