Having recently done a review of Queen Forever for KKBox (though it doesn't seem to available online yet), I figured it might be interesting to do a review of posthumous Queen albums and songs. First, however, I should explain what I mean by “posthumous” in this situation. Of course Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon are alive and (in the first two cases and as far as I know the third too) well, and May and Taylor continue to perform and occasionally record using the Queen name. However, I think even they would not argue too strongly with the assertion that in some sense Queen came to an end with the death of Freddie Mercury. Even if Mercury wasn’t almost impossible to replace, the band’s classic four man lineup was together for so long that unlike other bands with more fluid lineups, it’s hard to think of any other combination of musicians as Queen, much as only John, Paul, George and Ringo could be the Beatles (with apologies to Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe). So by posthumous releases I mean anything released by Queen after Mercury’s death, and especially anything with Mercury (and Deacon) on it. Though May and Taylor have both released solo material in this period, including a few pretty good songs, I’m also excluding purely solo tracks, except where they were re-arranged as Queen songs.
Made In Heaven
The main posthumous Queen release was the 1995 album Made in Heaven. This was an entire album of previously unheard Queen recordings – previously unheard as Queen recordings, that is. About half the album was made up of songs that had been released in other forms, and in fact one song, “My Life Has Been Saved”, had even been released by Queen. This shouldn’t detract from the listeners’ enjoyment of the music, which is equal to that on most other Queen albums (though not their very best albums from the mid to late 1970s), but it is rather interesting to see how the band managed to create a fairly cohesive album from a mix of unfinished recordings, solo tracks and relatively obscure prior releases.
When I first bought this album, I assumed that most of it had been recorded in the months between the release of the album Innuendo in early 1991 and Mercury’s death late that same year. While I was big enough of a Queen fan to have all the band’s albums in some form or another and even some of the members’ solo albums, there was a lot I didn’t have. I had Mercury’s solo album Mr. Bad Guy, so I recognized “Made In Heaven” and “I Was Born to Love You”, and even with those I briefly (and looking back somewhat naively) entertained the notion that Mercury had actually recorded new vocals, especially in the latter case, as there are some noticeable differences between the Made in Heaven version and the older one, though no doubt it was actually because the band simply used part of an unused take from the original sessions. I also had Brian May’s Back to the Light, released just after Mercury’s death, so I was familiar with “Too Much Love Will Kill You” (I also knew that he had sung it at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, though it was cut from the broadcast I saw at the time). But the other songs were new to me, and so as far as I knew, they had been recorded after Innuendo had been finished. Not that I was the only one to think so; many reviewers at the time were seemingly under the impression that with song titles like “Let Me Live”. “My Life Has Been Saved”, and “Too Much Love Will Kill You”, much of the album was about Mercury and his struggles with his illness, as most people assumed that the songs had been written in Mercury’s last year or two. In fact, only three of them were post-Innuendo, with the others dating back further and some of them also having been previously released. What follows is a rundown of the songs on the album and their origins.
It’s a Beautiful Day
This is one of my favorite tracks on the album, though I think (after 20 years I can’t be sure) that even when I first heard it I noticed that they had deliberately stretched it out. In fact, it dates back further than anything else on the album. During sessions for the 1980 Queen album The Game, Freddie Mercury recorded a brief demo of this song with only his piano and vocals. While the lyrics rather simple and possibly ad-libbed, the melody, vocals, and piano part are all lovely, as can be heard in the original recording, released on the bonus disc for the 2011 remaster of The Game. But for whatever reason Mercury never took the song any further, and it is this 1980 recording that was used on Made In Heaven. What the other three did was to add a lot more instruments to Mercury’s recording, and in particular add an instrumental section that was apparently mainly the work of John Deacon. This was all done with the band’s usual skill, though as I noted the seams show in places, particularly in the transition where they simply copy and paste Mercury’s line “No one’s gonna stop me now” several times. But it remains a great track, even if Mercury’s original demo is in some ways just as enjoyable. The song ended up being credited to Queen (even the recording on The Game reissue), but it seems almost certain that the core song itself is entirely the work of Mercury, while as noted the rest of the Made in Heaven version is said to have been mostly written by Deacon.
