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My favourite song at the moment


Fresh To Death

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Introduction (0:00-0:48)The song begins with a close four-part harmony a cappella introduction in B-flat, which consists entirely of multi track recordings of Mercury (even though the video has all four members lip-syncing this part). The lyrics question whether life is "real" or "just fantasy" before concluding that there can be "no escape from reality." After 15 seconds, the grand piano enters, and Mercury's solo voice alternates with the other vocal parts. The narrator introduces himself as "just a poor boy" but declares that he "need no sympathy" because nothing matters: chromatic side-slipping on "easy come, easy go" highlight the dream-like atmosphere. The end of this section is marked by the bass entrance and the familiar cross-handed piano vamp in B-flat.[edit] Ballad (0:48-2:36)The grand piano continues the 2-bar vamp in B-flat. Deacon's bass guitar enters playing the first note, and the vocals change from harmony to an impassioned solo performance by Mercury. The narrator explains to his mother that he has "just killed a man," with "a gun against his head" and with that act thrown his life away. The chromatic bass line brings about a modulation to E-flat. Here Taylor's drums enter (1:19), and the narrator makes the second of several invocations to his "mama" in the new key, reusing the original theme. The narrator explains his regret over "mak[ing] you cry" and urging mama to "carry on as if nothing really matters." A truncated phrase connects to a repeat of the vamp in B-flat. As the ballad proceeds into its second verse, the narrator shows how tired and beat down he is by his actions (as May enters on guitar and mimics the upper range of the piano 1:50). May sends "shivers down my spine" by scratching the strings on the other side of the bridge. The narrator bids the world goodbye announcing he has got to go and prepares to "face the truth" admitting "I don't want to die / I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all." Another chromatic bass descent brings a modulation to the key of A, and the "Opera" section.[edit] Guitar solo (2:36-3:03)As Mercury sings the rising line "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all," the band builds in intensity, leading up to a guitar solo by May that serves as the bridge from ballad to opera. At 2:40, by design or coincidence, the guitar solo interpolates a few notes of Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade, a swing jazz hit of the 1940's. May's solo continues to build intensity, but once the bass line completes its descent establishing the new key, the entire band cuts out abruptly at 3:03 except for quiet A Major quaver chords on the piano: the "opera" has begun. In live performances, the stage would go dark and all the members of the band would walk offstage and allow the entire opera section to play from the recording, as it was impossible for them to perform it live, due to the extensive overdubbing.[edit] Opera (3:03-4:07)“ Every time Freddie came up with another 'Galileo', I would add another piece of tape to the reel... That section alone took about three weeks to record, which in 1975 was the average time spent on a whole album. – Roy Thomas Baker[2] ”A rapid series of rhythmic and harmonic changes introduces a pseudo-operatic midsection, which contains the bulk of the elaborate vocal multi-tracking, depicting the narrator's "descent into hell". While the underlying pulse of the song is maintained, the dynamics vary greatly from bar to bar, from only Mercury's voice accompanied by a piano, to a multi-voice choir supported by drums, bass, piano and a timpani.The choir effect was created by having May, Mercury, and Taylor sing their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs. According to Roger Taylor, the voices of May, Mercury and himself combined created a wide vocal range: "Brian could get down quite low, Freddie had an incredibly powerful voice through the middle, and I was good at the high stuff." This was useful as the band wanted to create "a wall of sound, that starts down and goes all the way up".[3]The band used the bell effect for lyrics "Magnifico" and "Let me go". Also, on "Let him go", Taylor singing the top section carries his note on further after the rest of the "choir" have stopped singing. Lyrical references in this passage include Scaramouche, the fandango, Galileo, Figaro and "Bismillah," as rival factions fight over the narrator's soul. The introduction is recalled with the chromatic inflection on "I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me." The section concludes with a full choral treatment of the lyric "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me!", on a block B-flat major chord. Roger Taylor's last sung note is a falsetto B-flat in the sixth octave, a note in the soprano range.[edit] Heavy metal (4:07-4:55)The operatic section leads into an aggressive heavy metal musical interlude with a guitar riff that was written by Mercury. At 4:15, a double-tracked Mercury sings angry lyrics addressed to an unspecified "you," accusing him/her of betrayal and abuse and insisting "can't do this to me, baby" - which could be interpreted as a flashback to certain events that led to the earlier ballad section ("just killed a man"). Three ascending guitar runs follow, which May described as something he had to "battle with" when performing the song live. Mercury then plays a similar run on the piano.[edit] Outro (4:55-5:55)After Mercury plays ascending octaves of notes from the B flat mixolydian scale, the song then returns to the tempo and form of the introduction. A guitar accompanies the chorus "ooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah". A double-tracked twin guitar melody is played through an amplifier designed by John Deacon, affectionately nicknamed the "Deacy Amp". Mercury's line "Nothing really matters..." appears again. The final line, "Any way the wind blows," is followed by the quiet sound of a gong that finally expels the tension built up throughout the song.

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