| Saffron Caribou 26.11.2003 00:25 |
It was written by John right? I wonder how he thought up the arrangement for the song? Why? Because the arrangement sounds very similar to Puerto Rican bolero songs. |
| FriedChicken 26.11.2003 08:58 |
maybe John liked latin music |
| The Man On The Prowl 26.11.2003 11:58 |
Variety of genres is one of the main features of Queen :-) Btw, the acoustic solo by Brian is fantastic! |
| MexQueenFM 26.11.2003 12:02 |
great song, has a salsa feel to it |
| Sebastian 26.11.2003 12:19 |
I wish someday we can know if the acoustic solo is played by Brian or John |
| Brian_Mays_Wig 26.11.2003 12:56 |
My all time least favourite Queen song - sorry John! How can the creator of YMBF, AOBTD, Back Chat ect..write such a pile off poo! Hey We're all entitled to our opinions! |
| Mayboy 26.11.2003 13:36 |
great i like it :) |
| Brian's sweet sister 26.11.2003 13:51 |
I love WNY it's a lovely song with a feel good rhythm. |
| The Man On The Prowl 26.11.2003 16:10 |
Sebastian, if I am right there was a discussion one or two years ago about this... Most of the Queenzoners agreed on Brian, since it really seems his style. Personally I believe it's Brian. YMBF, AOBTD? Bha, worse than Who Needs You, Spread Your Wings, You and I, Seven Days, One Year Of Love, Break Free. But it's a matter of personal taste, so it's useless to quarrel. |
| Sebastian 26.11.2003 16:33 |
it's definitely not Brian's style, one of Brian's trademarks is that: he has no style (or I'd rather say that his solos don't remind the other solos he does) I'm sure any of them could do the solo, I remember one argument used two years ago was that Brian was better player than John But Fred is better piano player than John and John plays piano in 'Another One Bites' and 'You're My Best Friend' John is better bass player than Roger and Roger plays in 'Sheer Heart Attack' and 'Fight From The Inside' So, either Brian or John can be right, after all both of them are credited to play acoustic in the track |
| MexQueenFM 26.11.2003 16:38 |
John was a great songwriter |
| FriedChicken 26.11.2003 17:36 |
Brian and John are indeed both credited for acoustic guitar. So it would be logical that 1 did the solo, and 1 the rythm. Even though it's doubletracked it would be madness to both learn to play the song. |
| Sebastian 26.11.2003 17:56 |
by other side there are two solos, or more to the point one solo and one small fill before first bridge (or chorus or whatever) also there are natural harmonics so one person could do the rhythm, the harmonics and the first lead fill but not the solo or one person could do rhythm, solo and lead fills and still both would be credited |
| Bohardy 26.11.2003 18:36 |
I'll devour my headgear if the solo(s) on WNY isn't/aren't by Brian. Also, didn't the song originally start off with a reggae arrangement rather than the latin feel it has? It'll be great if that version ever turns up, as reggae's about the only genre not present in the Queen ouevre. |
| Mr.Jingles 26.11.2003 18:42 |
Many people haven't mentioned this, but John's influence on Queen was very essential to give the band another musical edge. While the rest of the members of Queen were highly influenced by well known rock artists like The Beatles, Hendrix, and Zep... John on the other hand was listening to doo wop, soul, pop, funk, reggae, and a veriety of rythms (mostly black) that helped Queen become a band that could experiment and succeed on trying to create tunes from other genres. Would surprise me after listening 'Who Needs You' that John Deacon was a fan of Los Panchos or Armando Manzanero. |
| MexQueenFM 26.11.2003 18:46 |
yeah Freddie said John wrote songs with a "motown" feel in them :D |
| corki4.0 27.11.2003 00:21 |
i think this song is wonderfully light and refreshing, but that's what queen was all about. When you bought an album you had no idea what you were going to get. That has to be Brian on the solo, john couldn't have been that good. |
| Matti 27.11.2003 01:10 |
I love that song- especially the maracas! Woohoo! |
| Azmandaman 27.11.2003 03:44 |
Yo I love this song! a real versatile vibe to what Queen was in total, and I think they all was proud of this masterpiece! cos they certainly did justice to my ears. Big up Queen for opening there their minds to fullfill ma musical genres to the best it can ever be performed!! yay!! |
| The Man On The Prowl 27.11.2003 05:40 |
Believe me, John played the rhythm and Brian played the solos. Anyway you can always send Brian an e-mail and wait for him to answer. |
| Hank H. 27.11.2003 06:33 |
"Also, didn't the song originally start off with a reggae arrangement rather than the latin feel it has? It'll be great if that version ever turns up, as reggae's about the only genre not present in the Queen ouevre." What is your source? I would die to listen to a reggae version of that song. And songs like wny make me miss Deacon. |
| Sebastian 27.11.2003 06:52 |
What I find weird is that, if John played the rhythm, that's all he did in his own song. And it's weird, considering Fred put like 5 or 6 vocal tracks, Brian put electric choir of guitars, and both Fred and Brian did percussion. If we add Brian playing the solos then we find that all John did in his own song was a strummed rhythm. I don't mean it's impossible (in 'If You Can't Beat Them' all he does is the bass), but it's weird. Consider 'If You Can't Beat Them' was arranged by all the band, but this one is clearly all John. |
| Sir Archie 'Tiffany' Leach 27.11.2003 18:52 |
'ouevre' - never thought that word would appear on Queenzone. Well done young fella. Who Needs You is a classic. |
| Adam Baboolal 27.11.2003 19:56 |
You have very strange reasoning to believe that John did the solo! If any at all. My goodness. "What I find weird is that, if John played the rhythm, that's all he did in his own song." ... "we find that all John did in his own song was a strummed rhythm." What's strange about that? So he left the bulk of the work to others, but led the direction of the song. Sounds easy to accept... Peace, Adam. |
