Quotes related to 'The Miracle' album

Quotes related to the album

On being harder less pop: The way it came out very guitar oriented just happened, as far as I can see. It's very strange. It may have come about because we were actually doing more playing together. There's a lot of live takes on there, So, you know, whereas we had got fairly machine oriented for a while, this isn't. There's a lot of technology, but it's kind of after the event. It's basically us playing as a band. So I guess it sounds like it. And no one's more happy than I am. Having decided that we were going to credit every track to the four of us, as opposed to just one, everybody argued over every note... Which is very healthy, and it's much more of a cohesive group effort than we've done for a long time.

Brian May; Hard 'N' Heavy, Video Magazine vol. 3, 1989 #

Quotes related to 'Breakthru' #

The track Breakthru sort of stemmed from Roger, really, it's basically his track, but the sort a-cappella vocal bit in front was from somewhere else. That was a little piece that I thought was quite good and I didn't want it to go amiss, so I just said, well let's just put in front of that one, put it in front of Breakthru, so it's basically another song, but it seemed to sort of segue quite nicely, so it's just a snippet of something else.

Freddie Mercury; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

Breakthru has a synth bass line - it just didn't seem to work with a live bass guitar, and the guys aren't too purists to leave it as it is.

David Richards; Sound on Sound, August 1989 #

I very much like this track. It's a Roger track, full of energy. Of course the track is speaking, lyrically, about breaking through to the next part of your life. And, on another level, it's just a nice bit of fun.

Brian May; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

The song actually ended up being more complicated than I wanted it. I think the others wanted to put a key change in. I hate key changes usually, and that's not one of my favourite key changes, but I think this song should've been kept simpler and it was just slightly over-arranged in the end, but it kept everyone else happy.

Roger Taylor; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

If I'm honest, I have mixed feelings about splitting the songwriting credits on those later records. I wrote The Invisible Man and Breakthru very deliberately to be hits. We wanted to have hits because we wanted to stay relevant in the ‘90s. Parts of Innuendo were much heavier, but it's impossible to say where we'd have gone next if Freddie had lived.

Roger Taylor; Mojo, July 2019 #

Quotes related to 'Hang On In There' #

It's much more like the old days. On the first few albums the songs would grow into strange shapes. I don't think any of the new songs escaped “the treatment.” We thought Hang on in There had gotten a bit too obscure. Devotees of the band would get off on it, but it's not regular album material.

Brian May; Sounds, May 1989 #

We began using synthesisers and there were many excursions from us all into keyboard territory. My main contributions on principal parts were (in no particular order) in: Scandal, Was It All Worth It, Hang On In There, Too Much Love Will Kill You (which was done with Frank Musker up in his house in the Canyon in L.A. when we first sketched the song), No-one But You (again done on my own, originally for use on my solo album), One Vision (my first ramblings on a Kurzweil gave rise to the opening section), I Can't Live With You, The Show Must Go On (that sequence just got thrust into my head playing around with Roger - I will never know where it came from, but it completely took me over for a long time while the song was in development), and of course, Who Wants to Live Forever.

Brian May; Official Website, 23rd of April 2003 #

Quotes related to 'I Want It All' #

It re-establishes our old image in a way. It's nice to come back with something strong, something that reminds people we're a live group. I love heavy metal and I don't look down on it at all. But we're not a heavy metal group. I think you have to love something to play it. When I produced Bad News, I found that Ade Edmondson lives and breathes heavy rock music. And I love people that are so immersed in it that it's serious. I love AC/DC – what they do, it's very pure. But we're not that way, so we can't pretend we are. It's good to be able to step back and see the funny side of it, because it kicks out some of the shit.  Just before we put the single out I started listening to what's on the radio, and the kind of stuff that becomes a hit these days bears no resemblance to what we do. But there are a few people out there who sit up when we do our stuff. I think the demographics are different for us. I don't think there are many thirteen year olds out there buying our records, and that age group is a large percentage of the record-buying public. I don't think we're a singles band really. People only remember the hits. It's been pretty up and down with singles. But I suppose we have done OK.

