Written by Freddie Mercury
Recording information by Philipp (PraxisNothaft@t-online.de)
Recorded in summer 1977 at Basing Street and Wessex Studios, London.
Released in October 1977 as a single and some days later on the album News Of The World.
Drums:
Played by Mr. Taylor. No overdubs, just his kit. The toms and crash cymbals are mostly panned slightly left or right. Ride cymbals and hi-hat are a bit right.
Bass:
John played a Fender Precision Bass. The signal went into the desk via D.I. Then some EQ was added. No FX.
Piano:
Freddie played the piano. It was recorded stereo: picked up with two mics, one is left, one right.
Guitars:
There are a left and a right rythm guitar, playing throughout the song.
In the verses they´re clean, but in the climax to the chorus, Brian hits the pedal and overdrives the signal. They´re doubling each other a lot, but there are also many differences, especially in the 2nd verse.
In the first chorus there´s an chord-overdub in the center ("till the end"- ).
The solo guitar is in the center, too.
Soundz:
Everything´s played by Brian on the Red Special and with a VoxAc30 amp.
The eq-settings have lots of mids, the solo-guitar has the treble-frequences boosted. All guitar-sounds have a slowly modulated chorus.
Vocals:
Backing-vocals:
In the climax to the 1st chorus, there are about 8 vocal-tracks.
The 3-4 lower notes are doubled:each one is to hear left and right.
The high note is in the centre. It sings"And I need to go on and on and on and on", whilst the low notes only are singing the "ons".
The second climax is the same, but misses the "ands".
The four lower notes also are doing all the other backing vocals in the chorus.
There are two lead-vocal-tracks. From the thirc chorus on,a second track takes over (whilst the first one sings "of the world").
The lead-vocals have a strong hall-reverb.