All language subtitles for Queen - Days Of Our Lives (2011) es

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There's been a lot of rumours lately 'bout certain band
for Queen, the rumour said that we are going to split up.
What do you think?

SHOUTS OF "No!"
They're talking from here.

So forget those rumours.
We're going to stay together until
we fucking well die, I'm sure of it!

INTRO TO: "One Vision"

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There really wasn't much sex...
Well, there wasn't much drugs.

You wouldn't be able to do that now.

♪ One man

♪ One goal

♪ One mission... ♪

For that moment,
we kind of owned the world.

Where's the modesty gone?
There isn't any.

♪ One solution... ♪

Press are never quite understood,
A lot of the press took against them.

♪ Yeah, one God... ♪

England doesn't really think we're that cool.

But I mean I don't want some arsehole critic
to tell me that.

You might as well paint a target
on your head and go, "Shoot me!"

I think when you go all the way up,
the only place is to come down.

Controversy Behind Sun City
I wish I'd never heard of the place!

♪ I'm gonna tell you there's
no black and no white... ♪

Whenever the band came under pressure,
there would be a walk-out,
a separation, a row.

♪ One worldwide vision... ♪

We were at a crucial point.
We might have had to break up.

The arguments were creative, then
it would become personal. Of course.

There is an inward jealousy.

They're all wondering & all waiting to see
if my album is going to do better
than the last Queen album.

Freddie took to the gay scene
like David Attenborough making
a wildlife programme.

I just want to pack in as much of
life and having a good time as much as I can.

'London - the Imperial College
of Science and Technology,

'meeting place for space scientists
from 50 nations,

'specialists who will help develop
the equipment which has taken mankind
to the new age of space exploration.'

We've got Brian May on guitar.
APPLAUSE

I was studying Physics
as an undergraduate here,
but Astronomy was always my thing.

And so I did the Astronomy
post-graduate for a PhD.

When we were at school, me and
my mates had a group called 1984.

When I left for university,
the singer we had, Tim Staffell,

and myself decided to put
a new group together called Smile.

We've got Roger Meddows-Taylor
on percussion.

There was a noticeboard here
where you would pin items

of interest to musicians, so I put
a notice saying "drummer wanted".

"We need Ginger Baker/Mitch Mitchell
type drummer."

I booked this little jazz club room
here and Roger brought his kit
and I brought a guitar.

That was the first time
we played together.

♪ When she was done

♪ She hung them up... ♪

Something happened, I have to say.
We thought, "There is some kind
of special sound to this."

♪ Goodbye, April Lady... ♪

I guess we had the same sort
of sound in our heads.

♪ Goodbye, April Lady

♪ You've done a lot for the folks
in this town... ♪

Freddie Mercury on vocals.
APPLAUSE

Freddie came from
a colonial background.

He was born in Zanzibar and he went
to boarding school in India.

I first met Freddie
at Ealing Art School in 1968.

There was a piano down there

and Freddie would do
this flowery style on the piano.

It was very Mozart and effective,
but unique. You'd never seen anybody
play the piano like that before.

The first time he sang,
I knew straight away
that that voice was going places.

♪ The minute you walked in the joint

♪ I could see
you were a man of distinction

♪ A real big spender

♪ Good-looking, so refined

♪ Say, wouldn't you like to know
what's going on in my mind...? ♪

I used to follow Smile a lot. We were
friends. I used to go to their shows.

Freddie was waiting in the wings,
literally, and advising us
on what to do.

He would say, "You're brilliant,
but you should do this and this..."

What did you see in what Brian
and Roger were doing with Smile?
Nothing!

I think he had
in the back of his mind some idea
about maybe working with us.

Freddie told everybody
that he was going to be a pop star
and we didn't take it that seriously.

He was sitting over there one night.
I walked in and he put his head in
his hands, looking really depressed.

I said, "What's the matter with you?"
He said, "I'm not going to be
a pop star."

And very slowly he stood up
and he said,

"I'm going to be...a legend."

♪ Hey, big spender

♪ Spend a little time with me... ♪

Although we had a lot of successful
gigs and we played colleges, pubs

and clubs up and down the country,
we just never got anywhere.

Smile made a single
which did nothing at all,

then Tim, our singer, got an offer
from someone else called Humpy Bong.

So Tim sodded off to that.

Freddie got us. He said, "Come on,
you can't give up. I want to sing."

So we decided
that we'd take the plunge.

And it was then that I sort of
thought about the name Queen.

Why Queen? I don't know.
At the time, it was outrageous.

So here we have the main hall.

In 1973, this is where Queen played.

This is really the first proper,
advertised gig we ever did

and it's certainly the first review
we ever got by Rosemary Horide
of what was then Disc.

From the very beginning,
Freddie was absolutely remarkable
for stagecraft. He had a presence

unlike anything I'd seen. I'd been
a music journalist for a long time.

Freddie, even from those days, had
an ability to work an audience
and they would eat out of his hand.

He could turn his hand round
like that and do that
and the audience would stand up.

♪ I have sinned, dear Father

♪ Father, I have sinned

♪ Try and help me, Father

♪ Won't you let me in?