Brian May; Sounds, May 1989 #

After we did the tour in 1986, which was a very big European tour, we were all absolutely exhausted and shattered and, basically, we didn't want to really work together or see each other for a while. That took a least a year to a year and a half, and then towards the end of that second year, we sort of met up and Freddie suggested, “perhaps we try a little time in the studio?” The third year was spent making the album, so in a way it was a two-year gap to us rather than three years. The first few weeks of the recording we did lot of live material, a lot of songs and ideas came up, some jamming. We had a few ideas that were already prepared. I Want It All was one of the few songs that was actually written before we went in.

John Deacon; Making of the video for Breakthru, June 1989 #

The first single, I Want It All, was recorded practically live in the studio… I also have an Atari/ C-Lab setup at home now, but I find the Linn stops you getting too involved, otherwise you can spend hours shifting notes around. One section of I Want It All sounds very complex but it was done in 10 minutes on the Linn.

David Richards; Sound on Sound, August 1989 #

I'm not sure whether Freddie was a hundred per cent over the moon about this album. He was very pleased with the result but perhaps he found it a little strange to be working in partnership with the other three members again after having to please only one other person for the past two-and-a-half years. This was the first album where all the tracks were suddenly credited to the band as a whole as opposed to each separate member. Maybe this stopped some arguments and made the accountants' lives easier but in the studio things were just as fractious. As anybody in a long-term marriage knows, which is basically what the Queen partnership was, tantrums and walkouts have to happen so that people can make up, get back together again and let life be good once more. However, for the record, I can assert that Khashoggi's Ship is Freddie's. Party was, of course, Roger's [sic]. The Miracle itself was a true studio collaborative creation. I Want It All is down to Brian. Rain Must Fall is Freddie… The guitar is the giveaway where Brian's tracks are concerned. The guitar work on them is unrestrained although he was very happy to contribute what was wanted of him on all the other tracks. The band didn't change their time-honoured way of working just because the accreditation had been changed.

Peter Freestone; An Intimate Memoir, 1st of November 2001 #

We were never able to perform this song live. It would've become something which was a sort of staple core of the Queen show, I'm sure, ‘cause this is very participative - it was designed for the audience to sing along and stuff, very anthemic. Interestingly, I wrote myself a little bit in the middle. I can't remember quite why that was - it's a very kind of Pete Townshend thing to do, isn't it? But it made a nice little kind of duet in the middle, a little bit of sparring between me and Freddie, and I know he enjoyed that. Interestingly, we headed into the period where we decided to share the credit for all the songs, and I Want It All - I noticed John, elsewhere in this extra section, says that I Want It All was pretty much a finished song when we went in the studio; that was true, really. It's one of these riffs that I was obsessed with for months, so I would wake up with it going through my head. And the actual title was something which was a favourite phrase of Anita's, who was later to become my wife. One of her phrases was, being very ambitious girl, “I want it all and I want it now.”

Brian May; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

It's got that nice fast rock section in the middle, which I really enjoyed. I think people had forgotten that we could play rock ‘n' roll at that stage.

Roger Taylor; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

Queen anthem? Anthems are us! The I Want It All idea actually did come from my soon-to-be spouse at that time. She wasn't at the time. Anita had this phrase, “I want it all and I want it now,” that sort of summed up her ambition and drive and I just thought it was a great theme and set my mind working. I remember writing most of it while trying to get weeds out of the lawn in Los Angeles obsessively, but this… you know, sometimes things just go round in your head and you can't get rid of them, no matter what you do. So I Want It All became a sort of mantra in my head and… it's one of these things when you take it to the group, it rises to a new height and we'd made the decision for this album that we would credit everything to all of us, so it's a Queen song, which is good. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. It's nice that this song was taken up by organisations who were fighting for freedom in various parts of the world, which in a way, you know, it's part of the conception of the song. If you listen to the words, it is about the underprivileged kid trying to find a way to make his presence felt in the world. The end's interesting with Fred going “hoo-ha”. It became a sort of catch phrase in our little world.

Brian May; Absolute Greatest, 11th of November 2009 #

By then, we all realised we were stronger together than apart. Still, every system has its flaws. There were moments where all of us thought we'd given too much away. If it comes up about who wrote, say, I Want It All, I'll say, “Yes, that's me.” Then I have to remember, “Oh, hang on. It says ‘Queen' in the credits.” I'm being honest, there is still a bit of that.

