QueenZone discussion #1200352

Sebastian wrote: His voice does crack there. Fortunately, in the full mix, guitars, bass and drums cover it up.

I too agree that a perfectionist as May wouldn't have let anything slip and would like to think that he intentionally kept it in. As you well said it would compliment the subject matter of the lyrics rather well.

Sebastian wrote:

I too agree that a perfectionist as May wouldn't have let anything slip and would like to think that he intentionally kept it in. As you well said it would compliment the subject matter of the lyrics rather well.

Actually, he did: there's a mistake on FGB, some 'pitchy' notes in SL, etc... maybe 99% of the things that stayed in 'had to' be 'perfect', but there's always that remaining 1%, and the voice-break in Save Me can be part of it.

Yara wrote: Let's try clearing the cobwebs. We still haven't established with any accuracy if that's a mistake done by Freddie or an expressive moan to fit the mood of the song. Let me put this way: I don't think he fumbled the note there. I'm almost absolutely sure. On the other hand, this sort of analysis has to rely on comparisons, and then I am almost sure that he fumbled whatever he was trying to do in the last part of Millionaire Waltz's: just after the last "come back to me" and right before the "you make me feel like a millionaire" an unpleasant dissonant broken moan comes up - "Come back to me...ohhhhh". He seems to be delivering this "ohhh" out of breath or just completely out of tune. What he does in Save Me for expressive reasons, as I think he did, sounds way better than what's in Millionaire Waltz, so that can be a point of departure for the discussion. There's an explanation for the latter: it was Freddie's composition. A very tongue-in-cheek one, unlike Brian's. Freddie must have thought it was funny, just like the jokes he threw in "One Vision". It's very Freddie. And he liked to get away with these things and show off a sort of campy humour. But Brian would kill Freddie for any mistake in "Save Me". The reason is quite simple: Brian was way too fond of his best compositions. A silly example: he'd like to have released "I can't live without you" on his own album. He'd only yield when he thought that the band could make something better out of the song.     Brian tells Nuno in 1991: "In the past I've tended to be too dogmatic. I've written songs that have made Freddie's life hell because I wanted them sung a certain way." So it's unlikely that Brian would let Freddie go away with a fumble. He probably thought it was a nice, expressive moan, and it's no secret that Brian has always been in awe of Freddie's delivery of Save Me. How Freddie voiced used to crack: 1) For relying to much on the strength of his vocal folds in the high-pitched verses: e.g, the way he usually fumbled the ascending line working up to the chorus in "We Are The Champions": "But I've got/come (voice cracks) through...". It was due to the fragility of his vocal chords and the pressure he put onto them. This kind of crack sounds very peculiar: he voice just fades out and even goes way for a moment. 2) He'd harm his vocal chords on stage and the note would reflect his unease - e.g, second refrain of "Let Me Entertain You" in Dallas '78, for instance; it happened quite often in Mustapha. 3) He'd run out of breath, lose control over the pitch and sound out of tune. In such cases, his tone or timber tended to get muffled - that's exactly what happens in Millionaire Waltz, but oddily enough it doesn't happen in "Save Me": his timber is still clear, which could be a sign that he didn't actually fumble the note, but counsciouly tried to get a different, expressive effect. Then, as I wrote in the post above, it's necessary to regard this bit of Save Me taking into account the whole context of the song: not only the lyrical content, but also the song's basic structure - there's a lot of action going on during these 3 or 4 seconds: Freddie shouts by way of doing a loose performanto to match Brian's chord, triggering the guitar soloing. This "cracked moan" seems to be an independent sound, not the seamless following of what had just done before, which is also a sign that he did want the line to sound that way - he went for that effect. Finally, it doesn't sound bad to my ears - the one in Millionaire Waltz, yes; this moan in "Save Me" doesn't sound annoying or out of tune even - it's an amusing way of expressing the suffering of someone who broke with the person who's at the same time his great love and his harbor, the means of his salvation - so it's a quite dramatic situation there and the vocals fit just fine. Of course I can turn out to be absolutely wrong. But the question is: before we can say whether "the crack" was left there on purpose or not, we have to establish with some accuracy whether it was really a crack in the sense of a failure in the delivery of whatever he was trying to do. My own opinion is that he was trying to give a physical expression for an emotional setback.  Is it possible that he just fumbled the whole thing and it all went unnoticed? Of course it is. That's one hypothesis. But I think we can't dismiss the others yet.  If we could get Queenzoners who have been here for a good deal of time and command the respect of other users to kindly write to Brian a message with a set of doubts or thoughts which have come up recently on the website I think Brian would be more likely to answer: there'd be a sense of fans getting together, something he always liked, and organizing to ask him the questions instead of doing it piecemeal. It'd also be representative of more fans.   

Yara wrote: Hehe. True. But Freddie didn't give Brian much rest either. ; -))