♪ Liar!

♪ Oh, nobody... ♪

It was the first moment when I
thought, "Something's happening here
and people know what we're about."

When they came along, there had been
a denim rock movement,

if you like, with Status Quo,
Uriah Heep.

I think Queen were an incredible
breath of fresh air in rock music.

They had brilliant songs.

Freddie Mercury was
an absolutely charismatic front man.

♪ Liar... ♪

Brian May was just this brilliant
guitarist and Roger Taylor was
a phenomenal drummer.

And you had that guy
that played bass.

We spent a couple of years looking
for a bass player. It was very hard
to find the right guy.

Then we found John.

Deacon John on bass.
APPLAUSE

I came along
as a bit of an outsider at first.

It did take me quite a few years
to grow more into the group

and find myself at home, really.

Before we signed to a record label,
we actually signed
to Trident Productions,

a management company run
by the Sheffield brothers who had
a studio in the middle of Soho.

Recording our first album,
we were all students
finishing off our degrees.

We had to do it
in what time was available

because the studio was being
booked up all the time.

We had to go in sometimes
at two in the morning

and sometimes finishing at six in
the morning, all those weird times
that nobody wanted.

You know, you could see
the working girls at night
through their lace curtains,

so while we were mixing,
we'd have a little bit of diversion.

The album came out
and sort of resoundingly crashed.
It really didn't do much.

When you make your first album, you
go into the record shops and think,
"We're in the record stores now!"

You go in and say, "Have you got
the new Queen album then?" They go,
"What?" It's a long haul.

With Queen II, I couldn't believe
how much work we put into that.

I think We felt we were evolving
our own sound.

We were pioneering
this sort of multi-tracking thing.

It gave you a tremendous palette.

You could get massive choral effects
with just three of us singing.

♪ Voice from behind... ♪

We really got into production
and went completely over the top.

There's a track called
March Of The Black Queen.

♪ I'll be a bad boy,
I'll be your bad boy

♪ I'll do the march
of the Black Queen... ♪

It's very long. It's in about
11 different sections and the
complexity of it is staggering.

I mean, the tape was
literally transparent.

The 16-track, two-inch tape,
the oxide was almost completely
worn away.

We'd gone over it so many times.
It literally was transparent.

♪ Walking true to style

♪ She's vulgar abuse and vile
Fi-fo the Black Queen
tattoos all her pies... ♪

It was really only with Queen II
and Seven Seas Of Rhye

that we had the breakthrough.

We realised that the easiest way
of getting a hit album
is to have a hit single

that has some musical validity.

The key to that was the stroke
that was pulled in getting them
on Top Of The Pops

when Bowie dropped out
and it absolutely broke that single.

It was a very underwhelming
experience the very first time

because there was a strike on
at the BBC.

♪ Fear me,
you lords and lady preachers... ♪

So it was shot
in the weather studio.

♪ I command your very souls,
you unbelievers

♪ Bring before me what is mine
The seven seas of Rhye... ♪

It was great fun to be at Top Of The
Pops because it was all happening.

You felt like you were in a sense
becoming part
of public consciousness.

♪ I will destroy any man
who dares abuse my trust... ♪

Top Of The Pops
was incredibly uncool.

It was rubbish because
nobody was actually playing.

There was about 75 teenagers
who were herded about the studio

and a bunch of ageing disc jockeys
presenting you.

Pan's People were there,
these very glamorous girls dancing.
It was a lot of fun.

The BBC had a set of plastic cymbals
that went "duh" when you hit them,
so they didn't make any noise.

I think that sort of says it all,
really.

We had slightly mixed feelings
about Top Of The Pops
because it wasn't very cool,

but it was the great vehicle
for selling records,
so what can you say?

It had a big impact. Our record
went straight into the top ten.

So obviously, the impact was huge.

♪ Storm the master marathon
I'll fly through

♪ By flash and thunder fire
and I'll survive
I'll survive, I'll survive

♪ Then I'll defy the laws of nature
and come out ali-i-ive
Then I'll get you... ♪

We had this song called Seven Seas
Of Rhye, but it's a universal truth
that more groups break up

because of songwriting arguments
than anything else in the world.
Your songs are your babies.

The person who has written the song
tends to be the one person who sees
that one song all the way through

from the idea they have in their head
at first, the final production,
the sounds and the mix...

Most of the time, I have
a clear picture of what I want.

I sort of have a lot of...
say, Roger's parts

and what Brian should do and
things... There are rows, of course.

I've probably never spoken about
this before, but The Seven Seas
Of Rhye was Freddie's idea.

He had this lovely little riff idea
on the piano and all the middle
eight is stuff that I did,

so we worked on it together,
but when it came to the album coming
out, Freddie went, "I wrote that."

And we all went, "OK."
It didn't seem like that big a deal.

Freddie said, "I wrote the words and
it was my idea, so it's my song."

The sort of unwritten law was the
person who brought the song in would
get the credit for writing that song

and the money for writing that song.

Much, much later in Queen history,
we recognised this fact.

