This is one of the all time great songs. So underrated, and under appreciated by the music world. And, sorry - it actually does surpass Bohemian Rhapsody in both lyrical messages and musical content. Sure, we all love the Bo Rhap, but this was the most epic creation by a man (and group, of course) who knew he was dying, and yet was bound by his philosophy to never give up. Keep on trying, until the end of time - exactly what Freddie did, 'til the end of HIS time. Your "Pass" may be the best you can offer, but it falls way short of what this masterpiece deserves!
He was already to sick to show his face...to think that he knew was dying and still sang with this passion...incredible....RIP my beautiful man... You will never be forgotten..
Please react to "Death of Two Legs" from their album A Night at The Opera. It's one of my favorite songs Freddie wrote and it's so much fun to listen to!
Hey man you will find more from Queen with messages such as this one , they really pushed the boundaries with their music for the time. I highly recommend you do their song ONE VISION. It was inspired by Martin Luther King !!
Love this song and your reaction. Great tune! It was just released before Freddie's death and he was unable to be in a video so each band member was in a different style of animation and they used footage of Freddie from concerts and other videos. If you haven't done White Queen, it's old school Queen, early 70's and it's awesome. Must do the live version at the Odeon. FIRRRE SQUAAAD !
If you want more Queen with a message, how about White Man? It was written by Brian May from the point of view of a Native American. It might not have worked for any other rock band, but Freddie (who was not white) pulled it off.
The thing with Queen is their musical diversity... they never wanted to get into a rut where their songs would all sound the same. If you want to hear them bring the funk, check out "Dragon Attack." FIRE SQUAD!
Dragon Attack!!! Hells yes - Deaky getting funky with the bass, Roger pounding a beat, Brian wailing and Freddie....good lord the man was sex personified in the live performances!!!🐉😍🤘
@@Karen-gh8gv Yes ma'am - the boys get my engine going with the Montreal performance!!! Well any performance but Dragon Attack @ Montreal is exquisitely steamy!!!!
#firesquad 🔥🔥🔥🔥 pass! Queen broke the mold. They always were themselves and never pretended to be something they weren’t. They also showed love to everyone. Definitely not one of my favorite of their songs but the message is insane. I feel like it’s so applicable to today. Their music is always relevant. You need to listen to “Tennessee whiskey” by Chris Stapleton. Amazing. Reminds me of Ray Charles in his delivery like mixing church songs with reality.
In this video, Freddie was done in the art style of Leonardo Da Vinci, Brian in the style of Victorian Etchings, Roger in the style of Jackson Pollock and John in the style of Pablo Picasso. This video also won DoRo (production company) a Monitor award for best Achievement in Music Video.
I know it's been a long time since you've done any Queen reactions but there's still some of their powerful music you haven't reacted to. Early Queen songs, "Stone Cold Crazy", "Tie your mother down" and "Hammer to fall " Their 20 minutes of "Live Aid" is a MUST see, "Miracle " "Crazy little thing called love " and "Breakthru" are official videos. "Under pressure ", "Now I'm here" and "It's a kind of magic" live at Wembley 1986. Lastly "These are the days of our lives " the last video Freddie would make due to his illness of aids progressing. Hope you see this message!
it definitely was a ground breaker and it was also a anticipated album for queen. unfortunately this would be the last album that queen would record with freddie :( r.i.p freddie
Are you from the U.K. by any chance? I'm in the US and 'Scandal' never charted in the U.S. at all, I don't recall it EVER playing on radio and even MTV never played it at all here, so just wondering if that song was even a hit in the UK, as it apparently was only a minor hit there. I heard 'Scandal' BTW, and....well, now I know why it never charted here lol (sorry)...it's an ok song but IDK, maybe the UK has different tastes. Ditto for ''It's a Hard Life'', no airplay in the States at all back in 80's that I recall, but personally I like that tune.
At the time this was considered a smash hit comeback for Queen and crashed into the no 1 slot in the charts the song and album. Nobody knew how sick Freddie was until we saw the Slightly Mad video. The video won an animation award. My favourite lines from this are 'Be free with your tempo, be free, be free. Surrender your ego be free, be free to yourself.' super inspiring.
