Now we get to the song that I alluded to on an earlier post. The one that galvanized my adoration for the band above all others.
It’s not the best song in their catalog. Not by far. But, it was a complete surprise to me at the time I heard it.
I knew of Queen. I wasn’t a fan yet. I was into New Wave and punk. My younger brother liked them. He was 9 at the time. I was 14. It was 1980.
He had the 8 track to A Day at the Races and I put it on one day on the downstairs stereo. Then I went up to my room after I cranked it up loud enough for me to her it while I was reading some science fiction magazine.
No one was home and I would often do this, much to the chagrin of my neighbors.
When Long Away came on, I thought I had made a mistake. This wasn’t Queen. I knew the song, I had heard it on the radio, but it couldn’t be Queen. I always thought it was Fleetwood Mac. Queen were the guys who did that glammy stuff. Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen, right?
But it was and is them.
An acoustic guitar driven song, like the last album’s ’39, Long Away is obsessed with stars and the universe, etc. But it’s prettier; a jaunty 70s acoustic rock epic that gets it’s power and success from Roger and John’s simple but effective rhythm section. And his reedy, weak voice works on this record where it has failed him so much in the past.
Brian would try this kind of song many more times on future records but never get it quite as right as he did here.
Grade: A
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