♪ Here I stand
Here I stand

♪ Look around, around

♪ Around, around, around... ♪

We were very lucky in that
we hooked up with Mott The Hoople
and we were their warm-up act.

♪ Now I'm here
Now I'm here... ♪

We went all around the UK with them
and it worked out just perfectly.

♪ Now I'm there
Now I'm there... ♪

Then the guys from Mott said,
"Would you like to do
the same thing in America?"

♪ Just a new man

♪ Yes, you made me live again... ♪

After a few gigs,
I started to feel weird.

Something was happening. I didn't
know if it was my head or my body,
but I started to feel odd.

Then I woke up one morning
in Boston which was going to be
the climax of the tour...

I woke up and I was yellow. The
doctor came and said, "You've got
hepatitis. You have to go home."

I still was amazed we managed to
shepherd him through the immigration
queue at JFK in New York.

The poor fellow could hardly stand.

I was taken on the plane
shoulder to shoulder.

We were devastated
the tour had been cut short.
It was our first trip to America.

But we just ploughed on
in the studio without him.

It was a bit of a long haul
back to health.

I was getting over all this stuff
and I saw Freddie battering out
all these things, thinking,

"I've not got my shit together," and
really starting to worry about it.

♪ She keeps her Moet et Chandon

♪ In her pretty cabinet

♪ "Let them eat cake" she says
just like Marie Antoinette... ♪

Queen I and Queen II were
full-on rock albums and I suppose
it was only a question of time

before they put some clever melody
into it and Sheer Heart Attack was
that break-out album.

And Killer Queen
where Mercury's vocals
have probably never been better.

♪ She's a killer queen
Gunpowder, gelatine

♪ Dynamite with a laser beam

♪ Guaranteed to blow your mind
Any time... ♪

I do remember having a slight
reservation about Killer Queen.

I thought, "Are we selling
ourselves as something
which has become very light?"

But every slice through that record

is a perfect vision. There's lots
of little things which visit once
only like that bell of the cymbal.

RINGING SOUND
# In conversation
she spoke just like a baroness

♪ Met a man from China
Went down to Geisha Minah

♪ Then again incidentally
if you're that way inclined... ♪

Killer Queen always felt a bit
special. It was very sophisticated
and it was very Freddie.

As the albums have progressed,
our songwriting has progressed
and we ventured into different areas.

♪ Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind... ♪

I like writing different songs.
We don't like to repeat
the same formula.

It had a slightly Noel Coward...
You know,
that kind of element in it.

When you took the lyrics apart, you
thought, "How incredible is that!"
Because they were so clever.

♪ Drop of a hat, she's as willing as
Playful as a pussycat

♪ Then momentarily out of action
Temporarily out of gas

♪ To absolutely drive you wild

♪ She's all out to get you

♪ She's a killer queen

♪ Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam

♪ Guaranteed to blow your mind
Any time

♪ Oh, recommended at the price
Insatiable an appetite

♪ Wanna try?

♪ You wanna try... ♪

We were doing a lot of major tours
in Japan, America.

We were headlining by now and doing
very well and selling loads of
records and not seeing any money.

We decided to go
with the production company,
rather than with the record company.

The deal was that we made the album
for the production company and
they sell it to a record company.

It's probably the worst thing
we did.

The deal that they were on just meant
that they weren't going to make
any money out of what they did.

And the way it came to a head

was with the song Death On Two Legs.

♪ You suck my blood like a leech

♪ You break the law and you breach

♪ Screw my brain till it hurts

♪ You've taken all my money

♪ And you want more... ♪

Often I would go to do an interview
and I buy a couple of bottles of wine

on my expenses
because they had no money.

We didn't expect instant riches.
We didn't get them!

Roger was breaking sticks because
he hit the drums pretty hard.

The management's going, "Don't break
any more sticks." We had no money.

One of the management group bought
a Rolls-Royce and we thought, "Hang
on, something's going on here."

It affected Freddie deeply
and Freddie got to the point
where he said,

"I am not delivering any more music.
I can't."

To cut a long story short,
we went with John Reid

who was Elton's incredibly
successful manager at the time.

I remember saying, "You go away

"and make the best record you can.
I'll take care of the business."

We had a good working relationship
with John.

He was very fiery and feisty, but so
were we. We weren't scared of him.

It was the first night
I'd gone out to dinner with Freddie.

I said, "I'd just like to say, as
I said to the other guys, I hope you
know I'm gay and it's not a problem."

And he put his knife and fork down
and said, "So am I!"

Freddie, when I first met him,
wasn't out to the band

because he was struggling
with his own sexuality anyway.

And Freddie was from a very, very
traditional Zoroastrian background

and I think his family considerations
were probably paramount.

I remember when we went into the
studio to make A Night At The Opera,
it felt like make or break.

We were not only poor,
but we were in debt.

All the sound and lighting companies
and the people we worked with
hadn't been paid,

so we were at a really crucial
point. We might have had to break up
if that album hadn't done well.

It was an expensive album,
enormous complexity on there.

Even now, I wonder
how we did some of that stuff.

There was so much hunger there. We
had so much we wanted to bring out.

It was all kept in
and so we had all kinds of songs.