I only ever heard this song for the first time last month... awesome. Sadly, at least one of the reasons why they did the graphics was because Freddie was really sick at the time (it was from their last album with him living), and they wanted to disguise that.
This is true... but the video is quite amazing. I am one of those people who remembers when this music video premiered on MTV and I was very blown away by both the song and the video. Beautiful.
Wow, I know Queen, but I never heard or seen that one. I liked it because it wasn't same ole'. I have a feeling it was done maybe after Freddy died or about that time. The Graphics were probably done that way because they didn't have Freddy to add to the video. So, you showed me something from Queen even I hadn't seen before. Thanks for Sharing that one.
Innuendo was the last album issued while Freddie was alive, however, they had one more album "Made in Heaven" which was released in 1995 made up on demos which had been unreleased for whatever reason. I find "Made in Heaven" to be a sad album, but I still love it, and it doesn't get enough love.
love the band love their music my first time hearing them was in 2006 when i was in high school been a fan ever since i love love their songs THEY ROCK
If you wanna explore more of Queen’s more socially conscious songs (of which there are more than you’ll probably expect) I’d recommend One Vision, which is pretty famous and based on Martin Luther King’s speech. A less well known one is White Man, written by Brian May about the slaughter of the red indians by white immigrants; some of his best and most thought provoking lyrical work there. Either one is a great song!
I so love this song! The lyrics reveal an extraordinary insight into all of our thinking (each and every one of us) - why are we here, what is this life all about, is there a reason for our existence? And, no - the Bo Rhap is fabulous, but as you yourself said "they really went up another notch with this". And so they did. And the flamenco interlude by Steve Howe of YES fame (another technically gifted group) just shows the incredible diversity of Queen's music.
I like how you pay attention on a visual level too, and could see that the art and visuals of this clip were unique and not typical but very effective in keeping the listener engaged and full of artistic expression. I imagine in it's day it would have cost the band a lot of $$$ and they experimented with different media as a way to 'disguise' Freddies declining health and respect his privacy and wish to conceal his illness from the hounding british press and his fans, till he was ready to address it. (Which he finally did on the eve of his passing). As a side note and as a link to Queens famous Live Aid performance, my old neighbour was a lovely UK artist and musician, Steve Maher, designer of the original UK Live Aid poster (the Global Juke box) commissioned by Bob Geldof for the event. Sadly he passed away here in Australia a few years ago now, but he was a terrfic guy who loved to tell stories bout those days back in England and he was very proud to have made an artistic contribution to this historic event!!
I gotta echo Death On 2 Legs for the next one. ....Wow! Thank you! I watched MTV and VH1 right from the start and this one got past me! It's a great song...Maybe it was too much for their pop rock majority of songs... I'm glad that I still hear new stuff to my ears.... Great pick!!
Totally a Pass from me - haven't heard this song in years, and don't think I fully understood the messages and metaphors when I was younger Gonna add it to my list of songs to listen to when I am low and need affirmation
I´ve watched many different reaction videos to Innuendo and i came to the conclusion, that your reaction is the best. Not only to this song but to all the Queen songs. I like How you react and how analyse and understand the Lyrics.
This video was made this way because he was only a few months from dying, so typically Queen did this with archives of old footage of Freddie., and mixed together this classic......brilliant Queen till the end .......loved your comments #BeFree👍🏻
It is one of the greatest songs ever. The way he sings it, he feels it, so much passion, desire. The drums, the e-guitar, the lyrics. Can we really achieve everything what we want or is it an illusion? (hence the middle part is so different from the rest). Is there a god and if so why he don't let his mask fall and show himself? And how we will always try to find those things out
From Wikipedia: A very elaborate music video was created to accompany the single and released on 23 November 1990, combining stop motion animation with rotoscoping and featuring plasticine figures reminiscent of the album artwork in a detailed miniature cinema set. The band members only appear as illustrations and images, mainly taken from earlier Queen music videos (such as "The Miracle", "Scandal", "Breakthru", "The Invisible Man", "I Want It All", and clips from "Live at Wembley Stadium 1986"), on a cinema screen in the same manner as in the film Nineteen Eighty-Four, with Mercury drawn in the style of Leonardo da Vinci, May in the style of Victorian etchings, Taylor in the style of Jackson Pollock, and Deacon in the style of Pablo Picasso.[9] It also featured a montage of historical stock footages and film clips of Nuremberg Rally, The funeral of Freddie's former singing idol Umm Kulthum, battle footages from World War II and Gulf War, Stonehenge, Hungarian folk dancing, Spanish Flamenco dance, the Virgin of El Rocío, Locusts, Russian March and Mecca Praying. The video won production company DoRo (who also produced the videos to all other singles from the Innuendo album) a Monitor Award for Best Achievement in Music Video.
