Queen – I Want To Break Free

“I Want To Break Free”, single by Queen from album: The Works, released in 1984. Charted # 3 in UK and #45 in US.

Queen bass player John Deacon wrote this from the male perspective of the women’s liberation movement.

The video for this song parodies a popular British television soap, Coronation Street. The opening sequence features all the band members in drag (Mercury as a housewife, Deacon as grandmother, Taylor as a schoolgirl, and May as a housewife). This confused many people who didn’t catch the reference.

Many assume the solo is played on guitar. Actually it’s not – it’s a synth solo by talented keyboardist Fred Mandel. “John did NOT want a guitar solo” notes Roger Taylor. “So he got Fred, who’s a very brilliant keyboard player, to improvise something around the main tune, and Fred did this brilliant take.”

Brian May was asked in an interview with Q magazine March 2011 whether each band member’s character in the video was an accurate reflection of their personalities? He replied: “Of Course! Everybody thinks that was Freddie’s idea because it looks like something that he would love to do but it actually came from Roger’s girlfriend at the time, strangely enough. It was her idea to pastiche the Coronation Street women.”

Sadly, for some the Coronation Street pastiche video didn’t go over so well, and it was actually banned on MTV, meaning the single died in America. Fred Mandel, who played the synths and signature solo on the track, explained in the Days of our Lives documentary: “It’s a very British kind of humor, and I don’t think it went over too well in the States. I’m Canadian, so I get it!”

Roger Taylor seemed visibly annoyed: “In those days on MTV, it was Whitesnake, and f–king Whitesnake, and then another Whitesnake track! They must’ve thought men dressing up in drag wasn’t ‘rock’ enough, I suppose.” Brian May added, “I think at that point we lost America, which is a shame, as it means there’s a whole chunk of Queen songs which never got played or heard there.”

Singles are often edited down from the album version of songs, but this was the opposite, as the version on The Works is about 30 seconds shorter – the single has a longer synthesizer intro and a longer solo.
Text
[Verse 1]
I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You are so self-satisfied I don’t need you
I have got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

[Verse 2]
I’ve fallen in love
I’ve fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it’s for real
I’ve fallen in love, yeah
God knows, God knows I’ve fallen in love

…….

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