Killer Queen

Queen

• A rock band formed in 1970.
• Four members: Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon.
• Feddie Mercury - lead vocalist, piano and backing vocals.
• Brian May - lead guitar, backing vocals.
• "Killer Queen", was written by Freddie Mercury.
• It comes from "Sheer Heart Attack", their third album.
• It used layering vocals and instrument to give it the distinct "Queen" sound.
• Hugely successful band, has sold millions of songs.

Structure

• Straight forward verse-chorus structure.
• With variations including a couple of bridge sections and a little guitar interlude before the second verse.

INTRO <-- six clicks VERSE 1 CHORUS BRIDGE GUITAR INTERLUDE <-- only a few bars long VERSE 2 GUITAR SOLO VERSE 3 CHORUS BRIDGE OUTRO <-- Instrument fade out

• Guitar solo is performed by Brian May.
• Recorder after the rest of the piece as May was ill when the song was recorded.
• So uses layering - it cannot be performed in the same way.

Lyrics

• Are a key feature of song.
• Written before the music.
• Very wordy with a lot of syllables.
• This means they dictate the rhythm
• Note lengths are usually short in order to fit all the words in.
• Most of the song is syllabic.
• The words themselves are quite unusual.
• Alludes to Marie Antoinette, Khruschev and Kennedy (Historical Figures).
• "Moet et Chanfon" (champagne) and "caviar"; The fact she "talks like a baroness", creates an image of an upper-class, well-connected woman.
• Chorus uses lots of explosive imagery - "Gun powder", "dynamite", and "laser beam".

Accompaniment

• Unusually for a rock song, "Killer Queen" doesnt start with an instrumental introduction.
• Begins with six clicks.
• Solo vocalist comes in on last click (anacrusis).
• Then the insturmentation builds up...
• The piano comes in followed by the guitar, drums and bass guitar, then finally the backing vocals.
• The instrumentation varies in different verses...
• There is a bell and a more prominent guitar part.
• The first part of each chorus - vocals are in four-part harmony. Another reason why it can't be played live.
• Backing vocals are a key feature of Queen songs.
• Mainly sing "Ooh" and "Ahh" but sometimes echo the solo line (e.g. naturally in verse 2) or complete it (e.g. drive you wild)
• In choruses, they start singing main lyrics in harmony but also add punctuating chords ("ba's") under the solo vocal line.
• Sing in call and response as well (e.g. anytime)

Tonality

• Begins in Eb major. Verses 1 and 2 begin on C Minor chord (relative minor).
• Mix of major and minor tonality due to a number of modulations
• Song is in 12 8 (compound quadruple time). but it changes to 6 8 (compound duple time) for one bar in each verse.
• Compound time gives it a swung feel.
• Has a steady rythmic pulse, set up from the start by the opening clicks and continued byt the rhythmic piano chords (playing a quaver on every beat of the bar at the start of the first two verses)

Effects

• Contains a lot of layering of both instruments and voices.
• Used in guitar solo - you hear sperate parts at the same time...
• This creates a bell effect - notes are played one by one, and sustained to create a chord.
• Uses a flanger effecr on the guitar and in the vocals.
• Vocal techniques of portamento.
• String bending/sliding used in the guitar solo.