I don't know if this discussion has ever been made, but I would like to discuss about the fact: Does John Deacon sing on records or during concerts?
I know that Sebastian has a beautiful website with lots of information about 'who sings what', but its always nice to start a discussion.
If you think that you hear John Deacon sing on a record/during a concert, then please give the source.
Okay one thing is for sure: He does sing during Wembley '86 second night concert. He sings 'TOEWA' twice during 'Baby your so square...etc.', in Roger's mike. (Well actually it's John's mike, but at this point they had turned it on:P)
John is not singing in concerts, maybe at wembley he sings "toewa" or whatever it is... but the rest of the concert he is not singing, I know this for sure 'cause on the dvd somewhere, Roger or Brian says... it's just the 3 of us singing, by which he means, himself, Roger (or Brian, depends on who said it) and Freddie... so that means that John is not singing.... He might be pretending to, or they just turned off his mic....
LMAO, in that picture it looks like Roger is pushing him away...John looks all happy, and he's trying to sing into the mic, and Roger's look and hand on Deaky's shoulder seems to be saying "Ew! No, get away, you sing like a godawful impaled donkey!"
"TOEWA?"
Yes, 'Baby you're so square...I don't care, toewa, toewa, toewa, and then TOEWA (Roger and John)'
Shouldn't that be doowap, doowap, doowap, doowap :D
But seriously, John probably sings along at concerts and so on but not while recording in the studio. Although if you listen real carefully, you can hear someone say (say, not sing) bicycle in ..well, Bicycle Race. I always thought that was John...because he's funny like that. ;-)
"Shouldn't that be doowap, doowap, doowap, doowap :D"
I think the OP was referring to the version more heard in Japanese Karaoke bars.
So, did John not sing by choice or by lack of vocal skills?
I remembering reading a quote from John that said he wished he could sing because it would make songwriting easier, but he admitted that he has a bad voice.
Answer to the first question: Yes, this topic has been discussed before.
2nd question: Yes, John did sing live. Not much but he did.
Two examples; If you listen to Mannheim 86 bootleg (I assume most of you have it), listen with headphones carefully A Kind Of Magic. There you will hear John singing "..it's a kind of magic.." early in the song.
When people say John's mic was not on, that can be proved wrong when watching Buenos Aires March 1st '81 show. During Save Me Freddie's mic fails and he grabs John's mic. You can hear how they quickly turn the volume up on that one from the mixing board so it indeed was on, the volume level was just much lower than on the rest of the mics.
