FEATURE:
Groovelines
Queen – Somebody to Love
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I wanted to look…
at one of Queen’s best songs. On 24th November, it will be thirty-five since we lost Freddie Mercury. Rather than do a playlist and something random, I wanted to use the opportunity to feature a Queen classic. One that Freddie Mercury wrote, Somebody to Love was included on Queen’s 1976 album, A Day at the Races. The album turns fifty on 10th December. I wonder if there will be any anniversary recognition. If the surviving members will say anything about the album or whether there will be a reissue of some sort. Somebody to Love was the lead single from the album. That song turns fifty on 12th November. So this is partly to mark that anniversary and also remembering Freddie Mercury ahead of the anniversary of his death. Reaching number two in the U.K., Somebody to Love was a big commercial success. There were some critics who were not too hot on the song, though many noted how Queen were pushing the boundaries of Pop music. Operatic and symphonic, Somebody to Love is this huge and heartfelt song that showcased Mercury’s incredible voice and songwriting. I am going to end with a feature from 2021. Ultimate Classic Rock recalling when George Michael fronted Queen in 1992 and performed Somebody to Love at a Freddie Mercury tribute concert. I will start off with American Songwriter and their article that talked about the meaning of Somebody to Love:
“The Shadow of “Rhapsody”
It’s not quite accurate to say “Bohemian Rhapsody” and A Night at the Opera (the album that contained the song) put Queen on the map in 1975. They had already been lurking in the singles charts before that with songs like “Killer Queen,” and their ’74 album Sheer Heart Attack had been a top hit in both the UK (No. 2) and U.S. (No. 12).
But that wildly ambitious track did indeed send the band up a few levels in the rock hierarchy. Releasing anything after such a smash would be daunting enough. Couple that with the fact Queen would be recording for the first time without Roy Thomas Baker, the producer on their first four albums, and the next record, titled A Day at the Races, could have been problematic.
Luckily, the quartet possessed strong ideas of what they wanted their next album to be. As always, the lead single would be crucial. Queen gamely tried something a little different with that track, leaving behind the extremes of light opera and hard rock in favor of a little bit of American gospel.
Queen and the Queen of Soul
Mercury’s unabashed love of the music of Aretha Franklin came bounding to the forefront when he began writing “Somebody to Love,” as he explained in an interview found in the Queen The Greatest YouTube series. In fact, he even annoyed his bandmates with his constant praise of her:
“And there’s me going on about Aretha Franklin, sort of made them go a bit mad. … I just wanted to write something in that kind of thing. I was sort of incentivized by the gospel approach that she had on her albums, the earlier albums.”
Queen made sure not to make the stylistic change so drastic that it might alienate fans of their earlier hits. The layered vocals sounded enough like “Bohemian Rhapsody” to give fans a little bit of déjà vu. And Brian May added a typically lyrical guitar solo. Beside those elements, however, “Somebody to Love” certainly owes a lot to the testifying style of Franklin and other gospel greats. That style set Mercury up for one of his finest individual vocal performances, one where he displays staggering range and palpable feeling.
What is the Meaning of “Somebody to Love”?
“Somebody to Love” casts Freddie Mercury in the role of hapless romantic, and it’s a role he plays to the absolute hilt. He immediately sets his despairing tone after the a cappella open: Ooh each morning I get up I die a little. His only companions are the Greek chorus-like backing vocals that follow him around, seconding his emotions. Example: I get down (down) on my knees (knees) and I start to pray (praise the lord).
The narrator shows frustration at the neglect he’s been suffering from the deity he keeps addressing: I have spent all my years believin’ you / But I just can’t get no relief, Lord. Bits of quirky humor sneak through to keep matters from getting overwrought, such as when the narrator’s acquaintances worry about his mental health: They say I got a lot of water on my brain.
But this wouldn’t be a Queen song if there weren’t some kind of triumph over opposing forces, and that comes in the final lines when the narrator, against all evidence to the contrary, finds optimism: I ain’t gonna face no defeat / I just gotta get out this prison cell / Someday I’m gonna be free, Lord. That leads to the coda, as the backing vocals repeat the refrain and Mercury soars all around them with his improvs. Maybe the narrator of “Somebody to Love” comes up empty, but the song itself proved Queen could tackle genres that few other rock bands could even attempt”.
Prior to ending with tat feature about George Michael and his cover of Somebody to Love, there is an NME article from 2023 I want to bring in. Greatest Hits Radio listeners named Bohemian Rhapsody as the best song ever. Often seen as the finest work from Queen, a former roadie for the band recalled how Mercury felt Somebody to Love was a better song. In terms of the songwriting. It is a towering performance that I don’t think the band ever equalled:
“Queen’s Freddie Mercury thought ‘Somebody To Love’ was “better” than ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, according to a roadie who once worked with the band.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was named ‘greatest song of all time’ by over 6500 listeners, former roadie and author of Queen Uncovered Peter Hince remembers the band coming up with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and Mercury’s thoughts on the track.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio he explained: “The band were recording [album] ‘Night At The Opera’ and we were going around all these different studios in London and doing bits in each place so I was hearing bits and pieces of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but I didn’t hear the whole thing for quite some time. I remember hearing the opera bit and thinking it’s going to be an introduction tape for the live show – I had no idea it was a song!”