Made in Heaven
As noted above, this song was originally from Mercury’s solo album Mr. Bad Guy. Though I am certainly a big fan of Mercury’s singing and songwriting, I have to say that, speaking as objectively as possible, only a handful of the songs on this album reached the standards of the material he wrote for Queen. But from the time I first acquired the album, I considered “Made in Heaven” the best song on it, and the Queen version (created by combining new instrumentation played by the remaining three with Mercury’s original vocals and keyboards) is even better than the original. This is definitely one of the strongest tracks on the album, even if it was also one of the few that I knew from the start not to be an entirely new recording.
Let Me Live
At first listen, this song sounds almost like it was recorded live in the studio, with the band’s three singers (Mercury, May and Taylor) trading verses supported by a choir of backing vocalists. Also, the title and lyrics leave the impression that it was about Mercury’s illness. In fact, the song is an example of the impressive job May, Deacon and Taylor did in assembling the album. The song supposedly dates back to 1983 and was recorded when Queen was fooling around in the studio with Rod Stewart. Apparently it was intended to be a duet between Mercury and Stewart, though as far as I know no bootlegs of the original recording were ever leaked. It’ s quite possible that the song as recorded at the time was incomplete. In any case, it seems that Mercury only recorded one verse and the chorus, so to complete the song May and Taylor had to record additional verses. Whether the lyrics for these had already been written or were added when the band was working on Made in Heaven I don’t know, though my guess is that the latter was the case, and that the bridge (sung by Taylor) was also a late addition. Regardless, the final result is pretty successful.
Mother Love
Unlike the first few songs on the album, this really was written and recorded during Mercury’s last year of life. In fact, it was the last song he ever recorded vocals for, and he proved unable to finish it, never making it back into the studio to do the third and final verse, leaving May to sing it. Even without knowing this, I felt from my first listen that the song had a poignant, emotional edge to it that was not common to Queen songs. Mostly written by May, Mercury contributed to the lyrics (whether he wrote most or just some of them is unclear), and it’s possible that in this last recording he let some of what he was going through show in the song. In any case, this is another strong track, though it is relatively dark and subdued for a Queen song.
My Life Has Been Saved
A melodic piece of pop rock, it probably should have been obvious that this was the work of John Deacon, though it’s credited to the whole band. This alone among all the songs on the album had already been released as a Queen song, but as it was a B-side from The Miracle and was not included as a bonus track on the re-mastered CD of the album I owned, I had never heard it before. Once again, some listeners undoubtedly took lyrics like “I read it in the papers/There’s death on every page” as a reference to Mercury’s situation, but since he hadn’t even officially told his bandmates about his illness at the time (though they may have started to guess the truth), it seems unlikely that Deacon was making any reference to it. The Made in Heaven version is an improvement on the original version, though the latter is pretty good as well.
Heaven for Everyone
This song was the first single released off the album, and as the first new Queen release since Mercury’s death (discounting the “Bohemian Rhapsody”/”Those Were the Days of Our Lives” single released immediately after he died) it went straight to number 1 in the UK. But like much of the rest of the album, it wasn’t a new song; in fact, two different versions of it had been released previously. Written by Roger Taylor, it was originally released in 1988 under the name of his band the Cross on their debut album Shove It and as a single off that album. On the single version, the lead vocals were by Roger Taylor, but Freddie Mercury made a guest appearance as backing vocalist, and on the album version (in the UK, at least), Mercury sang lead. The Queen version was apparently recorded using Mercury’s vocals from these recordings with a new instrumental backing track, much like the new versions of “Made in Heaven” and “I Was Born to Love You”. While the Cross version was known to a few dedicated Queen fans, most listeners probably assumed “Heaven for Everyone” was a new song, as I did at first. Ironically, though this was the biggest hit from Made in Heaven, I prefer many of the other songs on the album. It’s still a good song, but it lacks the energy of songs like “Made in Heaven”, “Let Me Live” or “It’s a Beautiful Day” and is not quite as poignant as “Mother Love” or “A Winter’s Tale”.
Too Much Love Will Kill You
This is yet another song that had previously been released as a solo track, in this case by Brian May. In this case, I (and most other Queen fans) knew it already, not only from May’s solo album Back to the Light, but because he’d performed it at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert (though his performance was cut from the broadcast I saw). At the time some critics apparently assumed that May had written it in response to Mercury’s death (I seem to recall that one even criticized it for being in somewhat bad taste), but as we learned with the release of Made in Heaven it had been previously recorded by Queen at the time of The Miracle with Mercury on vocals. The Made in Heaven version was presumably just a release of that recording, though perhaps with a little later tweaking. I tend to rank this song a little above “Heaven for Everyone”, though it’s not my favorite track on the album. Mercury’s impassioned vocals are a plus (though May's version is not bad), but the song meanders a bit.
