Chapter 12: The Works

The Works is the band's eleventh studio album, it marked a partial return to their rock roots, although with a much lighter approach. It has also the heaviest electronics amongst all group albums. In comparison, rock was mostly absent on their previous effort Hot Space giving room to dance and funk with the use of analogue synths and brass, while electronics were not that much present.

Recorded at the Record Plant Studios and Musicland Studios from August 1983 to January 1984, the album's title comes from a comment drummer Roger Taylor made as recording began – "Let's give them the works!"

This was the first Queen album to be released on Compact Disc.

Following the release of and subsequent touring for their 1982 album Hot Space, the four members of Queen opted to take a break from the band the following year, indulging in solo projects and taking the chance to stretch in individual directions. While a spring tour of South America had been an early possibility, especially following the band's success there two years prior, equipment and promotional problems brought an end to these plans.[1] Brian May worked with Eddie Van Halen and others on the Star Fleet Project, while Freddie Mercury began work on his solo album. By August 1983, however, the band had reunited and began work on their eleventh studio album. It would be Queen's first album for EMI (and its United States affiliate Capitol Records) worldwide after the band nullified its recording deal with Elektra for the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan.

Recording commenced at Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles – Queen's first time recording in America – and Musicland Studios in Munich. Also during this time, their manager Jim Beach offered them the opportunity to compose the soundtrack for the film The Hotel New Hampshire. The band agreed, but soon discovered much of their time was being spent on the soundtrack instead of the upcoming album, and the project fell through. Only one song written for the soundtrack, "Keep Passing the Open Windows", made it onto The Works. By November 1983, Roger Taylor's "Radio Ga Ga" was chosen as the first single from the album. The Works was released on February 27, 1984.

1. Radio Ga Ga

"Radio Ga Ga" is a song performed and recorded by Queen, written by their drummer Roger Taylor. It was released as a single with "I Go Crazy" by Brian May on the original B-side (3:42) and was included on the album The Works without "I Go Crazy" (that song would only be included on the 1991 CD remaster). The single was an enormous worldwide success for the band. It reached number two in the UK (kept from the number one spot only by Frankie Goes To Hollywood's smash hit "Relax"). In the USA it reached the number 16 spot. This was to be their last Top 20 hit single in the US until 1992.

The song was a commentary on the invention of television's overtaking radio's popularity and how one would listen to radio for a favorite comedy, drama, or sci-fi program and so on. It also pertained to the advent of the music video and MTV. (Ironically, the video would become a regular staple on MTV in 1984.) Taylor originally conceived of it as "Radio Ca-Ca" (apparently from something his toddler son once said), a slam against radio for the decrease in variety of programming and the type of music being played. It was eventually changed to "Radio Ga Ga", because that sounded better, clearer, and rolled off the tongue more easily. There are rumors that the publishers objected to the original title because of the close resemblance of "Ca-Ca" to a common word for feces in many languages.[citation needed]

The song makes a reference to the broadcast of Orson Welles's The War of the Worlds, in the verse "through wars of worlds/invaded by Mars".

Taylor began writing the song in Los Angeles when he locked himself in a room with a Roland Jupiter 8 and a drum machine. He thought it would fit his solo album, but when the band heard it, John Deacon wrote a bass-line and Freddie Mercury reconstructed the track, thinking it could be a big hit. Taylor then took a skiing holiday and let Mercury polish the lyrics, harmony, and arrangements of the song. Recording sessions began at Record Plant Studios and included session keyboardist Fred Mandel, who later on would work with Supertramp and Elton John. Mandel programmed the Jupiter's appeggiated synth-bass parts. The recording features prominent use of the Roland VP330+ vocoder. The bassline was produced by a Roland Jupiter 8, using the built-in arpeggiator.

