Keep Yourself Alive

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Keep Yourself Alive
Queen
publication July 6, 1973
length 3:45
Genre (s) skirt
Author (s) Brian May
Publisher (s) EMI , Elektra (US)
album Queen

Keep Yourself Alive is a 1973 song by Queen , written by Brian May and appearing on the debut album Queen . On July 6, 1973, the song was released as the first Queen single. On the B-side was the title Son and Daughter .

Origin background

According to Mark Hodkinson, author of Queen: The Early Years , Keep Yourself Alive was conceived by Queen during band rehearsals with acoustic guitars at Imperial College London and in the garden on Ferry Road in 1970. At that time, Queen hadn't found a permanent bassist. The group consisted of guitarist Brian May, singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor . On a radio report on her 1977 album News of the World , May said he wrote the lyrics as ironic jokes, but the content would have made sense when Freddie Mercury sang the songs.

The original version of Keep Yourself Alive was recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in the summer of 1971. The production took Louie Austin. Brian May played the intro on his Hairfred acoustic guitar. All the elements of the song were already there, including the call-and-response vocals from Freddie Mercury in the verse and the break in which Roger Taylor sings a line and Mercury responds to it. This original recording of the song remained Brian May's favorite.

The second version of the song was recorded at Trident Studios in London. On this version Brian May sings the line “two steps nearer to my grave” instead of Mercury as before. This version was not played with an acoustic guitar, but with electric guitars , one of which uses a special phase effect . This version also has a new line of text: "Come on and get it, get it, get it boy, keep yourself alive / Come and get it, get it, get it boy, keep yourself alive" that is missing on the original version.

There is a third version of the song; the so-called Long-Lost Retake was recorded in 1975 and was originally supposed to be released as a single in the USA. This version features the more traditional Queen sound with tight, layered vocals and extensive guitar parts. However, a shortened version of the British single was released in the United States and the long-lost retake remained commercially unreleased until Hollywood Records released a renewed version of Queen's debut album in the United States in 1991.

Contributors

Live performances

Brian May, author of Keep Yourself Alive , Live on his Red Special guitar in 1977

The newly formed Queen band quickly added Keep Yourself Alive to their live repertoire. Mercury said, "The song was a good way to show people what Queen was like in those times." The piece features a drum solo by Roger Taylor and a line of lyrics he sung.

Keep Yourself Alive performed the band frequently until the early 1980s. During the 1980 and 1981 tours, the band first played an improvised jam, before starting to play Keep Yourself Alive after the drum solo . Taylor's drum solo was often followed by a guitar solo by May.

During live performances, Mercury often sang the line: "all you people keep yourself alive" (which is only sung twice in the studio version) instead of the line: "it'll take you all your time and a money honey you ' ll survive ”(which appears more often in the studio version).

Publication and reception

EMI released Keep Yourself Alive as a single in the UK on July 6, 1973, a week before Queen hit stores. A few months later on October 9, 1973, Elektra Records released the song as a single in the United States. However, Keep Yourself Alive was rarely played by radio stations and largely ignored on both sides of the Atlantic; it didn't make it into the UK or American charts. Keep Yourself Alive is the only Queen single to be denied entry into the UK charts.

The British music press received the song with mixed opinions. The New Musical Express praised the "clear recording" of the song, as well as the "good singer". In the July 21, 1973 issue, Melody Maker praised the song for its “guitar intro” and “vocal attack”, but the song was “too unoriginal” in their opinion. The South Yorkshire Times praised the song: "If this debut sound of Queen is typical of her, it will be interesting to hear her future stuff."

In 2008 Rolling Stone magazine took the song at number 31 in "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hodkinson, p. 122.
  2. ↑ RAM, May 21, 1976, p. 17
  3. ^ " Discography - Queen ". QueenOnline. Accessed June 29, 2009.
  4. ^ Eduardo Rivadavia: Keep Yourself Alive Song Review at Allmusic. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  5. ↑ Hodkinson, p. 158
  6. ↑ "Queen: 'Keep Yourself Alive' (EMI)". New Musical Express . July 14, 1973.
  7. ↑ "Queen: 'Keep Yourself Alive' (EMI)". Melody Maker . July 21, 1973.
  8. ^ "'Keep Yourself Alive' / 'Son and Daughter' — Queen (EMI)". South Yorkshire Times . July 27, 1973.
  9. ↑ http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/20947527/page/15 ( Memento of April 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) . Rolling Stone . June 12, 2008.

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