Brian May; Mojo, July 2019 #

Quotes related to 'Khashoggi’s Ship' #

I regard Khashoggi's Ship and Was It All Worth It as the two ends of the album, and both are comments on ourselves. We read about that kind of society life - the parties on the ship, the excess. We feel that we've touched on those areas at some time. We've been through it.

Brian May; Sounds, May 1989 #

We felt that we wanted to, and I remember, in fact, the first couple of tracks, Party and Khashoggi's Ship… is something that we just came into the studio, and things just evolved, naturally, straight away, so we were hungry for it.

Freddie Mercury; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

Actually, that was really, I think, Freddie and Brian. I think I was having a skiing holiday at the time actually, and I came back, and they had the ideas for… no, I think Khashoggi's we were all there, but Party arose when I wasn't actually around.

Roger Taylor; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

I'm not sure whether Freddie was a hundred per cent over the moon about this album. He was very pleased with the result but perhaps he found it a little strange to be working in partnership with the other three members again after having to please only one other person for the past two-and-a-half years. This was the first album where all the tracks were suddenly credited to the band as a whole as opposed to each separate member. Maybe this stopped some arguments and made the accountants' lives easier but in the studio things were just as fractious. As anybody in a long-term marriage knows, which is basically what the Queen partnership was, tantrums and walkouts have to happen so that people can make up, get back together again and let life be good once more. However, for the record, I can assert that Khashoggi's Ship is Freddie's. Party was, of course, Roger's [sic]. The Miracle itself was a true studio collaborative creation. I Want It All is down to Brian. Rain Must Fall is Freddie… The guitar is the giveaway where Brian's tracks are concerned. The guitar work on them is unrestrained although he was very happy to contribute what was wanted of him on all the other tracks. The band didn't change their time-honoured way of working just because the accreditation had been changed.

Peter Freestone; An Intimate Memoir, 1st of November 2001 #

Quotes related to 'My Baby Does Me' #

[Mercury] came up with the bass-line, which [he] made me play. It is very different from other tracks on the album.

John Deacon; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

I think that song stems from John and myself. I seem to remember that I wanted something a little more relaxed, and the way the other songs were going, and I thought we're getting so involved and they're very heavy, and there was a lot of guitar input in some songs, and I felt that we didn't have something that was sort of a little bit more pristine, a little bit more, sort of clear-headed, and not too involved, and so we decided, I thought, “let's just go for something quite straightforward, and something that we hadn't got in the batch.” So we decided that we should have something with just a very easy backbeat, and something very listenable, and I don't think it was going to go on the album at first, we just decided that that would be a nice breather at the end of the second side, so we kept that in, but apart from that there's no sort of wonderful idea behind it.

Freddie Mercury; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

This is one from Freddie and John.

Roger Taylor; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

The band wrote My Baby Does Me using a drum machine and we decided to keep it in; we had two different patterns and I used an SRC (SMPTE Reading Clock) to put them on separate tracks with a slight delay between them. That produced a slight phasing effect, which we decided to keep - it's the most natural type of phasing you can have, and I like that sort of spontaneity.

David Richards; Sound on Sound, August 1989 #

Quotes related to 'Party' #

We felt that we wanted to, and I remember, in fact, the first couple of tracks, Party and Khashoggi's Ship… is something that we just came into the studio, and things just evolved, naturally, straight away, so we were hungry for it.

Freddie Mercury; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

Actually, that was really, I think, Freddie and Brian. I think I was having a skiing holiday at the time actually, and I came back, and they had the ideas for… no, I think Khashoggi's we were all there, but Party arose when I wasn't actually around.

Roger Taylor; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

I'm not sure whether Freddie was a hundred per cent over the moon about this album. He was very pleased with the result but perhaps he found it a little strange to be working in partnership with the other three members again after having to please only one other person for the past two-and-a-half years. This was the first album where all the tracks were suddenly credited to the band as a whole as opposed to each separate member. Maybe this stopped some arguments and made the accountants' lives easier but in the studio things were just as fractious. As anybody in a long-term marriage knows, which is basically what the Queen partnership was, tantrums and walkouts have to happen so that people can make up, get back together again and let life be good once more. However, for the record, I can assert that Khashoggi's Ship is Freddie's. Party was, of course, Roger's [sic]. The Miracle itself was a true studio collaborative creation. I Want It All is down to Brian. Rain Must Fall is Freddie… The guitar is the giveaway where Brian's tracks are concerned. The guitar work on them is unrestrained although he was very happy to contribute what was wanted of him on all the other tracks. The band didn't change their time-honoured way of working just because the accreditation had been changed.