| Big Black 27.11.2003 21:51 |
Brian played the solo, I read it somewhere a number of years ago and as our Brit friends put it so deligthfully, I can't be arsed to look it up. Besides lead is harder to play than rhythm, I'm sure John came up with the song on rhythm and Brian contributed the more difficult lead, can't imagine it other way round. |
| Saffron Caribou 27.11.2003 23:22 |
Thanks to all that replied! Hehe. Well I know that John wrote it. I love the acoustic guitar. Perhaps it was Brian that played it. Still I wonder what kind of acoustic guitar. Spanish? Puerto Rican quatro (it has 8 strings, and the sound is similar to a Spanish guitar)? Or just plain acoustic guitar? I LOVE this song, it just has a wonderful tropical (fuzzy feeling of home, because I live in the Caribbean) feeling for me. :) Perhaps its time to ask Brimi, now I'm kinda scared...what if he bashes me? :-P LOL |
| Sebastian 28.11.2003 06:04 |
> You have very strange reasoning to believe that John did the solo It's not that weird if you think about it. Note that John's songs kind of have in common that he has an instrumental show off, in a similar way Brian's tracks tend to have him on piano, lead vocals or all the harmonies, and Roger's tracks have him playing guitar and singing or co-singing (not all, but plenty of them). In Misfire John played 'almost all guitars', in You're My Best Friend played piano, in You And I acoustic guitar, so I find it logical that he would be the "main charachter" of 'Who Needs You' unless the song is arranged by someone else (like happened with Roger and 'Radio Ga Ga'). |
| corki4.0 30.11.2003 22:18 |
You have to be awfully skilled to play solo guitar and i just don't think john had because you would have heard more of him playing lead. Lead guitarist are show offs......believe me ......in Queen only Brian could be that skilled at lead quitar |
| MercuryArts 01.12.2003 00:03 |
I was under the impression that most of the accoustic playing on WNY was by John including the solos. Brian played harmonies on the Fireplace. John is that good as well. He played almost all the guitars on Misfire so why not on WNY. |
| FriedChicken 01.12.2003 04:22 |
"You have to be awfully skilled to play solo guitar and i just don't think john had because you would have heard more of him playing lead. Lead guitarist are show offs......believe me ......in Queen only Brian could be that skilled at lead quitar" I'm 100% sure John could play that solo (i'm not saying he did play it!) John could also play Classical Gas, and it's harder than the Who Needs You solo |
| Sebastian 01.12.2003 05:56 |
I agree with Niek, you don't have to be an Yngwie Malmsteen to play a solo, it depends on the solo too. The one in 'Misfire' is another one John could do, or 'Another One Bites', and in fact he did the last one (although it isn't actually a solo, it's more a funky lead fill). I'm almost sure (although that's almost impossible to prove) that John is better guitarist than a lot of lead guitar players of modern bands (e.g. Tom Delonge), as well as Brian's better pianist than 80% of rock pianists (not that he's that good, is that a hguge bunch of rock keyboard players are crap, obviously Keith, Freddie, Rick and some others are part of the other 20%) John was very good guitar player, he wasn't Steve Howe but he did have enough fingerpicking technique to play the solos of 'Who Needs You'. |
| Bohemian Queen 01.12.2003 08:47 |
well it's not roger style and freddie has lots of styles as for brian he is more rockish type and john is a love song and career sort of persondont ya think? |
| SweetSister 01.12.2003 12:13 |
I dunno, honestly - I agree with all those who said John had to have been technically good enough to play it. But in the end my vote lies with Brian: Compare that solo with the one he does in Too Much Love Will Kill You. It sounds like the same guitar. Not saying that John couldn't have borrowed Brian's guitar or something, but... it seems most likely that the solo, the guitar choir (obviously) and the little fills are to be blamed on the Curly One. And after all, the song wouldn't go anywhere without that rhythm guitar line - it's far more important than the solo when you get right down to it. Seems to me like Deaks would have been quite happy doing that. *shrugs* But that's just me talking. |
| Adam Baboolal 01.12.2003 12:25 |
The main solo is not John. The characteristics of Brian's playing are clearly on display. Listen to any acoustic track by Brian and you'll hear inklings of the same stuff. As for the rest of the song, who cares if John did or didn't play it all? I just think the solo doesn't belong to John. It's Brian. Peace, Adam. |
| Bohardy 01.12.2003 14:43 |
Hank, I'm afraid I can't give a source for the WNY as a reggae version comment. It's just something I've seen mentioned on here and other sites a few times by people that know more about this stuff than me. It could be apocryphal, but hopefully somebody else will be able to provide more info about this. |
| Azmandaman 01.12.2003 14:46 |
Reggae!!!! one love to Queen they really do flex I have to say!! |
| deleted user 01.12.2003 17:58 |
All I have to say is that this particular song,apart from its light mood,has some really weird and "advanced" harmonies&chords and gets musically complex at some points.I'm not sure if John(great songwriter imo but his songs were plain relatively to Freddie and Brian's)wrote it all alone.I believe Freddie contributed to the song. |
| Sebastian 02.12.2003 08:38 |
I disagree, the guitar and vocal harmonies are not so complex, and they follow the same style as John's previous tracks (Misfire, Best Friend, You And I) visit PD's wonderful analysis: link |