Perhaps somebody well versed in Queen's Sheer Heart Attack and Night at the Opera shows can save me the trouble of finding it in all the recordings. To my knowledge, Freddie at least almost always sang 'I rule with my left hand, I rule with my right', rather than 'I reign with my left hand, I rule with my right'.
It's interesting that he made a habit of this. It doesn't sound particularly good, and is a bit redundant (Might as well just say he rules with both hands) but perhaps rule was easier to enunciate than reign.
This is one of fairly few cases of Freddie changing up the lyrics to his own songs in the live setting (others being Lap of the Gods Revisited and Great King Rat), whereas it wasn't especially uncommon for him to do so with the songs written by the others (Modern Times Rock and Roll, 39, Spread Your Wings, White Queen, Tie Your Mother Down, Keep Yourself Alive with simplified chorus lyrics). On that matter, a side question - can anyone think of any songs where they prefer the live lyrics, changed by Freddie, over to the studio, where the writer was presumably making sure he sang them as they'd intended?
Rick wrote:
'shovel shit' was never sung live (Son & Daughter).
That's right - at that stage they were censoring the show, whereas by 1986 Freddie was throwing the F-bomb into Tutti Frutti and in his speeches between songs.
In fairness....I don't believe he ever sang the right words to the end of Love of My Life either and every time i heard it sang, it hacked me off, rightly or wrongly. It should, of course, have been "Hurry back, hurry back, please bring bring it back home to me...." Maybe there's a live recording somewhere to prove me wrong, (the earliest recording I have of the song is Philadelphia 1977 and it was wrong then and i don't believe it ever changed thereafter)
Was always surprised no one ever commented on it, to the best of my knowledge. Still a magnificent part of any Queen gig and ultimately didn't really change the sentiment of the song in any way (although I think the original is simply miles better and far more poignant) but always wrong and I always heard it that way.
i doubt very much that they would go back to the record to re-listen to the lyrics while on tour. so if Freddie got the lyrics to his own songs wrong, i'm guessing no one corrected him and he just carried on. in the case of march - he may have actually thought the words were rule with my left hand, rule with my right the whole time while on tour.
Tie Your Mother Down (Live):
"I've got a sweetheart hand
To put a stop to all that
Sniping and grousing"
changed to
'I've got a sweetheart hand
To put a stop to all that
Shouting and fighting all night"
Elektra wrote: I have heard him stuff up the words from 'Father to Son' dont ask me what bootleg its from though
If you're talking about the Golders Green Hippodrome concert in '73, they're playing the demo live. He didn't stuffed up the words of the song, the thing is that it wasn't even finished.
Elektra wrote: I have heard him stuff up the words from 'Father to Son' dont ask me what bootleg its from though
If you're talking about the Golders Green Hippodrome concert in '73, they're playing the demo live. He didn't stuffed up the words of the song, the thing is that it wasn't even finished.
Quite right. For all shows in 1973, and some Queen II shows too, Freddie sang 'Every now and again, time after time I keep calling you, warning you on your way', rather than the final album lyric. He wasn't botching it, that was Brian's lyric for it at the time, which he changed by the time it was recorded for Queen II.
Gotta say, I much prefer 'And the voice is so clear...' Just much nicer lyricism and imagery, and the line 'Calling you, calling you on' reaches a much more natural sounding end than 'Warning you on your way'; to me, the latter drags the phrase on for too long and ends it on a fairly awkward note.
Elektra wrote: I have heard him stuff up the words from 'Father to Son' dont ask me what bootleg its from though
If you're talking about the Golders Green Hippodrome concert in '73, they're playing the demo live. He didn't stuffed up the words of the song, the thing is that it wasn't even finished.
Quite right. For all shows in 1973, and some Queen II shows too, Freddie sang 'Every now and again, time after time I keep calling you, warning you on your way', rather than the final album lyric. He wasn't botching it, that was Brian's lyric for it at the time, which he changed by the time it was recorded for Queen II.
Gotta say, I much prefer 'And the voice is so clear...' Just much nicer lyricism and imagery, and the line 'Calling you, calling you on' reaches a much more natural sounding end than 'Warning you on your way'; to me, the latter drags the phrase on for too long and ends it on a fairly awkward note.
They had already recorded Queen II before they started touring with Mott the Hoople in 1973.
Actually if you sing that March of the black queen yourself it is actually really hard to get your mouth around the right lyrics so I can see why he did sing that line cause it is really tempting to sing rule both times rather than reign. A bit of a tongue twister.