Peter Freestone; An Intimate Memoir, 1st of November 2001 #

Quotes related to 'Rain Must Fall' #

A lot of overdubs on top.

John Deacon; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

That's a sort of a bit of a mixture, that's a mish-mash really, there's sort of quite machine like in some ways, but with sort of African overtones. There's a lot of sort of percussion on top that I did, on top of that one, so there's all sorts of things happening, but they made me take most of it out of course, to make room for the guitars… and the vocals.

Roger Taylor; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

Rain Must Fall is mostly synthesizer; I did the drums and the sequencing on the Linn 9000. I also have an Atari / C-Lab setup at home now, but I find the Linn stops you getting too involved, otherwise you can spend hours shifting notes around.

David Richards; Sound on Sound, August 1989 #

I'm not sure whether Freddie was a hundred per cent over the moon about this album. He was very pleased with the result but perhaps he found it a little strange to be working in partnership with the other three members again after having to please only one other person for the past two-and-a-half years. This was the first album where all the tracks were suddenly credited to the band as a whole as opposed to each separate member. Maybe this stopped some arguments and made the accountants' lives easier but in the studio things were just as fractious. As anybody in a long-term marriage knows, which is basically what the Queen partnership was, tantrums and walkouts have to happen so that people can make up, get back together again and let life be good once more. However, for the record, I can assert that Khashoggi's Ship is Freddie's. Party was, of course, Roger's [sic]. The Miracle itself was a true studio collaborative creation. I Want It All is down to Brian. Rain Must Fall is Freddie… The guitar is the giveaway where Brian's tracks are concerned. The guitar work on them is unrestrained although he was very happy to contribute what was wanted of him on all the other tracks. The band didn't change their time-honoured way of working just because the accreditation had been changed.

Peter Freestone; An Intimate Memoir, 1st of November 2001 #

Very much a Deacon area.

Brian May; Official Website, 1st of September 2004 #

Quotes related to 'Scandal' #

[story behind the song] Well, Yeah. I mean, it's something which has affected us, individually, as members of the group recently. It's very strange, 'cause we were fairly famous for a long time in England, you know the last fifteen years or whatever, but we didn't become a prey to these kind of scummy papers until recently. And it's not related to what you are doing, you know. They are not interested what music you play, or anything. They just want the dirt, and if they can't find any they'll invent it if they choose to pick on you. So we were all going through a lot of changes in our lives and suddenly it became a big problem, you know, in a similar way... you've heard about what they did to Elton, you know? These stories about Elton, and everything, which he sued them for and got a million quid off 'em. You know, great. Well they did very similar things to me particularly, and to a certain extent to Roger, and Freddie also had been through it a little while before. But this thing is total.. you know, steam in and destroy someone's life. They really are the scum of the earth. You can't exaggerate it too much.

Brian May; Hard 'N' Heavy, Video Magazine vol. 3, 1989 #

We've all been hauled through the tabloids now. It's very strange that we've been moderately famous for some time, but not tabloid fodder until the last three years. It's not been pleasant. Some papers want a certain kind of news, and it can wreck people's lives. I don't think those papers have any sense of responsibility about it. I thought it would never happen to me. I thought I was a very stable person and not open to anything like that. But life changes, you know? I kicked and screamed against it, but in the end you do change. You grow, the people you're with grow, and sometimes you don't grow together. It actually screwed me up completely. For nearly a year I was incapable, so depressed. It wasn't all because of the papers, but they don't help. Most of it they made up anyway, but there's no point denying it because you just make it worse.

Brian May; Sounds, May 1989 #

I think this is [Brian's].