In the video, Mercury is depicted in the same style as Leonardo da Vinci, May in the style of Claude Monet, Taylor in the style of Jackson Pollock and Deacon in that of Pablo Picasso
This was made as Freddie was dying and still was able to put great vocals to this and album came out after he died! Same with The show must go on he nailed those vocals in one take even though was in pain and dying so neither song has a live version with Freddie! Freddie was in a league of his own and not sure anyone could top him!!! RIP Freddie
Recorded early 1989 - Mid 1990, this song took many months of recording, during which Mercury was literally close to death. and why the video is animated. He made a near miraculous recovery after a blood transfusion and intensive medical care. At this point he had lived far longer than the average person after being diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. He continued to record and made additional videos where he is clearly suffering and in deteriorating health, his appearance in both of his last videos is almost other-worldly beautiful.
Have a look at Queen at Wembley. Two particular sections. One Vision (inspired by Martin Luther King) and Tie your mother Down. You'll love the crowd. The second one is the clip featuring In The lap of the Gods, Seven Seas of Rhye and Tear It up. I guarantee that the head will be bobbing to the beat!
This is their 90s Bohemian Rhapsody. Switching tempo, having different sections that have you asking "What's next?!" - like having a Flamenco interlude. And it really can't come to anybody's surprise that Queen was having lines like "You can be anything you want to be" and "Be free to yourself, be free, be free" - that's what Freddie was all about, as an artist and as a person. BTW you should react to Show must go on from the same album.
Innuendo is a song that closes a story that started with Bohemian Rhapsody. That's why it has the same melody switches. The definitive Queen song though is Motherlove, that puts the final touch to Queen and especially Freddie history.
This was recorded towards the end of Freddie’s life. He was so weak, most songs were recorded in one take. LISTEN TO ONE VOICE! Was written partly for MLK.
My brother. You have to listen to megadeath that's a heavy metal group, but very concious. And Freddy always dropped gems. Hit knowledge. People just listen to the beats. This is great.
I believe it's Deaky - Picasso, Roger - Jackson Pollock, Brian - Michael Angelo. Freddie was to sick to perform any longer so they were inventive with the video using scenes from previous performances.
The interesting thing about the video for this great song is that it was animated and used footage of the band from previous videos as Freddie was seriously ill and would be dead 10 months after this was released. All four were animated in different styles, with Mercury drawn in the style of Leonardo da Vinci, May in the style of Victorian etchings, Taylor in the style of Jackson Pollock, and Deacon in the style of Pablo Picasso. It's an amazing track and as it rocks out quite a bit you might think it was written by guitarist Brian May. However, although it was credited to Queen [as all songs from The Miracle album onwards were] this song was co-written by Freddie and Roger. It was a huge hit in Britain when it was first released, altho it only got to 17 in the US. Loved your reaction, and hope you go on to enjoy even more of the great music of Queen. :)
Near the end when Freddy wasn't capable to doing music videos They did some fom cuts from earlier videos (They had plenty awsome one). In this original animatons added too. The lines You picked folowed by "Be free with your tempo, be free, be free Surrender your ego - be free, be free to yourself" just as important! My favorite from them.
Yes, this song is very deep within its meaning. As for the video, they used mostly old footage from other videos because Freddie was starting to look very ill. The part where the are lined up singing "Yeah" is the only footage shot of the members of the band during its making. The drawn pictures on paper that flash through were all drawn by Freddie.
