Keep Yourself Alive

Time to nitpick again n_n

The Real Wizard wrote:

But what we *can* say is that it was the first song on their first album, and this was the first exposure to Queen for countless people.

It sounds poetic but I'd quibble it's not too realistic... a few thousand people heard, let alone bought, the first single and album. The hundreds of millions who have been exposed to Queen may have first heard something else and then (some of us) explored their roots, including the debut album.

The 'Queen' LP failed to have significant sales and only reached its first 60,000 local shipments on the 1st of November 1974 ... it makes sense to think that those new buyers had been drawn into Queen because of the 'Killer Queen / Flick of the Wrist' single and news of the band's upcoming British tour, which means their first exposure to Queen was definitely not 'Keep Yourself Alive.'

It was certified gold (which at the time meant 100,000 shipments in Britain) on the First of May 1976, which again means the further 40,000 sales (between November 1974 and April 1976 - a year and a half) were more likely to have been a result of people being exposed first via 'Killer Queen' or 'Bo Rhap' (or, album-wise, 'Sheer Heart Attack' or 'A Night at the Opera') rather than the debut.

Same for America: the first album completed its first million shipments there on the 29th of March 1977 (soon after the 'Races Tour' had had its American and Canadian dates). We can strongly suspect a large percentage of that million had been exposed to Queen first via 'Bo Rhap', 'Best Friend' or 'Somebody to Love' or after attending a gig, and then decided to explore earlier material.

For countless people, the existence of Queen was only discovered after they'd released three or four albums, and they only heard KYA (plus other songs such as 'Liar') in retrospect. For everyone of the few thousands who heard the debut album back in Summer '73, there are millions who only found out about it way later.

Sebastian wrote:

Time to nitpick again n_n

The Real Wizard wrote:

But what we *can* say is that it was the first song on their first album, and this was the first exposure to Queen for countless people.

It sounds poetic but I'd quibble it's not too realistic...

I can further quibble and add that "countless" is an indeterminate number ;)

The first album sold better in the US than the UK in 1973, and it was a huge hit in Japan (where it was called "Queen One") - the first country to give Queen the rock star treatment.

Seven Seas Of Rhye was not a hit in the US, but plenty of people went to the shows on that first tour and knew Keep Yourself Alive and Liar. They received a standing ovation after playing the former in Providence, as an opening act - the tape's there to prove it.

So methinks my point stands.

Queen1 rules! I really don't care if it was commercially a failure, or they didn't find their signature sound yet. The bottom line is the songs are great, and its raw and heavy. Plenty of people still consider it their favorite to this day. Talyor Hawkins says its his favorie album of all time. Its in my top 5 for sure. I wouldn't change Keep yourself Alive, it's good the way it is.

mike hunt wrote:

Queen1 rules! I really don't care if it was commercially a failure, or they didn't find their signature sound yet. The bottom line is the songs are great, and its raw and heavy. Plenty of people still consider it their favorite to this day. Talyor Hawkins says its his favorie album of all time. Its in my top 5 for sure. I wouldn't change Keep yourself Alive, it's good the way it is.

I can not help agree with your words. I like any version of this song and it doesn't matter who author.

The Real Wizard wrote:

A thought...

As valid as it was for the band to have criticized Trident for sitting on the debut album for about 18 months, in the end that actually helped them.

The one track to do anything commercially was Keep Yourself Alive, which they'd re-recorded in late 72 or early 73. Had the album come out in 72, this version of KYA is what would've been heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uigBkWDsQNM

On this 1972 acetate the entire album is intact - same track listing, same mix - except for KYA.

But they weren't happy with it, so they redid the track at some point, first heard on the first BBC session in Feb 73. And since that's the one that ended up being played on the radio and then seen on the Old Grey Whistle Test (the album version is pretty much the same thing with a different lead vocal), in hindsight it's actually a good thing that the first version didn't come out. It was way more primitive, and the song might not have impressed anyone, and the entire history of Queen might not exist as it does.

One of those 20/20 hindsight type moments.

Thoughts?

Nice find. Thank you. Nice version.