Roger Taylor; Hard 'N' Heavy, Video Magazine vol. 3, 1989 #

We began using synthesisers and there were many excursions from us all into keyboard territory. My main contributions on principal parts were (in no particular order) in: Scandal, Was It All Worth It, Hang On In There, Too Much Love Will Kill You (which was done with Frank Musker up in his house in the Canyon in L.A. when we first sketched the song), No-one But You (again done on my own, originally for use on my solo album), One Vision (my first ramblings on a Kurzweil gave rise to the opening section), I Can't Live With You, The Show Must Go On (that sequence just got thrust into my head playing around with Roger - I will never know where it came from, but it completely took me over for a long time while the song was in development), and of course, Who Wants to Live Forever.

Brian May; Official Website, 23rd of April 2003 #

This is something from me, obviously, as far as the idea of the song happened in the studio, really; but, thematically, it's very close to all of our hearts because particularly Freddie and particularly me - and a little bit later on Roger, actually -, we were pursued by the media to a very destructive point. It was very painful, we did get very hurt at these paparazzi invading our lives - not just our lives but the lives of all those near and dear to us. All our loved ones got incredibly trashed and I never did understand the necessity for that kind of thing, but I guess there is money to be made by trashing people's lives in the newspapers and it's probably never gonna change in England. For me, it was a pretty serious song, I have to say. Not serious in the sense that I think it's that great, but serious in the sense that there was a lot of reality in the lyrics for me.

Brian May; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

Not one of my favourite songs. One of the most boring videos we ever made. Don't remember much about it - I just remember being bored. It's rather of its time and not one of our better things, I think. Didn't do anything for me and, for something that was called Scandal, it wasn't scandalous. I think the British press is just poxy, really, but I don't remember this record really making much of a statement. If you wanna make a statement, you should really make a statement. Didn't do it for me, that one.

Roger Taylor; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

Quotes related to 'The Invisible Man' #

I'm to blame for that one, sort of, but then everybody came in and that went through quite a few changes, due to everybody else putting in different bits, and restructuring it, etc, etc. I can't remember where the idea did come from, I think it came from a book I was reading, and it just seemed to fit in with a sort of a rhythmic pattern I had in mind, and it sort of came there, from nowhere really.

Roger Taylor; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

If I'm honest, I have mixed feelings about splitting the songwriting credits on those later records. I wrote The Invisible Man and Breakthru very deliberately to be hits. We wanted to have hits because we wanted to stay relevant in the ‘90s. Parts of Innuendo were much heavier, but it's impossible to say where we'd have gone next if Freddie had lived.

Roger Taylor; Mojo, July 2019 #

Quotes related to 'The Miracle' #

We got pasted to the wall for this in England. Everybody hated it, for some reason. It's very uncool to be idealistic in Britain, I suppose, at the moment, and they said "How can they talk about peace", and all that sort of stuff, then of course, China happened and everything. It seems very relevant to us.

Brian May; Hard 'N' Heavy, Video Magazine vol. 3, 1989 #

I expect [critics] to say we're an arrogant bunch of bastards like they usually do. The Miracle isn't supposed to be us, it's supposed to be something that we're looking for - peace on Earth - and that will be lambasted as crass idealism. But there you go.

Brian May; Sounds, May 1989 #

I think that's one of the songs where we all contributed. I think on this album it's the closest we've ever actually been in terms of actually writing together and that's quite true - before, we've actually had individual songs, that we sort of put about and bring to the other people, and the other, I mean, you know, the others would put their sort of bits in it, but I think from the start, these tracks have actually emerged by the four of us. So that's why I think this album's got nearly all tracks written by Queen, but lyrically going back to The Miracle, I think the four of us really put everything into it, because I mean, somebody would come in with one line and say, “oh that's terrible” and change it, and so, in fact, I mean, in one way I hate that because I have to keep singing the different lyrics every day, until, until we sort of agree on the final one, but I'd say, lyrically, The Miracle is a definite four-way split.

Freddie Mercury; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

In England idealism is naivety, which is wrong, it's not. There's nothing wrong with idealism. Nick Lowe wrote that great song, great title - What's so Bad [sic] about Peace, Love and Understanding [sic]. Yeah, and what is so bad about it?

