Written by Freddie Mercury
Recording information by Philipp (PraxisNothaft@t-online.de)
Recorded in summer 1975 at...can anybody tell me the studio?
Released in 1975 on the album A Night At The Opera.
General:
Hi folks, finally I´m back!
Now it´s time to pay tribute to the 7th shortest Queen-song ever (sorry folks, but Dear Friends is some few milliseconds shorter). This is one of my favourite one-minute-songs. It is short,but full ideas and cleverly produced gimmicks.
Drums:
Roger used two ride cymbals, a tender one and one with lots of attack.
Most of the kit-elements are panned into the middle, only the cymbal-stuff is panned differently. This is something you can easily check out yourself.
In the "London-town" - part, there are cymbal-rolls overdubbed (ride cymbal-left and crash cymbal right). Not to forget the tiny bells at 0:24.
Bass:
John´s Fender Bass has got a very round sound with lots of treble. The signal probably went through pre-amp and EQ and then into the desk. The bass plays an improtant role in this song. When you listen with karaoke-trick, the piano will sound slightly different, as the bass(which is in the center) is missing.
Piano:
Freddie´s great piano-lines are played on the white Bechstein (not to be confused with the white 'Hey Jude' Bechstein, which was slightly larger). The piano is picked-up with two mics.
Guitars:
The solo is played with three-four guitars.
The main solo-guitar is in the center, the others are left and right. At the end a fourth guitar is joining in the right channel.
The comical sound is a result of high gain-lead, treble-boosting and some chorus and gentle phasing. Played on the Red Special.
Vocals:
There are about four backing-vocals, all sung by Freddie, in the main-section.
These vocals are always panned into the center, except for the "there he goes again" - part, where they´re shortly panned right.
Then there are three additional backing-vocals, all by Freddie again, where one voice sings "there he goes again" and the other two are doing harmonies on "again". This is panned left.
There are actually two lead-vocal-tracks, as there´s a kinda talk between two separate voices near the end. This starts when on "Saturday Night" a second lead-vocal is overlapping.
The sound of Freddie´s lead-vocals probably is a result of filtering all the bass-frequences and most of the middle-frequences out and singing the vocals directly into the desk. I could imagine that they also used a tube-effect for these voices, but I´m not sure if something like that already has been on the market in 1975.
By the way:
Regardless of the danger, that the by the way-section is slowly becoming a sectoin for useless trivia:
This song has 87 words, it is the 7th shortest Queen-song ever, it has been played live a few times in ´75 (though lots of people say it never has been played live) and it is included in the Guiness Book Of Records...indirectly:
Steve Briers recitated on 6. September 1990 all lyrics of Night At The Opera backwards within 9 minutes and 58, 44 seconds.So LOASA came quite at the end...