David Mallet's music video for the song features scenes from Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi movie Metropolis—Freddie Mercury's solo song "Love Kills" was used in Giorgio Moroder's restored version of the film, and in exchange Queen were granted the rights to use footage from it in their "Radio Ga Ga" video. However, Queen had to buy performance rights to the film from the communist East German government, which was the copyright holder at the time. Critics said that the video looked like a "Nuremberg Rally" much to Roger Taylor's dislike. In the video there is a part where they list some of their earlier videos (such as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Flash", and so forth) in a photo album, illustrating the changes and the influence videos received through the years. In the video Taylor tries to turn right in the vehicle but the vehicle moves to his left, he quickly tries to correct this but the video still shows the error.

In the video, a different version of Bohemian Rhapsody was shown. It can clearly be seen that there are flames around the four members of Queen in the clip.

Queen played a shorter, uptempo version of "Radio Ga Ga" at the Live Aid charity event in 1985 at the Old Wembley Stadium. It became a live favourite thanks largely to the audience participation potential of the clapping sequence prompted by the rhythm of the chorus (copied from the video).

The song was played for the Magic Tour a year later, including twice more at Wembley Stadium; it was recorded for the live album Live at Wembley '86 on 12 July 1986, the second night in the venue.

Paul Young performed the song with Queen at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert again at Wembley Stadium on 20 April 1992.

At the "Party at the Palace" concert, celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee in 2002, "Radio Ga Ga" opened up Queen's set with Roger Taylor on vocals and Phil Collins on the drums.

This song was played on the Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour in 2005/2006 and sung by Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers. It was recorded officially at the Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield, England, on 5 May 2005. The result, Return of the Champions, was released on CD and DVD on 19 September 2005 and 17 October 2005, respectively.

It was also played on the Rock The Cosmos Tour during the fall of 2008, this time with just Rodgers on lead vocals. The concert Live in Ukraine came as a result of this tour, yet the song is not available on the CD or DVD versions released 15 June 2009. This performance of "Radio Ga Ga" is only available as a digital download from iTunes.

Cover versions:

* Roger Taylor performed the song with Spike Edney's SAS Band.
* A heavily modified version of the song serves as the introductory number for We Will Rock You, a musical composed of Queen songs.
* The song was covered in 2004 by Electric Six. The band recorded the song against their wishes under pressure from their label at the time. The video depicts Electric Six frontman, Dick Valentine, as the ghost of Freddie Mercury dancing near his own grave. It was widely misinterpreted that Valentine (as Mercury) was dancing on his grave. He explains on his website's video section "Though some have claimed this video portrays me dancing on Freddie Mercury's grave, actually it's more like we are resurrecting Mr. Mercury for the duration of the song and his grave is the logical starting point." [1] Roger Taylor has said the video is tasteless and that he will "wait for the royalties". On the other hand, Brian May reportedly enjoyed the video.
* Sophie Ellis-Bextor has made a live-cover of this single at the Al Murray's Happy Hour, on ITV.
* "Radio Ga Ga" is one of the songs performed by the inmates of CPDRC Philippines (as seen on various web based video sites).

Influences:

* "Radio Ga Ga" is also the name of a radio station in Targu Mures (Marosvasarhely), Romania, in 88 FM (in the region).[2]
* "Radio Gaga" is also a Norwegian cartoon published in the Norwegian cartoon album pondus.[3]
* "Radio Ga Ga" is also a radio program broadcast on Melbourne's (Australia) 3WBC-FM - 94.1FM locally. See [4]
* "Radio Gaga" is also a Macintosh computer program for listening to and recording Internet radio.
* American pop singer-songwriter and musician Lady Gaga named herself after this song.

2. Tear It Up

"Tear It Up" is May's song, and the demo features him doing the vocals instead of Mercury. It was written as an attempt to revive Queen's old sound. It features stomping percussion similar to "We Will Rock You" that drives the song.

3. It's A Hard Life

"It's a Hard Life" is a song by English rock band Queen, written by lead singer Freddie Mercury. It was featured on their 1984 album The Works, and it was the third single from that album. It reached number 6 in the UK Singles Chart and was their third consecutive Top 10 single from the album.