Roger Taylor; Hard 'N' Heavy, Video Magazine vol. 3, 1989 #

The song came from Freddie, and I think it's incredible that Freddie was able to write with such optimism at that point, ‘cause we didn't know, but he knew, what was gonna happen to him, and he's seen some of his friends die, so he knew how it was gonna be. I think the stuff that he wrote is quite incredible. He maintained his head above the water.

Brian May; Press Conference in Budapest, 27th of June 1993 #

A lot of people think that Innuendo is much better than The Miracle but I like them both. I was in a complete state of mental untogetherness during most of the making of The Miracle; I always say that it's a miracle that I managed to play anything at all. What I did play I'm quite proud of but my input to the material wasn't as good as it could have been. By Innuendo the others were having emotional problems and I was a bit more together so I was able to pitch into the writing a lot more. I think they are both very good albums; The Miracle track, which is mainly Freddie, is a small masterpiece in its own way. And Was It All Worth It I really like. That's me and Fred, but more him. For that track we did all sit around and try to come up with rhymes and stuff. Roger's very good at that.

Brian May; Guitarist, October 1994 #

I'm not sure whether Freddie was a hundred per cent over the moon about this album. He was very pleased with the result but perhaps he found it a little strange to be working in partnership with the other three members again after having to please only one other person for the past two-and-a-half years. This was the first album where all the tracks were suddenly credited to the band as a whole as opposed to each separate member. Maybe this stopped some arguments and made the accountants' lives easier but in the studio things were just as fractious. As anybody in a long-term marriage knows, which is basically what the Queen partnership was, tantrums and walkouts have to happen so that people can make up, get back together again and let life be good once more. However, for the record, I can assert that Khashoggi's Ship is Freddie's. Party was, of course, Roger's [sic]. The Miracle itself was a true studio collaborative creation. I Want It All is down to Brian. Rain Must Fall is Freddie… The guitar is the giveaway where Brian's tracks are concerned. The guitar work on them is unrestrained although he was very happy to contribute what was wanted of him on all the other tracks. The band didn't change their time-honoured way of working just because the accreditation had been changed.

Peter Freestone; An Intimate Memoir, 1st of November 2001 #

I've always loved this track, I think it's one of Freddie's most magical compositions and I remember the joy we had in the studio, it was one of those moments where we really did work together, all four of us, on ideas, building it up, painting the picture, as if we all had brushes in our hands with different colours. But Freddie's concept - and a very brave concept, ‘cause you're talking about a man who knows he's got a death sentence hanging over him and he's writing this song about a miracle, that's very light, very joyful. I think it's part of Freddie's genius and it's always been one of my favourites of his creations. At this point it was very complex what we were doing - there's dozens of tracks of synths and things; it was very carefully built-up, this track, and it sounds very eerie and light, but there's a hell of a lot going on it. Of course it has these two transformations at the end: one into the sort of bot bit and one into the floaty “the day will come” mantra bit. They would've been so nice to do this song live, of course, but we never got the opportunity. I certainly can imagine this with an audience.

Brian May; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

It was an incredibly complex song, and I loved the textures. I know Freddie was particularly fond of this song - not my favourite song, but I loved the textures and changes, I thought they were very clever, and it sounded very nice but very naive lyric in a rather sort of innocent optimistic way, not cynical enough for me, really.

Roger Taylor; Greatest Video Hits II, November 2003 #

Best is not a word I use lightly, especially with regard to music. I have a few personal favourites, though. Of Freddie's songs: The Miracle, which has an amazing lightness, and Don't Try So Hard. Yes, we all contributed to the creation of these songs, but in both cases Freddie was the driving force - a vision reared up before us.

Brian May; Q, March 2005 #

There was huge songwriting competition in Queen, no doubt about it. It was a major factor in pushing us onwards. We were very conscious that we had to reach inside ourselves to keep up. Occasionally Freddie would write fast, but a lot of the time he'd go home and scheme and scheme, and come back with stuff written all over a pad of his dad's notepaper. He'd spend time developing ideas. But there are exceptions, where he'd get the song in one bite. And often they're the ones that connect. Freddie mainly used the piano for songwriting, but there were times when he'd get inspiration when he wasn't around his instrument. It could be any experience; a skate on the pond. One of the last songs he wrote, A Winter's Tale, was written purely sat looking out on the mountains from the other side of Lake Geneva. He could obviously hear it all in his head, although he didn't have any musical instruments with him. I remember him coming into the studio and saying: “I've got this idea… just give me a few minutes.” Then he brought it to life. That's a beautiful track, actually. Another favourite is The Miracle, which has an incredible lightness to it.