Bohemian Rhapsody was basically like
three songs that I wanted to put out
and I just put the three together.

I think the groundwork for a song
like that was done at Ealing College.

Freddie had lots of bits of songs
which we'd link together

and one of his bits, I just referred
to it as The Cowboy Song and it went,
"Mama, I just killed a man."

♪ Mama

♪ Just killed a man... ♪

The first thing I heard was Freddie
playing "Mama, just killed a man..."

"What do you think?" "I love it.
It's absolutely brilliant."
Not knowing what was to come.

We ended up having to do it
in six studios.

Because they were using
all these studios,
you didn't know what was going on.

You would have guitar parts in one
studio and vocal stuff in another.

♪ Galileo

♪ Galileo

♪ Galileo, Figaro... ♪

Freddie would just turn up and go,
"I've got a few more Galileos."

We were going round all these studios
just hearing parts.

♪ Thunderbolt and lightning
Very, very frightening me

HIGHER PITCH:
♪ Lightning, very, very frightening,
very, very frightening me... ♪

Only Fred had it in his head
and he was making some of it up
as we went along.

I thought, "I'll do as I please."

♪ Thunderbolt and lightning,
very, very frightening me... ♪

Do as many multi-layer harmonies
as possible.
You know, go well over the top.

It really was tongue-in-cheek,
but at the same time,
"I bet you can't do this."

♪ He's just a poor boy
from a poor family

♪ Spare him his life
from this monstrosity... ♪

But the record company as a mass
came to us and said, "This is too
long. Nobody's going to play it."

I played it to Elton John
at the time

and he said, "Are you off your head?
You'll never get that on the radio."

I said, "It goes out in its entirety
or not at all."

At the crucial moment, this young
man called Kenny Everett came in,

loved the track, stole a copy of it
and played it on his radio show.

Kenny played it 14 times
over the weekend
and of course it was a smash.

Then following that up
with what, to my mind,
was the first ever real music video.

♪ We will not let you go
Let him go! Bismillah!

♪ We will not let you go
Let him go! Bismillah... ♪

I'd never seen anything like it
and I don't think anybody else had.

The video took Queen to another level

where they could really command
the landscape.

♪ Mamma mia, mamma mia
Mamma mia, let me go... ♪

Night At The Opera was that
landmark album that established them
as a major force.

That was the context
in which you could do something
like the Hyde Park concert.

♪ So you think you can stone me
and spit in my eye

♪ So you think you can love me
and leave me to die... ♪

It was Richard Branson. "We think
we can put you on in Hyde Park."

Thank you very much.
Good evening, everybody.

CHEERING

Welcome to our picnic
by the Serpentine.

I remember thinking, "Gulp!" We've
carved out a place around the world,

but England doesn't really think
we're that cool.

It was packed beyond belief
and it was really like coming home
to a heroes' welcome.

THRASHING GUITARS

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ahhh... ♪

It was a thrilling experience
to have that kind of contact with
an audience in your own home town.

When it came to make
Day At The Races, we just thought,
"Let's just do what we do."

The added ingredient
in Day At The Races is this feeling
of freedom which we had

because we had escaped the old
situation, we'd sorted out the money
side, we weren't in debt any more,

we weren't struggling
for our very existence,
so there's a great freedom and joy.

♪ Ca-a-an

♪ Anybody... ♪

It was almost like we were still
making A Night At The Opera.
We just loved it. We revelled in it.

♪ Somebody to lo-o-ove... ♪

Freddie came up with a magnificent,
little sort of foray into white
Gospel, if you want to call it that.

♪ Ooh

♪ Each morning I get up... ♪

We really worked our harmonies
on Somebody To Love.

♪ Take a look at yourself
Take a look in the mirror
and cry... ♪

Freddie's great inspiration
for Somebody To Love
was Aretha Franklin.

He absolutely loved Aretha.

He would like to have been
Aretha Franklin!

♪ Somebody! Somebody!
Ooh, somebody! Somebody!

♪ Can anybody find me
somebody to love...? ♪

From that point of view,
OK, Bohemian Rhapsody, a big hit,

but a song like Somebody To Love is
in my estimation a better sort of...

from the writing aspect,
a better song.

♪ I work till I ache in my bones

♪ At the end
At the end of the day

♪ I take home my hard-earned pay
all on my own

♪ I get down on my knees
and I start to pray

♪ Till the tears run down
from my eyes

♪ Lord, somebody! Somebody!
Ooh, somebody

♪ Can anybody find me... ♪

We were using the studio
to its maximum capacity, painting
a picture like on a huge canvas.

♪ Find me somebody to love

♪ Find me somebody to love... ♪

We had a gift. We had three voices
which really blended instantly.

♪ Find me somebody to love... ♪

Freddie has this wonderful,
crystal-clear, sharp vocal sound.

♪ Find me somebody to love,
find me somebody to love... ♪

Naturally, I've got
the powerful high voice.

He's got the dog whistle pitch,
a very high voice.

♪ Find me somebody to love... ♪

And I had quite a warm sound.

♪ Somebody! Somebody!
Somebody! Somebody!

