Fender Precision Electric Basses Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar Fender Telecaster Electric Guitar
1: John's credited for guitar as well as bass on the sleevenote of the album, but it doesn't specify where. Since most (but not all of) Deacon's guitar input in the Queen catalog was on his own tracks (e.g. Misfire, You And I, Who Needs You...), it's usually assumed that his guitar parts on this record must have been mostly or completely concerning his own compositions (i.e. Pain Is So Close and/or Friends Will Be Friends, since One Year of Love hasn't got any six-string guitar). 2: Likewise, all four members of the band (plus Spike Edney) are credited for keyboards, without specifications. It's again assumed that Roger's and Brian's participation would be only on the songs they wrote or co-wrote, thus apparently leaving them outside this case. As for Spike, since he wasn't a band member and didn't compose any songs for Queen, he was brought in as session player. Personally, I believe that synths are quantized enough to suspect they were (at least partly) programmed, which then again could have been done by either one of them, or perhaps all of them. 3: There's no specification about who played acoustic piano on the record. It's assumed Freddie did it by a mere cognitive pattern, yet the piano part in this particular song is so simple that both John and Spike would be skilful enough to play it. Otoh, the "classic" nature of this ballad suggests (but doesn't imply) backing track could have been laid down live (drums, bass and piano simultaneously), which would theoretically rule-out John. Again, there's nothing "written on stone" about this case. 4: For the same reason, it's not known if the band performed all the vocals themselves or if they invited uncredited guests to join, since they'd done the same for other anthemic creations of theirs (e.g. Teo Torriatte, We Will Rock You). |
FRIENDS WILL BE FRIENDS
Although it's only an educated guess, the harmony of this song suggests that John was the chief composer, leaving Freddie the task of doing lyrics and/or melody. But of course there was some input from one another in both sides. Friends Will Be Friends was one of the last piano ballads Queen recorded, having an anthemic vibe (reminiscent of Play the Game and It's A Hard Life). Music
by: John Deacon & Freddie Mercury Produced
by: Queen & Reinhold Mack Recorded:
1986
Keys: G, Gm Acoustic
Drums: Roger Taylor Lead
Vocals: Freddie Mercury
A John trademark (although not exclusive of his) is having a main section being repeated in all cycles with some variants in melody and harmony. The use of the title phrase opening the chorus is more Freddie-esque (Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow, It's a Hard Life, Life Is Real, Play the Game, We Are the Champions), while John used to put it at the end of one or several sections (You're My Best Friend, You And I, My Life Has Been Saved, Rain Must Fall), but there are some counter-examples as well (Spread Your Wings in particular).
The first time it lasts three bars, the second time three and a half. The trick is making it a double-plagal cadence at the end, overlapping its resolution with the beginning of the next section (verse in both cases). All through the band's catalog, it seems that Deacy favored such details much more (Best Friend, Who Needs You...). Another Deacon fingerprint can be found on the progression itself: I > V-vi > vi > V-IV appears in You're My Best Friend ("I've been wandering round") and in both cases it goes then to the subdominant. It's, functionally, 87.5% the same as in One Year of Love:
It uses the first two bars from the intro and a variant on the last two verse measures. In spite of that, the melody's different to the one in the first verse, another John trademark (I Want to Break Free, Another One Bites the Dust). The way the melody's gradually ascending ("... chest ... strike ... rest") is more Freddie-esque (e.g. We Are the Champions "on and on and on and on", Bohemian Rhapsody "no no no no no no no"). Compare the first phrase with Best Friend ("sunshine ... feelings are true"):
The second uses the wonderful I > V-V > IV progression, which may have been influenced by Paul McCartney (Sgt Pepper's, or the related vi > V-V > IV appearing in Yesterday). Again, there are connections:
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