Death on Two Legs ... and Hitchcock's Psycho

When you first heard [i]Death on Two Legs[/i] did it sound familiar?
Here's why: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhx_B45xxxQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhx_B45xxxQ[/url]
Bernard Hermann is great btw. He also did the score for Scorsese's [i]Taxi Driver[/i].

Can't argue with that!
So Norman Sheffield is Norman Bates.

Wow, very similar! And a nice bit of underlying genius from Freddie as most people would not get that.

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned it before: I think it's kind of obvious (I've always thought DOTL was similar to the Psycho theme), and have always linked the Norman Bates character to the subject of the song.

Also, Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" is linked to "Psycho!", although it's not to the soundtrack! In the movie, one of the opening scenes sees the viewer look down a valley and into the lights of a nearby city. "....Hell" opens with the line constructed from that, and keeps the Psycho theme going throughout: according to Meat Loaf, "the characters wished they left (Bates Motel) like a bat out of hell".

I'm quite naive, and didn't actually know that until I saw him live a couple of months ago.....

"the viewer look down a valley and into the lights of a nearby city. "....Hell" opens with the line constructed from that, and keeps the Psycho theme going throughout: according to Meat Loaf, "the characters wished they left (Bates Motel) like a bat out of hell". "

What a load of utterly pretentious bullshit.

[QUOTE] [b]mooghead wrote:[/b]

"the viewer look down a valley and into the lights of a nearby city. "....Hell" opens with the line constructed from that, and keeps the Psycho theme going throughout: according to Meat Loaf, "the characters wished they left (Bates Motel) like a bat out of hell". "

What a load of utterly pretentious bullshit.[/QUOTE]

How do you make that out? People base songs around movies and books, and vice-versa, all the time....does that make all such material "pretentious bullshit"?

Interesting - I never noticed any similarity, perhaps because I always leave the room during the "shower scene" :-).

... and to complete the circle, the working title for DOTL was 'Pyscho Legs'.

Apart from the basses I see no similarity

This song, on the other hand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvS902DLEVI

I'm a huge Hitchcock fan and have never really noticed the link, but you can tell the similarities! I guess it was Freddie's way of calling 'Norman' psycho!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%AD%A6%E7%BB%8F%E6%80%BB%E8%A6%81%E5%85%A8%E5%89%8D%E9%9B%86%E5%8D%B7%E5%8D%81%E4%BA%8C_%E7%81%AB%E8%8D%AF%E5%88%B6%E6%B3%95.jpg

[QUOTE] [b]FriedChicken wrote:[/b]

Apart from the basses I see no similarity[/QUOTE]

It's the way Freddie adapted it and changed up the arrangement just enough to avoid plagiarism.

This WAS the same man that adapted and incorporated "Vesti la giubba" as the intro for "It's A Hard Life" after all :)