♪ Somebody! Find me...
Somebody find me somebody to love

♪ Can anybody find me... ♪

Put the three together
and you have something
which sounds sort of Panavision.

♪ Find me

♪ Somebody

♪ To-o-o love

♪ Find me... ♪

To keep their attention,
you've got to really tempt them.

Like, "You can have a break.
Have a coffee and biscuits."

While they're in a good mood,
grab them and do
another 50 million overdubs!

♪ Anybody find me somebody to love
Somebody to love... ♪

We used to call it
the sausage factory in the end

because we got so good at it,
we could just bang 'em out.

A Day At The Races,

as the follow-up to
Night At The Opera, was clearly...
It had a hard act to follow.

People who wanted to have a go
at Queen could quite readily say,
"It's not as good as the last one."

A lot of the press took
against them.

Maybe if you got too successful
too quick,

there was a resentment there
that they hadn't made you,
therefore they wanted to break you.

♪ Oh, take my breath away... ♪

Shortly after I started
to manage them,

I had told all the band one of the
ground rules is don't do any press
without clearing it with me.

You open yourself up to all kinds
of things. Usually, they turn on you.

I went out to dinner with Freddie in
The White Elephant in Curzon Street.

Casually, he said,
"I did an interview with David Wigg
from the Express today."

I said, "I told you no interviews
without clearing it with me."
"Oh, never mind."

I said, "Well, fuck you!
If you don't work within my rules,
you don't work with me."

I got up and left
and I left him there.

I came home, I went upstairs, turned
on the TV and the next thing I knew,

a brick came through the window.

And I looked outside here and there's
Freddie standing in the street,
hands on his hips,

"Don't you ever fucking leave me
in a restaurant..."

I said, "You'd better come in."

Queen didn't have particular respect

from the critics during the '70s,
which is when they had so many hits.

And then punk happened
in the late '70s,

which made the standard rock group
seem passe.

♪ God save the Queen

♪ We mean it, man

The punk stuff, as opposed
to what Queen did, they were coming
from two different points of view.

It was anarchy on one side
and monarchy on the other.

NME was one of
the most vocal proponents of punk.

We were taking, if you like,
music icons at that time

and we were rubbishing them,
basically.

It was thought we should interview
Freddie Mercury, in particular,

and they asked me to go over
to a house in Knightsbridge
owned by John Reid

and there's Freddie
sitting on the patio.

The whole house was
very ostentatious, it must be said.

We did an interview here
with the NME

and, you know,
we were very nice to the guy.

I had a butler, we gave him lunch.

There was a butler,
there was a bodyguard.

There was probably other people
going round with feather dusters
and what have you.

Then the story slagged off Freddie.

Freddie Mercury, when the whole
of the punk new wave movement
was going on around him,

had focused in on something that was
kind of a bit of an alien concept
in some ways which was ballet.

I just feel that there are sort of
balletic moments in our repertoire.

One of the things that he said to me

was that his mission in life
was to bring ballet to the masses.

Well, when the NME piece came out,
Freddie was furious.

They called him "a prat".

You'd be furious.

I think we realised that talking
to the press gets you nowhere.

You might as well paint a target
on your head and go, "Shoot me."

We all have our ups and downs
and our limitations and we know there
are certain things you can't do,

but I don't want some arsehole critic
to tell me that.

I love posing.

That's for the press.

Well, we met The Sex Pistols
in Wessex Studios

and, uh...

I thought it was fascinating.

Can you imagine it just a whole
thing about punk rock

And anti establishment...
under one roof.

Sid came in. Sid was a moron.
You know, he was an idiot.

And he called in to the room,
"Have you succeeded in bringing
ballet to the masses yet?"

I called him "Simon Ferocious"
and he didn't like it. I said,
"What are you going to do about it?"

He hated the fact that I could even
speak like that. Right. Then...

So we went...
I think we survived that test.

♪ Well, you're just 17
All you wanna do is disappear... ♪

I thought when we went into News
Of The World, we couldn't reinvent
ourselves as a punk band,

but we wanted it
a little bit more simple.

We thought maybe these really
grandiose things weren't quite
what was happening then

and to be more of the time, we made
a more straightforward record.

Once we had our audience,
we felt so confident
that they would be there for us

and not require us to be anything
that they'd seen before.

Do a twirl?

They were very open-minded,
Queen audiences,
so we never felt constrained.

We Will Rock You
and We Are The Champions had
a very sort of definite genesis.

The way I remember this story
is Bingley Hall.

We played this great hall
in the Midlands and it was heaving.

Those gigs that you love,
it's all sweaty and hot,
everybody is jumping up and down.

And they were singing along.

♪ She's a killer queen
Gunpowder, gelatine

♪ Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind... ♪

In those days, it was really new.
You just didn't go to concerts
where people sang to rock bands.

But on this particular occasion,
they didn't stop.

And when we went off stage, they
sang You'll Never Walk Alone to us.

I'd gone to sleep thinking,
"What can an audience do?"

They're all crammed in there.
They can stamp their feet,
clap their hands and sing.

So I woke up with We Will Rock You
in my head.

We went into Wessex with these
ideas and that happened to be..

some boards lying around, strange enough
and I thought, "What does this sound like?"