He continued: “The video is arguably what helped it become so huge in Britain…and the other thing is that, sadly, Freddie isn’t around anymore and it’s one of his legacies that piece of music so is still something people find very emotional.
“Also, nothing really had been done like it before and probably nothing since – with all the technology now it is easier to get certain studio effects whereas with Queen it was all about spending enormous amounts of time and being incredibly innovative. So I think part of [it’s appeal] is in the fact that it took so long to do and it was this real labour of love for Fred.’
“…Freddie actually said ‘Somebody To Love’ was a better piece of songwriting than Bo Rap. He felt that as a pure piece of songwriting it was better,” he concluded”.
I will end with Ultimate Classic Rock. A 1992 tribute concert for Freddie Mercury gathered artists together to pay tribute to the late Queen frontman. It was quite a task tackling Somebody to Love. Few artists have the power and technical ability to do full justice to the song. However, there is one artist that does have the lung and gift to conquer the song: George Michael. It is also sad, as this Christmas Day marks ten years since Michael died. One of the greatest artists we have ever seen:
“George Michael fronted Queen for a performance of “Somebody to Love” before thousands on April 20, 1992, at Wembley Stadium.
Combine that audience with those reached by live television and radio broadcasts in 76 countries across the globe, and Michael's voice reached hundreds of millions of ears during the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness. But the late pop star was really thinking of just one person.
"The performance most well known in my career," Michael said in the documentary Freedom, "was sung to my lover who was dying."
Anselmo Feleppa had just been diagnosed with AIDS, but Michael wasn’t publicly out – so his relationship with Feleppa was a secret. That left Michael to take the stage while enduring a very personal pain, even as he honored another of the disease's victims.
“I went out there knowing I had to honor Freddie Mercury and I had to pray for Anselmo,” Michael said in the film, which was produced before he passed away in 2016. “I just wanted to die inside. I was so overwhelmed by singing the songs of this man I had worshiped as a child, who had passed away in the same manner my first living partner was going to experience.”
Mercury died six months before this tribute concert, which co-starred Metallica, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, Elton John and other A-list artists. Highlights included Annie Lennox and David Bowie performing "Under Pressure," and Queen teaming with Robert Plant for "Innuendo." But Michael’s work that evening in London was stunning.
With the three remaining Queen members beside him, Michael launching into a stomping take on “39” fit for an Irish pub session. He welcomed Lisa Stansfield for a tear-jerking collaboration on "These Are the Days of Our Lives." But “Somebody to Love” – which was paired with "These Are the Days of Our Lives" for 1993's Five Live, a benefit EP for the Mercury Phoenix Trust – brought the house down.
Michael's performance inevitably led to thoughts of a more permanent role in Queen.
"I remember hearing the rumors, but it wouldn't have suited us," Roger Taylor later told Classic Rock. "George wasn't really used to working with a live band. When he heard the power he had behind him in rehearsal, he couldn’t believe it. He thought he was on Concorde or something."
Taylor called it "a thrill to work with George Michael," though he wasn't surprised by how fluidly the former Wham frontman stepped into Mercury's hard-to-fill shoes. "I knew he had that in him," Taylor told Classic Rock. "In addition to the great delicacy which he has — the great control, great dynamics — he has enormous power. And from the moment he stepped into the rehearsal room and was doing 'Somebody to Love,' we went, 'Whoa.' I think in most people's feeling, he got closest to the range of Freddie himself."
Michael felt that same magic too, and had only kind thoughts for Queen. "It was probably the proudest, proudest moment for me of my career," Michael said in Freedom, "because it was me living out a childhood fantasy, I suppose, to sing one of Freddie's songs in front of 80,000 people. It was a really strange mixture of incredible pride and real sadness for me”.
On 12th November, it will be fifty years since one of Queen’s best singles was released. On 24th November, we remember Freddie Mercury thirty-five years since he died. If most polls put Bohemian Rhapsody top when it comes to ranking the best Queen songs, there are those that place Somebody to Love high. In 2018, The Guardian ranked Queen’s U.K. singles in 2018. Somebody to Love came tenth. Rolling Stone named the ten best/most essential Queen songs in 2024. The readers decided. Somebody to Love came in fourth: “Queen had a tough task in front of them when they went into the studio to begin work on their 1976 LP A Day at the Races. How in God's name do you follow up "Bohemian Rhapsody?" Freddie knew he couldn't match the grand madness of that song, but he still came up with a pretty incredible soul tune with "Somebody to Love." He wrote the song on the piano and then dubbed in vocals by Brian May and Roger Taylor, making the trio sound like a full choir. It was a huge hit that year, reaching Number 13 in America. George Michael delivered a stirring rendition of the tune at the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert”. Earlier this year, u DiscoverMusic named the twenty essential songs from Queen. Tracks that redefined Rock. Somebody to Love was among the selected: “Somebody To Love” demonstrates Queen’s ability to deliver brilliant soulful, gospel-flavored pop. Mercury’s lyrics, about the search for salvation and spiritual redemption, was the ideal opening single from the A Day At The Races album and shot to No.2 in the charts. Mercury’s respect for soul music legend Aretha Franklin was a major inspiration behind the song”. Somebody to Love is a masterpiece from Queen. A single about to turn fifty, it still sends shivers down the spine when you hear it. A peerless vocal from…
THE late great Freddie Mercury.