Queen
Queen II Sheer Heart Attack A Night at the Opera A Day at the Races
News of the World
Jazz The Game Flash Gordon Hot Space
The Works
A Kind of Magic The Miracle Innuendo Made in Heaven

MACHINES
Index The Works Machines

THE WORKS
Radio Ga Ga
Taylor
Tear It Up
May
It's a Hard Life
Mercury
Man on the Prowl
Mercury
Machines
BM&RT
I Want to Break Free
Deacon
Keep Passing the OW
Mercury
Hammer to Fall
May
Is This the World...
BM&FM

STUDIOS USED
Record Plant
LA
e
e
e
Musicland
Munich

ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL
  Mike Beiriger
a a a
Ed Delana
a a a
  Ben Fenner
a a a
Nick Froome
a a a
Stefan Wissnet

INSTRUMENTS
Fairlight CMI Synthesiser
e
e
Fender Precision Bass
e
e
Ludwig Drums
e
e
May & May Guitar
e
e
Oberheim Analogue Synthesiser
e
e
Roland Analogue Synthesiser
e
e
Roland Vocoder
e
e
Simmons e-Drums

DEVICES
fOXX Foot Phaser Pedal
e
e
Hiwatt Amplifier
e
e
Neumann Microphones
e
e
Premier C Drumsticks
e
e
Vox AC30 Amplifiers
PERFORMERS

John Deacon
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
Reinhold Mack
     
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
Brian May
 
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
Freddie Mercury
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
Roger Taylor

OVERVIEW

A wonderful and very under-rated track, also the first one credited to Maylor.

SONGWRITING
Intro
Verse
Chorus
Middle-Eight
a
a
Verse
Chorus'
a
Outro

The main key is G minor. Chords used areall six diatonic plus IV, V, V/IV and V/V. As for who did what, this is my take on it (entirely hypothetical of course) based on their trademarks:

* The main riff is probably Roger's as it foreshadows Invisible Man a little bit.
* The use of V/IV as tonic (during the verses) is probably Roger too (Action This Day).
* The arrangement is probably more Brian (compare it with the Strange Frontier album).
* Lyrics are probably more Roger (again, compare them with Strange Frontier).


INSTRUMENTS

On the one hand, there are machine-generated layers of drums and bass, and on the other, the classic rock trio (human bass, human drums, human guitar).

VOCALS

Freddie sang the two-part Simon&Garfunkel-esque bit during the verses, and Roger did the robot. Chorus harmonies by the three founding members.


QUOTES

I enjoyed that. I wrote that one with Brian in fact. It's a subject that's been much sort of tried, but I mean it's a sort of obvious thing. Brian wanted to make it a battle between the human side by using the real drums and guitars etc, and a totally synthetic side, the machines you know. The drum machines and the synthesizers and the Fairlights. So the thing is meant to be a battle between the two, with the idea of basically going back to humans.

Roger Taylor, Innerview, 1984


There's also a track on The Works in which we've illustrated that quite well, I think. It's called Machines. Basically, it starts off where everything's electronic - electronic drums, everything. And what you have is the "human" rock band sort of crashing in. What you wind up with is a battle between the two.

Roger Taylor, Modern Drummer, October 1984

This article’s been written and researched by Sebastian (sebastian@queenconcerts.com), with a lot of direct and indirect help from who knows how many people. As any academic work, it may have mistakes and it things that can be rendered wrong in the future (remember there was a time when scientists thought the earth was flat). All of the information found here has been carefully checked and verified as much as possible. It still does NOT mean it's a 100% error-proof research (even the people who were there make mistakes about what happened) but it does ensure that it's way more than mere speculation and guessing. Not being able to prove everything is not the same as not being able to prove anything.

If you want to copy, quote, paraphrase, elaborate on, agree with, refute or condemn any part of this text in a public or private medium and acknowledge me, thank you very much for your consideration and inclusion. If you want to copy, quote, paraphrase, elaborate on, agree with, refute or condemn any part of this text in a public or private medium without acknowledging me, there’s nothing I can do to prevent it and I’ll probably never notice anyway.