Random Record Revisit

Queen II – Queen [1974]

   Queen had quite a remarkable run of success in America beginning with the November 1974 release of Shear Heart Attack through 1980’s The Game. In time, many went back to 1973’s self-titled debut and declared it to be an overlooked masterpiece. [I personally think the first side is brilliant, the second, not so much.] But Queen II remains as kind of the forgotten record of the catalog, much like the much-overlooked 1976 album Presence in the Zeppelin catalog.

   Queen II was initially released with the two sides of the record titles Side White - featuring four Brian May compositions and on by drummer Roger Taylor - and Side Black featuring five Freddie Mercury songs.

   The White side kicks off with the multi layered guitars of Brian May building a majestic theme [Procession]before an echoed note fades into an arpeggiated phrase and the band crashes in and Mercury puts forth Father To Son. May’s words remind that wisdom is passed, ignored, learned and dutifully passed again from generation to generation. In trademarked fashion, Father To Son slides into soft guitars of White Queen [When It Began]. If March Of the Black Queen begat Bohemian Rhapsody, then White Queen is the stepping stone to May’s The Prophet Song, his statement piece on A Night At the Opera. The ghostly sad white queen is as far from earth as she is from Mercury’s black queen. May plays layers of guitars the way Queen layers vocals. The solo in the song is a guitar specially rigged to sound like a sitar. Some Day, One Day follows, May’s one lead vocal on the album. Simple and majestic, driven by acoustic guitar as most of the songs that feature May as a vocalist are. The side ends with the heavy metal thump of drummer Roger Taylor’s Loser In the End. One of those rare songs that stretch out at the end and allow the band a little time to jam at the end.

   Side Black kicks off with Ogre Battle, which had already been in the set list for years before being immortalized on tape. It certainly proves that Mercury could rock as hard as any the other bands out there, aided by May’s multi layered guitars and of course more of those the multi layered Queen harmonies. Ogre Battle flows into the paranoid beat of The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke attempts to describe Richard Dodd’s painting of the same name. FFMS then flows into the brief interlude of Mercury’s piano and some ethereal vocals over Mercury’s representation of a heartbroken lover sent away down the path of Nevermore. March of the Black Queen with its many sections and vocal gymnastics seems a precursor to what will come in next year’s Bohemian Rhapsody. [Reminder: Queen put out four albums between July 1973 and November 1975] After a 45 second intro section, the band kicks into 20 seconds of instrumental and vocal buildup before falling into the main song, full of camp lines that only Queen could get away with. [“Now I’ve got a belly full / You can be my sugar baby / You can be my honey child” “My life is in your hands, I’ll fo and I’ll fie / I’ll be what you make me, I’ll do what you like”] After the false ending at 6:06, Mercury hits a campy, vaudevillian line on the piano and delivers the 25 second coda with the vocals melting into Funny How Love Is. Funny How Love Is might be the most joyful thing Queen ever put to tape even if it seems to be speeded up about 5 – 10 %. The side ends with the second most unlikely Queen song to chart, Seven Seas Of Rhye. Taking the riff from the brief instrumental that ended the debut, Mercury fleshes it out with tale of a fantasy world Fredie and his sister dreamed up as children. And in true Queen style it fades out to the British music hall song I Do Love To Be Beside the Seaside.

   Definitely the heaviest album in the Queen catalog.  Definitely in my top 3 Queen albums. Truth be told, I prefer May and Taylor’s White side, although I love Funny How Love Is and I think I need some repeated listening to March Of the Black Queen.