And we multi-tracked it a lot of times
to achieve a sound of a big throng
of people stamping and clapping,

a huge sort of rally of people.

♪ We will, we will rock you... ♪

♪ We will, we will rock you... ♪

I came up with We Will Rock You and
Freddie with We Are The Champions.
His thinking was very similar.

Basically, it is
a participation thing.

I've been really cool
and I'm just thinking
in terms of the public/group thing.

♪ I've paid my dues

♪ Time after time... ♪

We had no idea it would become a
universal, worldwide sports anthem.

Both of them did -
Rock You and Champions.

In football or whatever sport,
you've got two opposing teams.

Both can sing We Are The Champions,
but in a rock show,
there's only one team.

♪ I've had my share of sand
kicked in my face

♪ But I've come through... ♪

It could be construed
as a rather elitist thing.

♪ We are the champions,
my friends... ♪

But it was really "we",
the collective "we".

But if I were you, before
we find out, let's get the sound...
Let's get a real sound on the drums.

It's definitely a song
of great unifying power.

♪ We are the champions

♪ No time for losers

♪ Cos we are the champions... ♪

Here we've got four tracks of
vocals, one with the solo guitar,
then that's the end bit solo.

I've listened to them.
That's the only way we can do it.

Fred was very cheeky. It was
about Queen being the champions

in a sense, the arrogance
for which we were famous.

♪ We are the champions

♪ We are the champions

♪ No time for losers

♪ Cos we are the champions. ♪

APPLAUSE

Only Queen could come up with
the title "We Are The Champions".
Where's the modesty gone?

Well, there isn't any.
No modesty whatsoever.

After the slaggings-off we get from
the English music press, who cares?
We've got nothing to lose, you know?

Anyway, it's only a song, isn't it?
Fuck 'em!

In those days, it was do the album,
do a video, tour America.

One, two!

It was regarded as the sort of grail
of the rock scene.

America was meaning more
and more to us,

and when you smell success
in America, you go for it.

We looked at what was going on
in the States at the time.

The music was very much
dominated by the cool West Coast

kind of rock with The Eagles
and Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac.

And to some extent, Queen, I guess,
didn't fit that mould.

They were bigger, more glamorous,
more extravagant than,

I think, anything that existed
in the States at the time.

They really didn't know
what to make of them.

Why would you call your band Queen

when there's obviously
four guys in it?

That was puzzling.

We were all in one station wagon,

then we were all in one limo,
then it was two in one limo

and two in another,
then it was one each.

But it was really only
because the entourage grew,

it wasn't anything to do with
not wanting to talk to one another.

We did stay pretty connected,

we didn't disappear
to our dressing rooms.

Generally, we found
a big place where we could all
get ready together

and we would kind of joke around.
We had a good kind of camaraderie.

This is called a miracle, folks!

I've lost my shoe!

Oh, but I don't do my own.

Dave! Do, do, do!

I went to see the Queen show
and I had never seen so much luggage

and crew and amps and lighting.

And I said, "This is not
rock'n'roll, this is a show.

"This is a production.
This is Broadway".

MUSIC: "We Will Rock You"

The audience participation
elevated the shows to something
really special.

And I think we put a bit
of distance between us

and some of our contemporaries
like that, because it was such
a great two-way event.

This was a coronation
for Freddie Mercury in this town.

♪ We will, we will rock you tonight

♪ We will, we will rock you

♪ Buddy you're a young man, hard
man, shouting in the street

♪ Gonna take on the world someday

♪ Mud on your face, big disgrace

♪ Waving your banner
all over the place

♪ We will, we will rock you... ♪

It had always surprised us
that it took so long

to break Queen in the States.

It sounds like it happened quickly,
but it didn't, it happened over
a period of about eight years.

We worked very hard at it.

At no point did you think,
"We've made it," cos we hadn't.

This is, um, a Mercury composition

from "A Night At The Opera"

and it's something which a few
people asked us to do last time.

So this is for those people.
This is "Love Of My Life".

The 1977 US tour was pretty much
a sell-out. And midway through,

we actually played two nights at
the legendary Madison Square Gardens

in New York, which is
a sort of landmark for any artist.

It was a watershed for me.

It was a mythical place, of course,
big deal for us to play.

And my parents, from the
beginning... Well, my dad, really.

My dad had really been
against the whole business
of me being a rock star.

It's curious, because he helped me
build the guitar.

If it hadn't been for my dad
slaving hours and hours making
this homemade guitar,

I probably would never have got
to this place.

He really felt that I'd thrown
my education away.

I mean, I was educated to a high
level. So to suddenly to
go off and join a rock band

with apparently no future,
my dad really could not compute it.

He was kind of in tears, really,
he just felt I'd thrown
my life away completely.

♪ You don't know
what it means to me... ♪

But anyway, we were playing
Madison Square Garden and I said,

"Look, Dad, this is a big one
for us, playing America,

"it's New York, it's the first time
we've played this amazing place.
Come over."

