I just heard the demo.
I found it amazing, really. Does anyone know when this was recorded? Judging from Freddie's voice, it sounds like the early 70's.
Just wondering if anyone has any info about the recording.
Queen recording of the 'Smile' track, recorded in 1970 with Barry Mitchell on bass. Musically it's similar to the Smile version, but some parts are slightly different. Freddie's vocals are more powerful than Tim Staffell's, and more suited to the track. The lyrics seem more ad-libbed by Freddie, and in places don't make much sense (eg the start of the second verse), but still this performance is much better than the Smile version.
There are at least two recordings of the song; one is 3:46 in length with an immediate start and a single guitar chord at the end before an abrupt fade out, the other is 4:29 in total which has approximately 40 seconds of dialogue at the start (an argument between Roger and Brian about the speed of the track whilst Freddie tries to get on with the recording) and a slightly longer outro with more guitar chords at the end. However, the song itself is the same. In addition to this, a 1:15 excerpt of the start of the song is also available.
John S Stuart wrote: Barry Mitchell did NOT record with Queen. The bassist is indeed John Deacon.
So why some need to believe otherwise is beyond me.
John, it might be the fact that some MP3's list Barry Mitchell as the bass player on the track info - proof yet again that you shouldnt always believe what you read.
And there aren't two versions!
OK, technically it is possible that they recorded more versions, but only one (which is Take 2) has surfaced into the collectors world
queen4eva224 wrote: you guys must be talking about a different version of polar bear than me, because the one i know is tim staffel and brian may. hmm...
They would be talking about the Queen version with Freddie on vocals.