You Don’t Fool Me
This is another of the few truly new songs, though in fact it was apparently patched together from various bits by producer David Richards, who from what the band members have said deserves a lot of credit for creating the song – indeed he arguably should have gotten a writing credit. However, the limited nature of the recordings he used to assemble the song shows to some degree, as there really isn’t that much substance to the track. Perhaps for this reason, it’s one of the weaker tracks on the album, though it’s still entertaining in its way, and as the only funk-oriented track on the album, it adds diversity to the album.
A Winter’s Tale
Along with “Mother Love” and “You Don’t Fool Me”, this song was apparently one of the only tracks on the album that was entirely written in the months following the release of Innuendo. While credited to Queen as a whole, it is said to be the last song Freddie Mercury wrote. The liner notes in the reissue merely say that it was his last complete lyric and that the chorus was completed in the studio (whether this is referring to the lyrics or the music is unclear), but presumably he wrote most of the music or at least the melody and he may even have played the keyboard. It’s a pleasant song with evocative lyrics and a heartfelt vocal from Mercury, though I can’t say it is the equal of his very best compositions on previous albums, particular in his peak years in the 1970s. In other words, it is a good song but not quite a great one. Still, it is a fitting farewell from Mercury as the composer of so many brilliant songs over the years, and it also works well as the final new track on the album.
It’s a Beautiful Day (Reprise)
Despite the briefness of Mercury’s original tune, the rest of the band evidently liked “It’s a Beautiful Day” a lot and enjoyed finding different ways to add to it, as not only did they open the album with it, they reprised it at the end. As I mentioned above, I really like the core song, short though it is, and I think it’s an excellent choice to open and close the album.
Yeah and Untitled Track
The remainder of Made in Heaven consists of a single “Yeah” from Freddie Mercury that is treated as a separate track. It is followed (on CD) by a 22 minute untitled track that consists of looped sounds and other musical samples and bits. It was put together mainly by producer David Richards with some contributions from May and Taylor. While both of these tracks are interesting in different ways, neither is a Queen song in the conventional sense, so it makes little sense to judge them by the standards of the rest of the band’s catalogue.
Heaven for Everyone was a very successful album at the time, and it was an effective coda to the band’s years with Mercury. May, Taylor and Deacon managed to put together an album which at least on the surface was a fairly unified whole, with an overall quality that was comparable to most of the band’s albums from the previous decade, though not equal to those released in their peak years in the mid to late 1970s. A closer examination reveals that the album was in truth a bit of a patchwork, but in some ways that makes the three remaining members’ achievement more impressive. To fans who had been obsessive enough to collect all of the band’s releases, including solo work, half the songs would have been recognizable, but even for them the rest would have been new or at least unheard (since “It’s a Beautiful Day” and “Let Me Live” had not been previously released in any form, even though their origins dated back to the early 1980s). For that matter, the new arrangements of the previously released songs were arguably better than the originals, or at least were interesting variations. So while it wasn’t by any means the band’s best album, it was a pretty decent one, and in my opinion (and probably that of many other fans) the last true Queen album, though a number of individual Queen songs have been released subsequently, as I will discuss in the forthcoming second part of my examination of Queen releases after Mercury’s death.
[As a side note, it occurs to me that in many ways Heaven for Everyone is a bit like my series of post-breakup “Beatles” albums. Like them, it consists at least in large part of solo recordings by various members re-imagined as songs by the band. Of course, there are many differences, such as the inclusion of older unreleased tracks originally recorded by the band as a whole (though I did have one such track (“Not Guilty”) on Working Class Heroes, my second post-breakup Beatles album) and more importantly the fact that, even though their parts were mostly recorded separately (especially Mercury’s), all members of Queen appeared on most of the tracks, while since the songs on the “Beatles” albums were all actually solo tracks, other Beatles only rarely played on them. In this respect, Heaven for Everyone more closely resembles “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” from the Beatles Anthology sets, with John Lennon in Mercury’s role as the deceased member whose recordings the rest of the band built the song around.]
