Too much love will kill you

Gnomo: I received your mail - and thank you for you kind words.

If I can ask you to wait - please do NOT reproduce these notes I have made on Queenzone, as they are very rough.

I will however be happy to make you a more accurate transcription of the tracks if you wait
a day or two. In otherwords, a complete record of who says what on the day.

Then ofcourse you CAN reproduce/use those transcribed notes if you wish.

Would anyone else in here be interested?

I'd be very interested in that, too, John. Thanks! I also have wondered about the songwriting breakdown of Love Kills. Why does Freddie share the authorship with Moroder? It seems that he worked on both the melody and the lyrics (as seen in the numerous rough drafts shown in the Freddie box set. What was Moroder's actual contribution? And is this why it wasn't labelled as a Queen song?

What is this about? Why is there a arguement. Nobody can say for sure what the song is about except the authors. So John, shut the hell up and quit acting like you are Bri himself. And the rest of you, he might be right (though probably isnt) THe most likely thing is that the song was brought by Bri to them, the idea atleast, and they all put in their equal part about past relationships or what not. The song might not even be about that at all. Who knows what it is about. It could be about Freddie for all we know. The truth is, only Bri truely knows why he wrote it and i dont mind it bloody being kept that way. So leave it alone. Theres my pence.

mercuryqueen: "Nobody can say for sure what the song is about except the authors. So John, shut the hell up and quit acting like you are Bri himself. The truth is, only Bri truely knows why he wrote it and i dont mind it bloody being kept that way."

You are absolutely correct, except that my point is Brian did NOT write the song.

He did NOT write "Only Make Believe", nor did he write "Slow Down" or "One Rainy Wish". Therefore, I can answer with some authority and say these final three songs have nothing whatsoever to do with Mr May's mind - because they are cover versions NOT written by him.

I do accept the point that those songs must hold some meaning for him, as he did choose to record those tracks over others, and I also accept we can not say what he had in mind for those choices. Nevertheless, that does not diminish the fact that he did not write them, therefore we are not really at liberty to say they are about Freddie, his dad, Anita - or whatever.

Likewise, it is the same with Too Much Love. Brian contributed very little lyrically, but did compose the music. Therefore, again we can not say that this song definately reflects Brian's mindset - because in essence, he did NOT write the lyrics!

Heh. On the point of it being other peoples lyrics, and therefore not really being about Brian:
I recall Brian May saying that The Show Must Go On lyrics were basically Brian imagining Freddie's thoughts on the matter, or something? Basically it's a song from Freddie's point of view, but he just didn't write it.
(There was heaps of Freddie input too of course - the line 'I'll face it with a grin, I'm never giving in...' is one of Freddie's I think?).

So yeah, it's entirely possible that these people are just describing Brian's predicament in their own way? Whatever. :P

it was written years before Anita, if my memory serves me right it predates Queen

well, that helps. Thanks, you guys are very thorough.

maxpower wrote:

it was written years before Anita, if my memory serves me right it predates Queen

Really? Predates Queen?? John, can you look at this and tell us if this is true.

I've never heard this before and somehow it doesn't seem right. If it's true that means the woman who wrote the lyrics, sat on the song for years and years and years and only did something with it when Brian was looking at it. I'm really not sure about that...

Peace,
Adam.

I don't know if John's statements are accurate, but he certainly seems to have a lot of info & facts. Brian has written songs that were from another persons perspective before. I think he once said that "Save Me" had nothing to do with anything going on his personal life, at that time anyways ('79-80), though ionically it foreshadowed a little of his life to come.

I suspect Mr maxpower's memory serves him completely wrong.

maxpower: "...it was written years before Anita, if my memory serves me right it predates Queen"

Sorry but your memory does not serve you correctly at all. I think you may be confused in that the track DOES preceed Brian's solo album "Back To The Light", by at least a good four or five years - but it certainly does NOT predate Queen!

The song was written while Brian was in LA late 1980's. These home demos were all captured on the "Bell Boy Tape". In 1988 Queen recorded the track as part of the "Miracle" sessions.

Too Much Love Will Kill You (Queen)

1988 Freddie Vocal Guide/Brian Vocal Demo - Unreleased: GB IQFC Convention 2001
1988 Miracle Demo Promo Teaser Tape - Unreleased: Home Mini-Disc

1992 Back To The Light Album Version Parlophone CDPCSD 123

Bob-Plant: "I don't know if John's statements are accurate, but he certainly seems to have a lot of info & facts."

Why wouldn't it be? It was all recorded on tape from conception to birth - as it were!

I think Maxpower is thinking of White Queen, which was written before Queen.
As for TMLWKY, I wonder why only Brian and Frank Muskers picked up the Ivor Novello award for it, and in his comments regarding the song, Brian said that the song was very much a form of therapy for him and that Frank acted very much as a therapist. It seems Miss Lamers should have been mentioned too!

John-I'm not challenging the what you've written-I've just never seen or heard the things your quoting myself so I can't validate them. I'm guessing you have access or in your possession many rare Queen things that most of us don't. Cool?

no im not thinking of white queen - you silly people, i know one queen track from another, i thought i read it somewhere......... but the years are passing