Keep Yourself Alive
Encyclopedia
"Keep Yourself Alive" is a song by English rock
group Queen
. Written by guitarist Brian May
, it is the opening track on the band's debut album Queen
(1973). It was released as Queen's first single along with "Son and Daughter" as the B-side. "Keep Yourself Alive" was largely ignored upon its release; it failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic.
In 2008, Rolling Stone
rated the song thirty-first on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".
and drummer Roger Taylor
. In a radio special about their 1977 album News of the World
, May said he had penned the lyrics thinking of them as ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but their sense was completely changed when Freddie Mercury
sang them.
The first version of "Keep Yourself Alive" was recorded in summer 1971 at De Lane Lea Studios
. It was produced by Louie Austin and includes the intro played on Brian May's Hairfred acoustic guitar. All of the song elements were already present, including call-and-response
vocals by Freddie Mercury (verses) and during the break, where Roger Taylor sang a line and Mercury answered it. This demo version remains Brian May's favourite take of the song.
Subsequently they did several attempts to "recapture the magic" when they went on to do the "real" version at Trident Studios. The one mixed by Mike Stone was the only one moderately accepted, and it's the one released as single. It includes Freddie Mercury doing all of the harmony vocals in the chorus (multi-tracking himself) and Brian May singing the "two steps nearer to my grave" line instead of Mercury (who did it live and in earlier versions). This recording does not use acoustic guitar; the printed transcription on EMI Music Publishing's Off the Record sheet music lists at least seven electric guitar parts, one of which uses a prominent phasing effect. It can also be noted that this recording includes the line "Come on and get it, get it, get it boy, keep yourself alive," which was not in the original version.
A third version of the song also exists; the so-called "Long-Lost Retake", recorded in 1975, was originally intended for an American single release and features what could now be considered a more 'traditional' Queen sound, with tight, layered vocals and extensively overdubbed guitar parts. However, a slightly shortened version of the original UK single version was eventually released in the US, and the Long-Lost Retake remained officially unreleased until the 1991 Hollywood Records US-only remastered version of the band's debut album, and again later on the 2011 2-disc remaster of A Night At The Opera
.
and one line sung/spoken by him.
"Keep Yourself Alive" was part of the band's live set until the early 1980s. On the 1980 and 1981 tours, the band would play an improvisational jam before the start of the song then after the drum solo, it would morph into Taylor's tympani
drum solo followed by May's echo-plexed guitar solo spot before either segueing into the "Brighton Rock" finale or a drum and guitar climax or segued into a Flash Gordon
medley (which consisted of "Battle Theme"/"Flash's Theme
"/"The Hero"). The band would not play it again until 1984 on The Works
tour as part of a medley of old songs (with "Somebody to Love
", "Killer Queen
", "Seven Seas of Rhye
", and "Liar").
In live performances, Mercury would often sing the line "all you people keep yourself alive" (which is sung only two times in the studio version) in place of the more-repeated line "it'll take you all your time and a money honey you'll survive".
released "Keep Yourself Alive" as a single in the United Kingdom on 6 July 1973, a week before Queen hit the stores. A few months later, on 9 October 1973, Elektra Records
released the single in the United States. However, "Keep Yourself Alive" received little radio airplay and was largely ignored on both sides of the Atlantic; it failed to chart in the either the UK or the US. According to Queen biographer Mark Hodkinson, although "[o]n five separate occasions EMI's pluggers attempted to secure it space on [Britain's Radio 1] play list", they were denied each time, reportedly because the record "took too long to happen". "Keep Yourself Alive" remains the only Queen single not to have charted in the UK.
The single received mixed reviews from the British music press. New Musical Express praised the "cleanly recorded" song, as well as the "[g]ood singer", and quipped that if Queen "look half as good as they sound, they could be huge". The reviewer for Melody Maker
felt that Queen "[made] an impressive debut with a heavily phased guitar intro and energetic vocal attack"; however, he thought the song to be unoriginal, and unlikely to become a hit. On the other hand, Disc magazine's critic believed the single "should do well". The review praised "Keep Yourself Alive"'s drum solo, as well as its "attractively stilted, vaguely Hendrix-y
lead riff". The South Yorkshire Times rated the single as "good"; the newspaper predicted that "[i]f this debut sound from Queen is anything to go by, they should make very interesting listening in the future." In his album review of Queen for Rolling Stone
magazine, Gordon Fletcher hailed "Keep Yourself Alive" as "a truly awesome move for the jugular".
Retrospectively, "Keep Yourself Alive" is cited as the highlight of Queen's otherwise inconsistent debut album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
of Allmusic wrote that while Queen "too often . . . plays like a succession of ideas instead of succinct songs", "[t]here is an exception to that rule — the wild, rampaging opener 'Keep Yourself Alive,' one of their very best songs". In 2008, Rolling Stone rated the song thirty-first on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". The magazine dubbed "Keep Yourself Alive" as "Brian May's statement of purpose: a phalanx of overdubbed guitars crying out in unison, with rhythm and texture from over-the-top effects. . . . an entire album's worth of riffs crammed into a single song."
