The lyrics Queen borrowed the 1986 movie ‘A Kind of Magic’
Most fans would agree that 1986 was the last time Queen was swinging in their classic era.
They were classic rock survivors. Soldiering through punk and new wave’s threat, soaking up the pop trends of the 1980s, and standing as MTV stars of the day with their cross-dressing ‘I Want to Break Free’ soap opera video, Queen managed to thrust their anthemic rock opera well into the new decade with ease.
Once Live Aid gave the call for their scene-stealing show in 1985, Freddie Mercury’s powerhouse showboating on stage at Wembley Stadium had reestablished Queen’s crown as the world’s premier rock band.
They entered 1986 at the top of their game. Further albums would follow, but that year’s A Kind of Magic was the last Queen LP to truly boast canonical band standards, being the title track and its ‘One Vision’ lead single. It was a soundtrack of sorts. Only six years after scoring the Flash Gordon space opera, Queen were roped in to gift several songs for the Highlander action movie, following the titular Scottish clan warrior’s immortal duelling to face off his ultimate challenger in contemporary New York.
Such fantasy fodder fuelled Queen’s lyrical pen, as many as six tracks on A Kind of Magic appearing in the Highlander feature, albeit in revised forms, and prompting the band to cover a shortened version of ‘Theme from New York, New York’ specifically for the film, as well as ‘Princes of the Universe’ scoring the later TV series.
The movie’s dialogue directly shaped the title track, too. Riffing off a line that Christopher Lambert’s Connor MacLeod character delivers on his own immortality, drummer Roger Taylor began work on ‘A Kind of Magic’, handling all lyrics and sketching out the initial melody and chords.
Trouble was, Mercury had other ideas. Much to Taylor’s annoyance, a holiday break from the sessions promoted the Queen frontman and album co-producer, David Richards, to reassemble Taylor’s Highlander tune as a more chart-friendly number, as they saw it, introducing a new bass line, shifting around the ordering, and adding some instrumental spacers. Mercury’s ‘A Kind of Magic’ would feature on Queen’s namesake album, while Taylor’s original plays out during Highlander’s end credits.
Highlander would meet lacklustre returns at the box office but grow as a later cult picture on video, while A Kind of Magic would storm the charts as another Queen behemoth, striking number one and going on to sell at least six million in traditional physical and digital purchases. They’d also mark their final iconic clobber, kicking off the global Magic Tour in June and unveiling Mercury’s distinctive white trousers and yellow jacket onstage uniform.
More number one records would follow, but the unfortunate HIV/AIDS complications that had begun to impact Mercury’s health and spark press speculation would hover over the ensuing years before the frontman’s untimely death in 1991. With the latter years’ suspension of live shows and drop in classic singles, 1986’s A Kind of Magic will stand in the eyes of most fans as glowing with the old Queen pop immortality, every bit as eternal as the clansman fantasy warrior that largely inspired it.
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