I already wrote about different
subjects that angered me or moved me by using songs as a backup material: Peter
Gabriel with “Don’t Give Up” and Sixx:AM with “Skin” were these two examples.
Tonight, I have another
reason to write an article of that kind but before explaining myself, let’s
talk about the main subject: the song. This song…
Back in 1986, Queen hit the
road one more time and played for 26 dates across Europe for what would be
their final tour. During this one, Queen brought with them opening acts that
would later become famous: INXS, The Bangles or, for another example, Status
Quo. The year after, Freddie Mercury was diagnosed with HIV and although the
singer kept working as long as he could and worked on two more albums before
his sad departure (He was already dead when the remaining Queen members started
working on “Made In Heaven”), the band decided all together to stop touring to
keep him away from any unnecessary tiredness.
At the end of “The Magic
Tour”, Queen parted ways to work on different projects: while Mercury started
working on “Barcelona”; Roger Taylor, Queen’s drummer, created The Cross and
the band released its first album in April 1988, with Taylor on vocals and…
guitar. While being in The Cross, Taylor actually never drummed, leaving that
spot to Josh Macrae.
That being said, the
particularity of “Shove It” might be that the album was almost completed when
Taylor recruited the other musicians… by placing an ad in a national newspaper.
In fact, he first thought of releasing the material as a solo album but changed
his mind somewhere along the way and decided to bring other people in the band
to be able to go on tour and bring these songs to the outside world.
Different versions were
recorded back then: one version with Taylor singing the lead vocals with
Mercury on background vocals - the one above – and one version where Mercury
also sings lead vocals.
As you may guess, the
single version is the one with Taylor on lead vocals but the full-Mercury one
wasn’t dropped and still appears on the “Shove It”.
When Queen started began
their working sessions on “Made In Heaven”, “Heaven For Everyone” was picked as
one of the songs to be redone for the album. The spoken parts of Taylor at the
beginning and the end of the original version were dropped and a new backing
track and new background vocals were done to fit to Queen’s sound. Although he
has proven himself with a few other famous songs like “Radio Ga-Ga” and “A Kind
Of Magic”, “Heaven For Everyone” is the only Taylor song included in the album.
The new version of “Heaven
For Everyone” was the first single taken from the album and was released in
November 95, almost 4 years after Mercury’s death.
The video was directed by
David Mallet, a video director who has also worked with David Bowie (Ashes To
Ashes, Let’s Dance…), Def Leppard (Rock Of Ages, Foolin’…) and AC/DC (You Shook
Me All Night Long, Highway To Hell, Big Gun, Rock’n’Roll Train…). Mallet was a
long-time friend of Queen as he has directed quite a number of their videos:
Bicycle Race, Radio Ga-Ga, I Want To Break Free, Who Want To Live Forever or
Under Pressure, the band’s collaborative song with Bowie…
He has also directed a few
live shows (INXS’s “Live Baby Live”, U2’s “PopMart: Live From Mexico”, Pink
Floyd’s “Pulse”…) and was, thanks to his experience and friendship with the
band, the best choice to direct the Freddie Mercury tribute concert held in
Wembley Stadium on the 20th of April 1992. 72.000 people attended
the show where many artists came as helpful and sometimes surprising duet to
support Queen but its broadcasting to 76 countries in the world brought more
than one billion more people in the celebration “the life, and work, and
dreams, of one Freddie Mercury [… giving] him the biggest send off in history”,
as his fellow musician Brian May said that day. Yes… that was definitely a hell
of a goodbye to one of the biggest singers in the history of music.
Why do I talk about Queen?
Why did I pick this one song written by Roger Taylor talking about Heaven?
You never get used of
losing people in your life… Even less when they were amazing ones. Today, my
family lost one of its members, my father’s cousin. He had just turned 80 last
week but when you were having a conversation with him, you never felt all these
years between yourself and him. He had known me since the day I was born and
though we weren’t seeing each other every week, every time we did, he always
had that mischievous little light in his eyes or the kindest words ever.
He never really had the
chance to go to school and have the education my generation was able to receive
but he was interested in so many different subjects that he read about these in
an impressive number of books. You could have a chat on any subject with him
and just by listening to him, you could be sure that you’d get out of his home
having learned something new.
He never got married but
that certainly doesn’t mean he ended up “alone”. In summertime, you could pass
right outside his house; the door would always be (literally!) open for anyone
if he was there… In the wintertime, the door was closed but you could see some
car parked in front of his home from time to time.
He was always brave enough
to welcome the crazy kids we sometimes are whether we were coming to celebrate
the village fair with him in August or wishing him a happy New Year on every 1st
of January. A good dozen of good old friends sitting on each other in this
little kitchen liberating themselves from their warm winter clothes as he was
putting the appetizers and the drinks on the table… when they were not already
on the table before our arrival.
Damn… next 1st
January will be weird and sad… The door will now remain close, he won’t call me
“mi ptite fèye” (Little girl) anymore and I won’t get that usual little blink
while leaving him and wishing him Happy New Year anymore as he was slipping a
chocolate sweet in my hand.
That’s how he was and he
will be very much missed.
Freddie closes the song by
saying “this should be heaven for everyone”… I don’t know if there’s any
Heaven. If there is one, I don’t know if there is indeed a place for everyone
but being who he was, my dad’s cousin deserves to have a ticket for a ride in
the Afterlife.
And oh… his name was… His
name was Roger.
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