7" (1975 US reissue)
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
group Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
. Written by guitarist Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
, it is the opening track on the band's debut album Queen
Queen (album)
Queen is the eponymous debut album by British rock group Queen, released in July 1973. It was recorded at Trident Studios and De Lane Lea Music Centre, London, with production by Roy Thomas Baker , John Anthony and Queen....
(1973). It was released as Queen's first single along with "Son and Daughter" as the B-side. "Keep Yourself Alive" was largely ignored upon its release; it failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic.
In 2008, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
rated the song thirty-first on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".
Writing and recording
According to Mark Hodkinson, author of Queen: The Early Years, "Keep Yourself Alive" was conceived on acoustic guitars during Queen's practice sessions at Imperial College and the garden at Ferry Road in 1970. At the time Queen had not yet found a permanent bassist; the group consisted of guitarist Brian May, singer Freddie MercuryFreddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...
and drummer Roger Taylor
Roger Meddows-Taylor
Roger Meddows Taylor , known as Roger Taylor, is a British musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the drummer, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of British rock band Queen. As a drummer he is known for his "big" unique sound and is considered one of...
. In a radio special about their 1977 album News of the World
News of the World (album)
News of the World is the sixth studio album by British rock group Queen, released in 1977. Containing hit songs "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" and "Spread Your Wings", the album went 4x platinum in the US, 2x platinum in the UK, and achieved high certifications around the world as...
, May said he had penned the lyrics thinking of them as ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but their sense was completely changed when Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...
sang them.
The first version of "Keep Yourself Alive" was recorded in summer 1971 at De Lane Lea Studios
De Lane Lea Studios
De Lane Lea Studios is a recording studio, currently based in Dean Street, Soho, London, England, UK. Although the studios have mainly been used for dubbing feature films and television programmes, major artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink...
. It was produced by Louie Austin and includes the intro played on Brian May's Hairfred acoustic guitar. All of the song elements were already present, including call-and-response
Call and response (music)
In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first...
vocals by Freddie Mercury (verses) and during the break, where Roger Taylor sang a line and Mercury answered it. This demo version remains Brian May's favourite take of the song.
Subsequently they did several attempts to "recapture the magic" when they went on to do the "real" version at Trident Studios. The one mixed by Mike Stone was the only one moderately accepted, and it's the one released as single. It includes Freddie Mercury doing all of the harmony vocals in the chorus (multi-tracking himself) and Brian May singing the "two steps nearer to my grave" line instead of Mercury (who did it live and in earlier versions). This recording does not use acoustic guitar; the printed transcription on EMI Music Publishing's Off the Record sheet music lists at least seven electric guitar parts, one of which uses a prominent phasing effect. It can also be noted that this recording includes the line "Come on and get it, get it, get it boy, keep yourself alive," which was not in the original version.
A third version of the song also exists; the so-called "Long-Lost Retake", recorded in 1975, was originally intended for an American single release and features what could now be considered a more 'traditional' Queen sound, with tight, layered vocals and extensively overdubbed guitar parts. However, a slightly shortened version of the original UK single version was eventually released in the US, and the Long-Lost Retake remained officially unreleased until the 1991 Hollywood Records US-only remastered version of the band's debut album, and again later on the 2011 2-disc remaster of A Night At The Opera
A Night at the Opera (Queen album)
A Night at the Opera is the fourth studio album by the British rock group Queen, released in November 1975. Co-produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, A Night at the Opera was, at the time of its release, the most expensive album ever recorded...
.
Live performances
The newly-formed Queen quickly added "Keep Yourself Alive" to their live set. Mercury commented that the song "was a very good way of telling people what Queen was about in those days" (RAM, 21 May 1976, p 17). Indeed, the number included a drum solo by Roger TaylorRoger Meddows-Taylor
Roger Meddows Taylor , known as Roger Taylor, is a British musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the drummer, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of British rock band Queen. As a drummer he is known for his "big" unique sound and is considered one of...
and one line sung/spoken by him.
"Keep Yourself Alive" was part of the band's live set until the early 1980s. On the 1980 and 1981 tours, the band would play an improvisational jam before the start of the song then after the drum solo, it would morph into Taylor's tympani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
drum solo followed by May's echo-plexed guitar solo spot before either segueing into the "Brighton Rock" finale or a drum and guitar climax or segued into a Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon (album)
-Personnel:* John Deacon: bass guitar, rhythm guitar, synthesizer* Brian May: lead guitar, backing vocals, synthesizer, piano on "Flash's Theme" and "The Hero," co-lead vocals on "Flash's Theme," guitar orchestration on "The Wedding March"...
medley (which consisted of "Battle Theme"/"Flash's Theme
Flash (song)
"Flash" is a song by British rock group Queen. Written by guitarist Brian May, "Flash" is the theme song of the 1980 film Flash Gordon. The soundtrack released to coincide with the film contained only the music composed and performed by Queen....