Queen - “Stone Cold Crazy” LIVE at The Rainbow. Early Queen and a brilliant rock song. Long hair, crazy outfits and black nail varnish on one hand😉That’s Freddie for you..Amazing! You could try some Jimi Hendrix too - he was one of the main inspirations to Freddie:) Another great who died young.
The Flamenco-Style (acoustic) Guitar in the m iddle of the song is played by Steve Howe from YES And i can recommend the book from Lesley-Ann Jones about Freddie Mercury when you want to know more about the background
both Brian and Steve are playing the flamenco guitar The song was finished when Brian asked Steve to add some spanish guitar licks over what Brian already did
You are having another wonderful QUEEN day and you ask yourself “ how can Queen totally ripe my heart out?” Well that is done in three easy (NOT) steps 1) “These are The Days Of Our Lives” The last Video Freddie appeared ... none of Freddie ‘s moves because ... simply it was painful for him to even just stand 2) “Mother Love” The last vocals Freddie ever recorded and included not only a snippet of one of the first tracks he ever recorded, but the final line was sung by Brian since Freddie never was well enough again to go back to the studio. 3) “No One Lives Forever (Only The Good Die Young)”. The tribute to Freddie by the beloved friends that shared the stage with him for so very many years Fire Squad RIP Freddie. We love you.
'Oldschool for sure' Well, they started in 1970 and had to stop in late 1989 due to Freddie's condition getting too bad to perform or even record. He passed 2 years later. Their peak was late 70's to mid 80's.
made in 1991 just months before Freddie passed . he was roo ill to perform live so the band members were drawn in the style of different artists. a true masterpiece
Really glad you liked Innuendo LayedBak. Freddie wrote his better, more socially concious and more poignant lyrics, the close he got to his passing. If you like this you should also try Who Wants to Live Forever by Queen, but be sure to react to the full album version, cause the official video versiojn cuts out the masterful ending. Cheers from Sweden
That was a great reaction. You should know, that ,when that song first came out was around the time the berlin wall came down ending communism in europe, and russia wasnt far behind.
First videos o can recall is 10cc followed by queen Freddy was qualified in graphic design so the imagery part influence could be attributed to him even though they all were very educated in a widely differing ra nge of all things ,so any thing is possible
Queen invented the music video! The first music vid was for Bohemian Rhapsody, the reason being is most radio stations wouldn't play the song due to the length. Side note: my man Fred can and will sing any genre of music
Well, Queen did talk about the reality as you said since first album. Every album had, at least, one song in that tematic. Even in the infinish album Made in Heaven (finish after Mercury death) you have songs in that style. The thing is that, in the early 70s, the "mythic world" was a great way to tell an story, or even, to use it as way to represent a "reallity" theme. Sorry for my bad english.
For me this was the 2nd coming, this was for me the squeal to BH The Lyrics are sooo relevant... even today Ooh ooh While the sun hangs in the sky and the desert has sand While the waves crash in the sea and meet the land While there's a wind and the stars and the rainbow Till the mountains crumble into the plain Oh yes, we'll keep on trying Tread that fine line Oh, we'll keep on trying Yeah Just passing our time Oh oh While we live according to race, colour or creed While we rule by blind madness and pure greed Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion Through the eons and on and on Oh, yes, we'll keep on trying, yeah We'll tread that fine line Oh oh we'll keep on trying Till the end of time Till the end of time Through the sorrow all through our splendor Don't take offence at my innuendo Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh You can be anything you want to be Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be Be free with your tempo, be free, be free Surrender your ego be free, be free to yourself Oh oh, yeah If there's a God or any kind of justice under the sky If there's a point, if there's a reason to live or die Ha, if there's an answer to the questions we feel bound to ask Show yourself destroy our fears release your mask Oh yes, we'll keep on trying Hey, tread that fine line (Yeah) yeah We'll keep on smiling, yeah (Yeah) (yeah) (yeah) And whatever will be will be We'll just keep on trying We'll just keep on trying Till the end of time Till the end of time Till the end of time
The video is a mashup of other Queen videos, with added animation. I think all we thought at the time was it was a good job but didn't take away from the sadness that Freddie was no longer around to be able to film a new vid.
