Whether you like Queen or not, they’re one of the most pervasive forces of nature the music industry has ever seen.
Everyone knows a bunch of the best Queen songs. You might not quite remember their names, but you still vaguely recognize them as “The one about the radio,” “The one with the stomps and the handclaps,” or “The one they named the movie after.” Even if you’re a music purist who makes a point of only listening to jazz recordings made on the second Tuesday of October in 1955, chances are you still occasionally have to wrangle the bass line from “Under Pressure” out of your ear.
The thing is, we all know the same famous Queen songs. This is a trailblazing, history-shaping band with 15 (mostly) amazing studio albums to their name, yet most people only know their most obvious “greatest hits” fare. Fortunately, a band with such a vast discography and adventurous creative spirit has managed to capture plenty of other good tunes on tape. Let’s take a look at some of Queen’s best songs that you’ve probably never heard.
“The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke” (1974)
“The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke” is Queen at their strangest, yet most captivating. The song’s odd title and folksy sing-song vocals might seem odd at first, but they’re actually in perfect line with the source material that inspired Freddie Mercury to write the track. The song shares its title with the masterpiece painting of artist Richard Dadd, a tortured soul who made the work for an official at Bethlem Hospital, where Dadd was sent after going insane and killing his father in 1843. The painter was transferred to another hospital before he was able to complete the intricate painting, so he switched to poetry and wrote “‘Elimination of a Picture & its subject – called The Feller’s Master Stroke”, a long, confusing poem that attempts to explain some of the artwork’s fairy imagery.
According to an analysis by Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, Mercury was so infatuated by the complex painting and its poetic companion piece that he wrote a song about them. Many of the characters and events in the lyrics of “The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke” come from Dadd’s art, and the Queen II album even came with a fold-out poster of the painting. However, one significant piece of the Queen puzzle was always missing: The song never became a staple of their concerts, and the technically challenging piece was only played live a handful of times. Only one known live recording exists.
“I’m In Love With My Car” (1975)
Yes, fans of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, it’s that “I’m In Love With My Car.” The song is arguably the biggest punchline in the entire movie, and turns drummer Roger Taylor into a laughingstock when the rest of the band treats his goofily-named composition as little more than a joke. However, had they included the song in the movie itself or on the movie’s soundtrack, the punchline probably would have fallen flat. “I’m In Love With My Car” is actually a very good tune, to the point where Allmusic calls it a highlight of A Night at The Opera. Viewers may laugh when Mike Myers’ record company executive prefers this sterling rocker as a single over the far more risky “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but it becomes a lot less comedic when you actually hear the song roar and stomp ahead, driven by Taylor’s gravelly lead vocal that sounds like Rod Stewart ate AC/DC cereal for breakfast.
(Excerpt) Read More at: Grunge.com