The opening lyric of "It's a Hard Life" is based on the line "Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto!" (Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your broken love!) from "Vesti la giubba", an aria from Ruggiero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci. Mercury was well-known for his love of opera, which influenced many Queen songs, such as "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Musically, the song strongly features Mercury's piano playing and the band's characteristic technique of layered harmonies. It is recorded very much with the ethos of earlier Queen albums in that it features 'no synthesizers'. By that time the band had been using synths on record since 1980's The Game and the gesture of returning to the traditional Queen sound was comforting to some fans.

Tim Pope's video which accompanies the song (which is full of visual jokes) has been created in an operatic "style," with the band and extras appearing in period "operatic-style" costume. The video also featured an unusual "skull and bones"-themed guitar that cost more than £1,000 [1] played by May, which can be seen on the single cover.

The band found the costumes hot and uncomfortable, and the "eyes" on Mercury's outfit were ridiculed by the others, saying he looked "like a giant prawn"[1]. Both Roger Taylor and Brian May[2] groaned out loud when shown this video during their commentary for the Greatest Video Hits 2 collection. Taylor said it was "the worst music video ever." May pointed out more positively that the video was a thematic joke, as it portrayed Mercury as a wealthy man singing about how hard life and love are, and at that point Mercury in real life possessed great wealth but was still searching for love.

Roger Taylor, by his side, remarked that he'd "actually loved the song, hated the video." Despite this, the video was posted on the band's official YouTube channel.

One of the extras in the clip is Mercury's then-lover, Barbara Valentin.

4. Man On The Prowl

"Man on the Prowl" is a three-chord rockabilly Mercury composition (similar to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love") in which Fred Mandel plays the piano ending. Note that "Tear It Up", "It's a Hard Life" and this song are free of synthesizers. Mercury played rhythm guitar throughout the song, while May played the solo using a Telecaster.

5. Machines (Or 'Back To Humans')

"Machines (Or 'Back to Humans')" came up as an idea by Taylor, and May collaborated with him and finished it. Producer Reinhold Mack programmed the synth-"demolition" using a Fairlight CMI II Sampler, and the song is sung as a duet between two Mercury (harmonising with each other) and a robotic Taylor (using a Roland VP330 Vocoder). The instrumental remix of the song samples parts of "Ogre Battle" from Queen's second album Queen II. This song, along with Radio Ga Ga are some of the heaviest uses of electronics on the album.

6. I Want To Break Free

"I Want to Break Free" was written by bassist John Deacon. In the UK Chart, it peaked at number 3, and remained in the chart for fifteen consecutive weeks from its release in late April 1984. Most of the song follows the traditional 12 bar blues progression in E Major, a rare thing for a Queen song.

Two differing versions of the song are in circulation. The version on The Works is in fact shorter than the single remix by 61 seconds, because of a fade-in synthesiser introduction and a longer solo in which both the synthesiser and guitar feature separately. This is in contrast to "Hammer to Fall", a song which was edited down by thirty seconds from the album version to be released as a single. The promotional 45 sent to radio stations by Capitol Records had both versions on either side. However, Queen's name and the song title were deliberately left off one, so the labels read "Special Single Mix (Queen 4:21)" and "Special Single Mix-Edited (3:59).

The music video, directed by David Mallet, was a parody of the northern British soap opera Coronation Street. During part of the video, the band members dressed in drag, as mildly similar characters found in the soap at the time; Mercury's character was loosely based on Bet Lynch, while May's character was based on Hilda Ogden.[1] The video also depicted the band in what appeared to be a coal mine in their normal look, and it also features a ballet piece with the Royal Ballet (one of the dancers was Jeremy Sheffield), for which Freddie Mercury shaved his trademark moustache to portray Nijinsky (though he had kept it for the parody part of the video, interestingly enough). According to Brian May in an interview about Queen's Greatest Hits, the video ruined the band in America, where many people - unlike the case in the UK - failed to see the soap-opera connection & interpreted the video as an open declaration of transvestitism and Mercury’s homosexuality. This might explain why singles failed to go above #40 in the US Billboard charts after "Radio Ga Ga", until The Show Must Go On reached No. 2. The video was initially banned by MTV in the U.S., but the ban was lifted in 1991 when it aired on VH1's My Generation 2-part episodes devoted to Queen hosted by guitarist Brian May. The song received renewed attention when it was used in a media advertising campaign for Safeway.