So I said,
"Dad, you'll go on Concorde",

you know, it was my dad and my mum.
And they came to the gig

and I remember to this day,
this feeling that our feet

weren't really on the ground,
there was so much electricity
in this place.

♪ You don't know
what it means to me... ♪

And we came off thinking,
"Wow, that was really something,"

and then I went back with my dad

and my dad said, "OK."
He said, "OK, I get it now."

♪ Oooh. ♪

Thank you, Madison Square Garden.

What's happening
when we go back to London?

You're one of the few bands
that actually haven't left Britain.

We're sort of an English band
in a way, we've always lived there.

Well, London particularly.
We've always recorded in England.

It doesn't change the fact
that the taxman still takes
a lot of your money!

I think at the time,
we were paying 83%,

and plus, if you had any money in
the bank which was earning interest,

another 15%, which makes 98% tax.

So we decided to record the next
album, which was "Jazz", in France.

So that's what we did.
In a tiny little village
called Super Bear,

we started the process
of making this album.

♪ Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle

♪ I want to ride my bicycle,
bicycle, bicycle... ♪

Lots of sort of local colour
got put onto that album.

♪ I want to ride my bike... ♪

We were sitting there and the Tour
de France cycle race came through

and inspired Freddie
to write "Bicycle..."

and for some strange reason,
inspired me to write
"Fat Bottomed Girls".

Although there might have been
other inspirations there.

♪ On your marks, get set, go! ♪

Sadly, we weren't there
for the filming.

I thought it was
a hugely amusing idea.

♪ Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle... ♪

I remember the huge disappointment
that none of us could be
at the photo shoot.

Because we were exiled from England,
so we couldn't go back in to see it!

I don't think you'd be able
to do that now, would you?

Yeah, I don't think
we would go there these days.

♪ Bicycle race! ♪

When it came time
to launch the "Jazz" album,

we had the idea of having
a massive party in New Orleans.

♪ Oh, you gonna take me home
tonight... ♪

It was the so-called launch
of that album,

and we had lots of girls and things,

there was a New Orleans band,
it was a very over-the-top party.

♪ Fat bottomed girls, you make
the rockin' world go round... ♪

We had a bit of a spiritual
connection with New Orleans.

A lot of our friends came,
of all sexes.

It was definitely fun.

When I opened up
the door of my suite,

on the bed was a complete case
of Dom Perignon.

And it was downhill from there.

♪ Heap big woman, you made a bad boy
out of me... ♪

I remember I felt quite
ill the next day.

There was a lot of acts..

There was a man, he was actually
a person of restricted growth,

who did lay under meats.

When asked what he did, he said,
"I lie under meats."

And he's covered in sort of
cold cuts and sort of, um,

chopped liver and stuff like that.
You couldn't see him.

So people would approach
the trestle table

and as they just reached out
to scoop their meat,

he would just move, like that.

And that was his act!

♪ Tonight, I'm gonna have myself
a real good time

♪ I feel ali-i-i-ive... ♪

It wasn't a pretence, we actually
did live the life of a rock band.

Sort of living on the edge,
in a sense.

♪ Turning inside out, yeah

♪ Floating around in ecstasy

♪ So don't stop me now... ♪

"Don't Stop Me Now"
is a whole different trip, really.

It's become one of the most
popular Queen songs of all time.

♪ I'm a shooting star leaping
through the sky like a tiger

♪ Defying the laws of gravity

♪ I'm a racing car passing by
like Lady Godiva

♪ I'm gonna go, go, go,
there's no stopping me

♪ I'm burning through
the sky, yeah... ♪

It's a song of sort of
unfettered joy.

♪ ..Mr Fahrenheit

♪ I'm travelling
at the speed of light

♪ I wanna make a supersonic woman
of you... ♪

I've been quoted as saying
I don't like the track.

I kind of do like the track,
but I had mixed feelings,

because in a sense, it represented
a sort of separatism.

It was very much Freddie's world

and reflecting what he was
going through.

Freddie took to the gay scene
in New York

like David Attenborough
making a wildlife programme.

He'd report on what he'd seen
with that kind of "Hey-hey!"
attitude that he had.

There was this one particular place
called The Anvil,

which seemed to have invented new
uses for parts of the human anatomy!

He was never shocked.

He was eager to be
involved in everything,

it was like he was
a social field worker.

♪ I wanna make a supersonic man
out of you... ♪

As far as I'm concerned, I just want
to pack in as much of life

and fun and having a good time
as much as I can.

♪ If you want to have a good time,
just give me a call

♪ Don't stop me now
Cos I'm having a good time.

♪ Don't stop me now
Yes, I'm having a good time

♪ I don't wanna stop at all

♪ Da-da da-da dah

♪ Da da da-ha

♪ Da-da-da ha-ha-hah

♪ Da-da-dah... ♪

The album "Jazz"
was not a complete flop,

it got to number 6 in the chart.

But "Don't Stop Me Now",
which is a big favourite in Britain
to this day,

in America, only got to the 80s.

The review in Rolling Stone
was notorious.

And it shows you that
Queen were not respected.

We were confused by that title.

Why would a rock band
call their album "Jazz"?

It had a couple of great
tracks on it,

but it had some weaker stuff on it.

