“Rubbish”: The song Brian May thought Queen would hate
There are plenty of stories about artists writing a track and instantly knowing it was something special. Sometimes, inspiration strikes like a gift from above, delivering a perfectly formed anthem into a musician’s lap, along with the confident belief that the song will bring success, respect, and a lasting career. However, not all stories follow this same path. Brian May reminds us that some songs come hand in hand with anxiety, as insecurity can accompany the creation of a track, leaving even the most seasoned artists unsure of its potential.
If there’s one thing a band needs, it’s trust. A group can only work if the relationships are there to encourage experimentation. Musicians need to be able to try stuff out, attempt things and fail along the way but do that safely with the knowledge that their bandmates are there and on their side. There needs to be a supporting atmosphere in order for people to be able to come forward with a glimmer of an idea and present it in a state of vulnerability.
May had that. Within Queen, the floor was open for any and all ideas, which is precisely how the band became such an experimental and pioneering force. Nothing was too outlandish, no sound was off the table, no influence was too left-field. But even within that nurturing environment, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a level of anxiety. May wants everyone to know that sometimes, even the biggest and best musicians in the world doubt themselves.
“With me, it always starts off with a burst of activity, belief and inspiration. And thinking, ‘Ah, this is gonna change the world’,” May explained of his process, which starts with that divine strike of creativity the music world loves to romanticise. But the second stage is more realistic as he added, “And it’s usually followed by a period of complete insecurity, thinking, ‘Oh no, this is rubbish. This is never gonna work.… my band’s gonna hate it.’”
In particular, he remembers that sense of anxiety and dread that surrounded one 1984 track. “I think that’s true of ‘Hammer to Fall’ because I came upon this riff; I thought, ‘This is great. I can do anything with this; this is just what I want to hear when I put my guitar on’,” he said. But then, when it came to presenting it to the group, his confidence faltered as he recalled, “I got into the studio and played it to the guys; and they went, ‘Yeah, okay.’ It wasn’t like, ‘We love it!’”
But the key to the story, and the moral to take away, is that May didn’t just leave it there. It would have been easy to succumb to that sinking feeling and let insecurity win. But no doubt, that would’ve had a knock-on effect, possibly deeply altering history if May suddenly became shy and scared of his bolder musical choices, maybe erasing some of the band’s best-loved tracks.
Instead, they simply moved into what May sees as the third stage of songwriting. After the inspiration and the insecurity, there is the chapter of “working through it”. Over time, “Okay” eventually turned into the band thinking the track was “great” and choosing it as a single.
“It takes a bit of belief, I think, to get from the first riff to the point where you’re happy with the result,” he said of the whole process, “I think it’s common to a lot of people – that moment when you spring it on your people around you, and you’re looking at their faces, and you feel very insecure in the moment.”