My tuppenceworth on this one.

KYA always sounded restrained to me on record. Whether its from De Lane Lea, the BBC sessions, the original album / single, this acetate (which I picked up from our man Fuller's place.......), or the horrific 1975 re-take (what on EARTH were they thinking?), something about it just seems to not be quite right. They have all the ingredients here for a complete and UTTER smash hit in 1973 but it did nothing for the band at all.

Perhaps Queen simply just did not know what they had in the palm of their hands at the time. KYA seems to try to squeeze about a million things in at one time and, at the same time, loses all of the spontaneity of a young band hitting the studio early in their career. maybe there was a point at which they should have perhaps considered forgetting all about guitar and vocal harmonies and just gone in and THRASHED out a couple of live-in-the-studio takes; would that have given us a better feel?

The song is vital and its theme just smacks of excitement and drive and passion. The overall tempo screams for it to be replayed time and time again (thank god for the CD and not having to return the stylus to the beginning every three and a half minutes. Given John Peel's trumpeting of the band so early, its clear that he believed this track had something in it, but after subsequently citing "Teenage Kicks" as the greatest single of all time, is it possible that KYA *COULD* have gained this accolade in 1973 and kept it for the rest of time? The fact that the re-take happened in 1975 proves, to me, that there was NEVER a point at which they were at all happy with the song but did know that it really should have been something to reckon with.

For me, it doesn't need a drum solo and it doesn't need the call and response lyric in the the middle as all the song's momentum is lost. I'd like to have the time to maybe do an edit of the song to remove those elements and then evaluate it; how would that then compare to the running time of "Teenage Kicks"? But, sadly, after so long and being so familiar with those elements in place, it would just sound, frankly, wierd. Maybe a project for the future.............

My overall preference is the acetate version as it just sounds more raw, fresh and less worked on than any of the other versions.

The Livekillers version is my favourite. Montreal is good too. Probably, all they needed to do back in 1973 was increase the tempo and (as said above) record it in one or two takes in the studio to get back the freshness.

De Lea Lane is the best one. But overall not really a great song, and I actually think Brian's solo is a weak spot in it.

Why is the re-take 'horrific'? It may not be the definitive version, but as a performance it's by far the closest to the feel of the live version, IMHO.

I rather LIKE the complexity of KYA as delivered on the album, including the drum solo and the C&R. To each his own.

IanR, re:

>Why is the re-take 'horrific'? It may not be the definitive version, but as a performance it's by far the closest to the feel of the live version, IMHO.

Its even more over produced and forced than the album / single version. For my money the band and RTB were really clutching at straws to develop a single that would appeal to the US market and had nothing other than historical material to fall back on to make that happen. There was nothing that came out of the ANATO album sessions that would fit the bill, so their only recourse was to resort back to KYA. Artistically, that's a pretty poor decision making process for a band that was still trying to properly break through.

Benn Kempster wrote:

There was nothing that came out of the ANATO album sessions that would fit the bill, so their only recourse was to resort back to KYA.

In fact, the ANATO sessions hadn't started yet. The re-take predates them by one or two months.

Sebastian, re:

>The re-take predates them by one or two months.

Thanks for putting me right on that. Interesting, so the decision was taken to do that BEFORE embarking on ANY new ideas....... An even more baffling decision.

Back then, they still hadn't signed with John Reid. One of the potential managers they were seeing (probably Zep's) suggested they toured America in the summer. It makes sense, then, that they thought a re-make of their debut single would be a nice release there, as some sort of placeholder before they did the album.

As it turns out, they ended up re-releasing their debut single instead and postponing the tour in order to record the album, as John Reid told them to go to the studio and create a masterpiece while he dealt with the monetary aspect.

So they went to Surrey for a few weeks, then to Wales, then back to London... and the rest is history.

It reminds me of Blondie 'Heart of Glass' story when the band was told to work on the song until they get the sound right. And they worked a lot to please producers, who saw a lot of potential there but had a feeling the band can do better. I wonder if Queen story was similar: play it one thousand times until you get it right.