Queen was maybe viewed

as the Indian meal that had
gone cold in the refrigerator.

What's going to happen
in '79 for Queen?

We're going to make more records,
tour even more.

It's difficult to say. This has been
our hardest working year.

We'd heard that there was this
great studio called Musicland

in Munich, and we'd heard there was
this great engineer called Mack.

And we got into this rather
kind of indulgent way of just

bowling into the studio with
no ideas, or very few ideas,

and just doing it from scratch.

"What you got?"
"Well I dont know, I've got this."

MUSIC:
"Crazy Little Thing Called Love"

♪ This thing called love... ♪

First thing we did was
"Crazy Little Thing ...."

Fred did write the song in the bath,
in about ten minutes.

♪ Crazy little thing called love... ♪

Next, he said, "Tell them
I'm coming over and we've got to go
straight into the studio."

♪ Like a baby
In the cradle all night... ♪

I was very quick, had everything
set up in pretty much no time,

and they put it down,
and then the best bit was,

"Quick, let's finish it
before Brian gets here, otherwise
it takes a little longer!"

♪ There goes my baby

♪ She knows how to rock and roll

♪ She drives me crazy

♪ She gives me hot and cold fever

♪ She leaves me in
a cold, cold sweat... ♪

That was the first number 1
across the board in America.

Billboard, Cashbox
and Record World, I think.

We were still making a record,

we hadn't even nearly finished
the album,

and we were going out in Munich
and somebody came up and said,

"It's gone to number 1 in America."
We were going, "Yeah! More drinks!"

So, "Crazy Little Thing..."
completely cracked
the charts in America.

But it wasn't easy to find
the follow-up.

"Play The Game"
charted outside the US Top 40.

But the next single was
something very different.

One thing I always liked about Queen
was they were four individuals,

all of whom brought something
to the table, musically
and in terms of songwriting,

and that includes
the bass player, John Deacon.

MUSIC: "Another One Bites The Dust"

I'd always wanted to do something
that was more sort of disco-ey,

which was very uncool at the time.

I mean, funk wasn't really
in the vocabulary.

Let's go!

John was pulling us strongly in that
direction, sort of funky direction.

And John got Roger to play

with tape all over his drums,
which is exactly what Roger hated.

Roger hated his drums
being made to sound dead.

I didn't really want to get into
dance music. It wasn't my thing.

♪ Another one bites the dust... ♪

Freddie got deeply into it, Freddie
sort of sang it until he bled,

cos he was so committed to making it
sound the way John wanted it,
which was like hardcore...

I don't know what you would call it.
But it's more towards black music
than white music.

♪ How do you think I'm going to get
along without you when you're gone?

♪ You took me for everything that
I had and kicked me out of my home

♪ Are you happy? Are you satisfied?
How long can you stand the heat?

♪ Out of the doorway, the bullets
whistle to the sound of the beat... ♪

Michael came to several shows,
I think, at the Forum in LA.

And he loved Freddie.
And he kept saying,

"You guys, you've got to put that
song out." I wasn't particularly
enamoured with it,

so I said, "No, you're kidding,
that's never a single."

♪ Another one bites the dust... ♪

"Another One Bites The Dust"
was never seen as a single.

It barely made it onto the album!

It got on the radio
and it got heard by people that
didn't even know who the band was.

♪ Ah, take it! ♪

Strangely enough, the record became
huge because of the black audience.

One particular station in New York
picked it up,

thinking that we were a black band,

and played the hell out of it,
and it became a huge hit.

It was like number 1 in nine
different charts.

I mean, even in the country chart!
It's ridiculous.

And this thing just kept selling,
to around three million.

It was in the Hot 100 for 31 weeks.

When an opponent would get
knocked out in a boxing match,

you'd hear
"Another One Bites The Dust" used.

It became an anthem of triumph.

♪ Yeah, ye-e-e-e-a-a-ah!
All right! ♪

I think it's still
the biggest record we ever had.

♪ Another one bites
the dust, yeah! ♪

People pointing at the cars -
"You guys are bad!"

"What does that mean?"
"It means you're good!"

♪ Another one bites the dust

♪ Hey, gonna get you too,
another one bites the dust... ♪

If you're successful in America,
basically, you've made it.

We kind of became the biggest group
in the world at that moment.

It's a fleeting moment,
because someone else will come

and take over. But for that moment,
we kind of owned the world.

MUSIC: "We Are The Champions"

The sales figures tell the story
that the people wanted Queen

even when the press didn't.

Looking back on it now,
I'd say Queen were never in fashion.

We were never a fashionable group,
I don't think.

Maybe that was to our benefit,

that we didn't become the thing
of the moment, a fashionable thing.

We were just popular, which got
right up some people's noses!

Fred, how do you feel,
playing and singing

before 200,000 people?
Haven't done it yet!

Every song, you felt, was,
"They're stealing the show".

I like Queen very much, but I don't
want to end up life living a quartet.

The band was pretty
much on the verge of falling apart.

I think he had an idea
that he might not be terribly well.

He said, "I'll come back and finish
it off," and he never came back.

That was the last moment
that I had with him.

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