The Queen songs Brian May thought should have been hits: “It’s kind of gone forever”
Most bands can only hope to have that one song that defines them at the height of their powers. Lynyrd Skynyrd has ‘Free Bird’ to showcase their Southern rock brand of boogie, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ has etched Led Zeppelin into rock history all on its own, and even decades later, there aren’t many that could go toe-to-toe with what Nirvana did on ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. It’s easy to put Queen fairly high in that category for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but Brian May thought that a handful of his songs never got the love they deserved.
But it’s not as if ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ hasn’t earned its stripes as one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever. The whole reason why it works is because of how much it doesn’t fit into any other genre. There are the makings of three great tunes smushed together in here, but listening to Freddie Mercury transition from a piano ballad to a lush opera and then immediately into a hard rock song is the work of a mad genius.
Compared to the rest of the music on A Night at the Opera, nothing was going to compare to what they pulled off on this tune, which probably makes sense for them to only have the instrumental rendition of ‘God Save the Queen’ to follow it before the album wraps up. But there are still some decent on the rest of the record, and May probably walked away with the most quality tracks.
Whereas Mercury could get incredibly campy with his songs like ‘Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon’, May was the rock and roll heart of the group. Many of his songs are about making a great song that will be remembered forever. As much as he loved playing along to every song Mercury offered, he remembered feeling disappointed that some of his tracks never got picked up.
In the documentary Classic Albums, May said that there were a few songs that flew under the radar for a lot of Queen fans, saying, “You have certain babies if you wrote the song and you want them to be heard in a wide area. And if you miss that opportunity, it’s kind of gone forever. In my case, there are things like ‘Long Away’ and ‘39’, which could have been singles, and part of me wishes that they had been.”
While there’s no doubt that May’s journey through the stars on ‘39’ is a catchy tune, it’s not easy to argue that a plaintive acoustic ballad about exploring new lands should be chosen over one of the greatest songs ever. But it’s not like every band member was necessarily hurting when it came to writing hit songs.
By the time the band had ended, every musician had written a hit, whether that was several of Mercury’s offerings, Roger Taylor penning ‘Radio Gaga’ or quiet member John Deacon walking away with some of the most pop-friendly offerings in their catalogue, such as ‘I Want to Break Free’ and ‘Another One Bites the Dust’.
In fact, that sense of competition between the band members is probably what fuelled them to make better records, like May almost trying to outdo Mercury on ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, which Mercury thought was a retort to what the frontman had done on ‘Death on Two Legs’. Mercury is the idol that everyone will still be talking about for years to come, but May doesn’t have to spend time lamenting about his songs when he has ‘We Will Rock You’ under his belt.