"/"The Hero"). The band would not play it again until 1984 on The Works
The Works (Queen album)
-Radio Ga Ga:"Radio Ga Ga" was composed on keyboards, after Roger Taylor heard his son Felix saying "radio ca ca". He wrote it in Los Angeles and locked himself in the studio with a Roland Jupiter 8 and a drum machine. Afterwards John Deacon came up with a suitable bass line. Mercury reconstructed...
tour as part of a medley of old songs (with "Somebody to Love
Somebody to Love (Queen song)
"Somebody to Love" is a song by British rock band Queen. Written by lead vocalist and pianist Freddie Mercury, the track featured on their 1976 album A Day at the Races, and also appears on the band's compilation album, Greatest Hits...
", "Killer Queen
Killer Queen (song)
"Killer Queen" is a song by British rock band Queen. Written by pianist and lead singer Freddie Mercury, it featured on their 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack, and also appears on the band's compilation album, Greatest Hits. When released as a single, "Killer Queen" was Queen's breakthrough hit,...
", "Seven Seas of Rhye
Seven Seas of Rhye
"Seven Seas of Rhye" is a song by British rock group Queen. Written by Queen lead vocalist Freddie Mercury, it is the final track on both the group's debut album Queen and its follow-up Queen II . However, only a less-developed instrumental version was featured on the former...
", and "Liar").
In live performances, Mercury would often sing the line "all you people keep yourself alive" (which is sung only two times in the studio version) in place of the more-repeated line "it'll take you all your time and a money honey you'll survive".
Release and reception
EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
released "Keep Yourself Alive" as a single in the United Kingdom on 6 July 1973, a week before Queen hit the stores. A few months later, on 9 October 1973, Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
released the single in the United States. However, "Keep Yourself Alive" received little radio airplay and was largely ignored on both sides of the Atlantic; it failed to chart in the either the UK or the US. According to Queen biographer Mark Hodkinson, although "[o]n five separate occasions EMI's pluggers attempted to secure it space on [Britain's Radio 1] play list", they were denied each time, reportedly because the record "took too long to happen". "Keep Yourself Alive" remains the only Queen single not to have charted in the UK.
The single received mixed reviews from the British music press. New Musical Express praised the "cleanly recorded" song, as well as the "[g]ood singer", and quipped that if Queen "look half as good as they sound, they could be huge". The reviewer for Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
felt that Queen "[made] an impressive debut with a heavily phased guitar intro and energetic vocal attack"; however, he thought the song to be unoriginal, and unlikely to become a hit. On the other hand, Disc magazine's critic believed the single "should do well". The review praised "Keep Yourself Alive"'s drum solo, as well as its "attractively stilted, vaguely Hendrix-y
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
lead riff". The South Yorkshire Times rated the single as "good"; the newspaper predicted that "[i]f this debut sound from Queen is anything to go by, they should make very interesting listening in the future." In his album review of Queen for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, Gordon Fletcher hailed "Keep Yourself Alive" as "a truly awesome move for the jugular".
Retrospectively, "Keep Yourself Alive" is cited as the highlight of Queen's otherwise inconsistent debut album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
of Allmusic wrote that while Queen "too often . . . plays like a succession of ideas instead of succinct songs", "[t]here is an exception to that rule — the wild, rampaging opener 'Keep Yourself Alive,' one of their very best songs". In 2008, Rolling Stone rated the song thirty-first on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". The magazine dubbed "Keep Yourself Alive" as "Brian May's statement of purpose: a phalanx of overdubbed guitars crying out in unison, with rhythm and texture from over-the-top effects. . . . an entire album's worth of riffs crammed into a single song."
Track listing
7" (1973 UK release)- "Keep Yourself Alive" (Brian MayBrian MayBrian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
) – 3:47 - "Son and Daughter" (May) – 3:21
7" (1975 US reissue)
- "Keep Yourself Alive" (May) – 3:47
- "Lily Of The Valley" (Freddie MercuryFreddie MercuryFreddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...
) – 1:43 - "God Save The QueenGod Save the Queen"God Save the Queen" is an anthem used in a number of Commonwealth realms and British Crown Dependencies. The words of the song, like its title, are adapted to the gender of the current monarch, with "King" replacing "Queen", "he" replacing "she", and so forth, when a king reigns...
" (trad., arr.ArrangementThe American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
by May) – 1:11
External links
- Official music video at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- "Keep Yourself Alive" at Queenpedia