Cover versions:

* In 1998, Masterboy made a dance cover.
* Belgian singer Arno Hintjens recorded a cover of the song.
* In 2006, Dewa 19, one of the bestselling Indonesian rock bands covered the song on their album Republik Cinta (Republic of Love).
* A ska version was recorded and released by Australian ska band Area 7.
* Las Vegas band, The Cab, released a cover of this song in June 2009 on The Lady Luck EP

Live cover performances:

* At the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, Lisa Stansfield performed the song. She entered the Wembley stage wearing hair curlers (à la Hilda Ogden) and pushing a vacuum cleaner in a direct reference and tribute to the song's video.

* Extreme performed the song live a few times. Most notably, they played a bit of it during their medley on the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. They also performed it live in London around the same time with Brian May himself as a guest guitarist.

Parodies

In the late 1990s, the Spanish TV program "El Informal" made a parody of the videoclip of the song. The song was called "Me Quiero Reír" (I Want to Laugh) and it featured the presenters dressed as the band members and performing funny sketches.

7. Keep Passing the Open Windows

"Keep Passing the Open Windows" was written by Mercury in 1983 for the film version of The Hotel New Hampshire, based on a novel by John Irving. The phrase is mentioned on a number of occasions throughout the film and was, according to the opening credits, also co-produced by the band's manager Jim Beach, who changed it in order to suit the album mood better. Mercury played piano and synths and wrote the lyrics after reading the quote in the book.

8. Hammer To Fall

"Hammer to Fall" is a 1984 hard rock song written by Brian May and performed by the British rock group Queen. It appeared on their 1984 album The Works.

It was the fourth and final single to be released from that album, although the single version was edited down by thirty seconds in contrast to the version on the album. Different sleeves were used to package this single and the live picture sleeve is now a collector's item. The song was also the subject of a popular music video directed by David Mallet, in which was a regular live performance of the song by the band in Brussels during the Works Tour, over which the single edit of the song was dubbed. The song harks back to the Queen of old, with a song being built around a hard angular and muscular riff.

The song was a concert favorite and was also played at Live Aid. Live versions of the song in the 1980s also usually served as an opporitunity for touring keyboardist Spike Edney to appear onstage playing rhythm guitar (he was usually not visible from his keyboard stack.) A different version of the song with the first part played in the style of a ballad was played by Queen + Paul Rodgers in 2005. The song peaked at number 13 in the UK, at 1 in the EUA and Japan, and at 3 in South America; then was later featured in the film Highlander.

At the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, Extreme singer Gary Cherone performed the song with the band, having earlier done a medley of other Queen songs with his own group.

The lyrics refer to the Cold War era in which the band members grew up, fuelling the popular conception that the song was about nuclear war:

For we who grew up tall and proud
In the shadow of the mushroom cloud
Convinced our voices can't be heard
We just wanna scream it louder and louder and louder
What the hell are we fighting for
Just surrender and it won't hurt at all

The song, however, contains many more references to death and its inevitability:

Rich or poor or famous
For your truth it's all the same (oh no oh no)
Lock your door while the rain is pouring
Through your window pane (oh no)
Baby now your struggle's all in vain, yeah, yeah.

The issue was effectively settled when May wrote on his website that Hammer to Fall is really about life and death, and being aware of death as being part of life. "The Hammer coming down is only a symbol of the Grim Reaper doing his job!"

9. Is This the World We Created...?

"Is This the World We Created...?" was written in Munich after Mercury and May watched the news. Mercury wrote the lyrics and May wrote the chords. The song was recorded with an Ovation but live they used May's Gibson Chet Atkins CE nylon-stringed guitar.