4 famous songs Roger Taylor wrote for Queen
Every person who is more or less versed in rock music knows who Freddie Mercury is and what his role in the development of Queen is. At the same time, the role of another member of the band, Roger Taylor, is known less. Which is unfair because without him, as well as without Mercury, Queen would hardly have happened.
The music website Song Writer writes, "Until 1970, Taylor played drums in the band Smile. With the arrival of Mercury, the band's name was changed to Queen. And in 1973, they released their first album of the same name".
As for Taylor, he took part in at least one song on every Queen album. He was the vocalist in some compositions. This is partly due to the fact that the band had a strict system of songwriting, meaning that if one of the members came up with an original idea, he claimed full rights to it.
As a result, Taylor wrote some of the band's biggest hits. Here are 4 of the songs he wrote.
"I'm in Love with My Car" (1975)
The album A Night At The Opera is one of the band's most commercially successful projects. It reached #4 on the Billboard 200, having first entered the chart in 1975. Although "Bohemian Rhapsody" is definitely the No. 1 hit here, the rest of the tracklist is also worthy of attention.
The song "I'm in Love with My Car" is the third song to appear on A Night At The Opera, and the only one written by Taylor. As noted in the book "Is This the Real Life? The Untold Story of Queen", written by Mark Blake, the idea of the song is apparently related to the sound engineer John Harris, who was very proud of his Triumph TR-4 car.
"Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll" (1973)
Queen's debut album was uneven, but that didn't diminish the band's potential. On the contrary, the poor performance quality made slow ballads like "Doing Alright" even more impressive and fast moments even more intense.
The song "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll" was the first of Taylor's songs to be recorded with Queen. Taylor sang lead vocals. However, Mercury sang it live at the first performances, matching the tempo and mood and showing how syncopated each member of the band was with each other.
"Modern Time Rock 'n' Roll" is a short track: just over a minute and a half. It anticipates many future punk movements while still retaining hints of the "stadium rock" Queen are so well known for.
"Marriage of Dale and Ming (And Flash Approaching)" (1980)
Written by Brian May and Roger Taylor
The original soundtrack to Flash Gordon was a massive project for Queen, but it certainly lives up to the epic sound they cultivated.
The movie Flash Gordon, based on the comic book by Alex Raymond, and its soundtrack were released in 1980.
The sci-fi story of the film tells the story of Dr. Hans Zarkov, who hires football star Flash Gordon and travel agent Dale Arden to travel through space to save the Earth.
Taylor and guitarist Brian May co-wrote the song, which turned out to be very unconventional for Queen. The song uses dialog fragments from the movie, mixed with Mercury's vocals, synthesizers, and then with regular guitars and drums.
"Radio Ga Ga" (1984)
"Radio Ga Ga" is one of Queen's biggest hits, reaching number sixteen on the Hot 100 in 1984. The song opened Queen's eleventh studio album The Works, released at the same time.
Taylor originally planned to include this track on his solo album, but after consulting with Mercury, he decided to leave it for Queen. The composition is far from glam rock, it uses more techno synthesis, which was popular at the time. Following The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star", "Radio Ga Ga" comments on the use of television and visual media as mainstream, which made the once popular radio outdated and unfashionable.
