#Korg m1 parts full
The lyrics are full of allusions, metaphors and other figures of speech, making it somewhat difficult to understand. It's a long story, that song, but I always felt it would be important because we were dealing with things that were hard to talk about at the time, but in the world of music, you could do it. I sat down with Freddie, and we decided what the theme should be and wrote the first verse. At the beginning, it was just this chord sequence, but I had this strange feeling that it could be somehow important, and I got very impassioned and went and beavered away at it.
"The Show Must Go On" came from Roger and John playing the sequence, and I started to put things down. Producer David Richards suggested the key-shift in the second verse. May sang most of the backing vocals (including the last line) and played Korg M1 synthesiser as well as guitar. To May's surprise, when the time came to record the vocals, Mercury consumed a measure of vodka and said "I'll fucking do it, darling!" then proceeded to perform the vocal line. When May presented the final demo to Mercury, he had doubts that Mercury would be physically capable of singing the song's highly demanding vocal line, due to the extent of his illness at the time. ĭemo versions featured May singing, having to sing some parts in falsetto because they were too high. May was convinced the song's title was too predictable and offered to change it, but Mercury refused. May wrote down the rest of the words as well as the melody, and added a bridge with a chord sequence inspired by Pachelbel's Canon. Since its release, the song has appeared on television, film (including an operatic version in Moulin Rouge!), and has been covered by a number of artists.Īfter listening to John Deacon and Roger Taylor playing the chord sequence that later on would be the basis for almost the entire song, Brian May sat down with Freddie Mercury and the two of them decided the theme of the song and wrote some lyrics. It has since been played live by Queen + Paul Rodgers and Queen + Adam Lambert with Rodgers citing one of the performances as the best of his career. The song was first played live on 20 April 1992, during The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, performed by the three remaining members of Queen, with Elton John singing lead vocals and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi playing rhythm guitar. A live version with Elton John on vocals appeared on Queen's Greatest Hits III album. Following Mercury's death on 24 November 1991, the song re-entered the British charts and spent as many weeks in the top 75 (five) as it did upon its original release, initially reaching a peak of 16.
It was released as a single in the United Kingdom on 14 October 1991 in promotion for the Greatest Hits II album, just six weeks before Mercury died. May recalls "I said, 'Fred, I don't know if this is going to be possible to sing.' And he went, 'I'll fucking do it, darling'-vodka down-and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal". When the band recorded the song in 1990 Mercury's condition had deteriorated to the point that May had concerns as to whether he was physically capable of singing it. The song chronicles the effort of frontman Freddie Mercury continuing to perform despite approaching the end of his life, although his diagnosis with HIV/AIDS had not yet been made public in spite of ongoing media speculation claiming that he was seriously ill. It is credited to Queen, but written mainly by Brian May. " The Show Must Go On" is a song by the British rock band Queen, featured as the twelfth and final track on their 1991 album, Innuendo. "Queen Talks" (12" and CD singles only).