Hi!
I've a little question:
i knowed that aparently the band have finished the song (We are the champions) arround the "A Night At The Opera" era (and as the song hasn't "fit" with the album they waited till News Of The World for release it... or something like that)
so, the recording of the song was arround 1975...
so, Why in the TATDOOL documentary the "recording session" footage of the aftermentioned song was labelled as a "1977 unseen recording" ?? they only had a kind of "demo" of the song in 1975 and later record it propely?? they re-recording the song for NOTW?? or they just filmed the footage for some documentary ??
On the DVD commentary of the 30th Anniversary Edition of A Night At The Opera, Freddie says he *wrote* the song during the Opera sessions. He says nothing about the band recording it, if I remember correctly. He was talking about how he would sometimes write more songs than he needed or that he'd come back to unused songs and finish them later, "We Are The Champions" being one such example.
So, to answer the question, Queen would have first recorded it for News Of The World because that's when Freddie pulled it off the shelf. The very next song on the album is similar, in "Sheer Heart Attack" not having been finished by Roger back in 1974 and revisited for NOTW.
How different ANATO could have been if he'd pulled out WATC at the time and if Queen had recorded it then. It might well have been used as the album's closer after "Bohemian Rhapsody" (that's where I would have put it), meaning they might not have needed "God Save The Queen," recorded for the SHA tour in 1974. If *that* were the case, GSTQ would have remained a non-album track in the US (maybe appearing later as a non-album B-side in the UK as well), putting it right up there with "See What A Fool I've Been," "A Human Body" and the others. Taking it a step further, GSTQ, if issued as a bonus track later, would be associated with the Sheer Heart Attack, having been recorded for that tour only weeks after the SHA sessions ended.
We'd have had a different A Night At The Opera album, a different News Of The World (no "Champions" on it) and non-album track for Sheer Heart Attack...all because Freddie didn't use WATC for ANATO.
Heh.
I'll have to rewatch the footage, but I'm pretty sure it was genuine.
We're focussing one particular time line - IE what actually happened regarding songs being written and recorded - and thinking 'what if' but imagine what other little details we have yet to learn. A shame these reissues haven't answered anything - like that Record Collector GB article promised the Queen Anthology would.
On the ANATO DVD Brian talks about the Prophet Song demos he had 'I don't know where they are' he said.
Find them, man! I'd buy them!
I'm guessing if this footage of WATC is from the Bob Harris doc, then it must be a recreation since WATC was already recorded by the time Queen went on tour in the USA.
Wasn't the doc started well before the tour?
When I watched it DOOL with my friend and they stuck some of the WATC footage in the 'early' section I said that it was not contempory as their hair was wrong. I got called sad.
Arc lights everywhere, singing to the wrong side of the U87 (if that'd actually been the recording session, the song would've ended up with no audible vocals), the fact they're at a studio they didn't use for the actual album ... it all points out to either a recreation (similar to, or probably even inspired by, Pink Floyd's) and/or a video similar to Somebody to Love.
Just so you know, a lot of the One Vision footage is recreation and/or 'just for fun/film sake' as well.
Of course, if you ask those in charge, they'll tell you those are genuine, etc., etc., etc., because it behoves them that fans think so. But they were, as per usual, sloppy in their recreation, and left several obvious clues.
The footage of WATC could have been staged as has been commonly reported but watch closely and you'll see and hear that Brian's guitar is "live" with the heavy chords he's playing and the guitar fills as well. This could also possibly be early footage of the Harris documentary because Freddie, from what I understand, did his interview session in his home during the Summer of 77. The short sleeve shirt he's wearing is evident of this. I wonder if this was another attempt at a Somebody to Love type of video but scrapped the idea for a "live" performance video instead..
Sebastian wrote: Arc lights everywhere, singing to the wrong side of the U87 (if that'd actually been the recording session, the song would've ended up with no audible vocals), the fact they're at a studio they didn't use for the actual album ... it all points out to either a recreation (similar to, or probably even inspired by, Pink Floyd's) and/or a video similar to Somebody to Love.
Just so you know, a lot of the One Vision footage is recreation and/or 'just for fun/film sake' as well.
Of course, if you ask those in charge, they'll tell you those are genuine, etc., etc., etc., because it behoves them that fans think so. But they were, as per usual, sloppy in their recreation, and left several obvious clues.
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Yes, that sounds very logical to me. Just take a look at Brian's fingers in this footage. It looks like he is not actually playing what we can hear.