Brian May; Classic Rock, March 2011 #

Quotes related to 'Was It All Worth It' #

There is a little hooter in there, because we thought, my god, we're really getting too overblown here! And there's an element of humour in there, in the lyrics, which is nice. It's a kind of conscious comment on some of the stuff we've done, it's sort of retrospective, and we did laugh at ourselves, which I think is good. We enjoy it, we like painting those pictures. It's fun, and it's something peculiar to Queen. We're pretty proud of what we've done, as a whole. We took chances. Some of the things we did set the world alight and some didn't. But at least we made our own mistakes. We did what we wanted to do. Music by democracy just can't be. Music by Gallup Poll is what I mean. You can't go around and ask everyone if what you're doing is OK. That's Freddie [the line, “leaving, breathing rock ‘n' roll, this godforsaken life”]. But that's very tongue-in-cheek, because he loves the life he has. I regard Khashoggi's Ship and Was It All Worth It as the two ends of the album, and both are comments on ourselves. We read about that kind of society life - the parties on the ship, the excess. We feel that we've touched on those areas at some time. We've been through it.

Brian May; Sounds, May 1989 #

I do like that one, yes, it's, the last track on the album. It has a semi-autobiographical feel about it.

John Deacon; BBC Radio One, 29th of May 1989 #

It sort of runs over the band's history, really. The track was written in Switzerland and was recorded basically live, and then we put a lot of other stuff on afterwards, the orchestra and stuff in the middle. It does sound like a swan song, but it's not gonna be the last thing we do. There's even a duck call in there, if you're listening.

Roger Taylor; Rockline, June 1989 #

Was It All Worth It was recorded in Montreux - there's a huge concert hall beneath the studio which we can hire for a week, and we take 54 microphone tie-lines and closed-circuit TV cables down there. We can set drums up on the stage and you can get a very big sound.  [The orchestral section] is all Emulator and synthesisers. Originally the song didn't go like that at all, but the band wanted that section added and then moved around two or three times. Because it was virtually a live recording there was no click track, so I had to insert space on the master, time it, and add an equal space on the slave, and then add timecode. So some parts of the song go to about 10 generations of copying, but because we were working digitally there's no loss of quality.

David Richards; Sound on Sound, August 1989 #

Sort of fun track, and it was a little potted history in the lyric of that track.

Roger Taylor; Rockline, 4th of February 1991 #

A lot of people think that Innuendo is much better than The Miracle but I like them both. I was in a complete state of mental untogetherness during most of the making of The Miracle; I always say that it's a miracle that I managed to play anything at all. What I did play I'm quite proud of but my input to the material wasn't as good as it could have been. By Innuendo the others were having emotional problems and I was a bit more together so I was able to pitch into the writing a lot more. I think they are both very good albums; The Miracle track, which is mainly Freddie, is a small masterpiece in its own way. And Was It All Worth It I really like. That's me and Fred, but more him. For that track we did all sit around and try to come up with rhymes and stuff. Roger's very good at that.

Brian May; Guitarist, October 1994 #

That was a particularly brilliant [guitar] solo.

Roger Taylor; Fan Club Convention Q&A, 2001 #

We began using synthesisers and there were many excursions from us all into keyboard territory. My main contributions on principal parts were (in no particular order) in: Scandal, Was It All Worth It, Hang On In There, Too Much Love Will Kill You (which was done with Frank Musker up in his house in the Canyon in L.A. when we first sketched the song), No-one But You (again done on my own, originally for use on my solo album), One Vision (my first ramblings on a Kurzweil gave rise to the opening section), I Can't Live With You, The Show Must Go On (that sequence just got thrust into my head playing around with Roger - I will never know where it came from, but it completely took me over for a long time while the song was in development), and of course, Who Wants to Live Forever.

Brian May; Official Website, 23rd of April 2003 #