Unreleased songs

Inclusion here does not imply I think the track may be in a releasable form - many would not have got past the rough demo form and release would not be appropriate. Some of these songs may not exist at all, some may have been lost and some may have been deliberately wiped. The band have always done a good job of deciding what to release and I see no reason to stop trusting them now.

Queen

• 1971 "De Lane Lea" demo tape. These five songs (which recently surfaced on a bootleg called 'In The Beginning') are superb early recordings and show the raw power of early Queen. The quality of the CD bootleg is apparently poor when compared to the original master tape.

• "Hangman" - an old Wreckage song which Queen used to perform live on stage in the early days. There have been endless rumours about a studio recording of this song, and the truth of these cannot really be known. It is very likely that there is a good quality live recording somewhere in the band's vaults and so it is possible that a proper live recording could one day be issued to replace the very poor quality live bootlegs which currently exist.

• "Silver Salmon". Apparently recorded during the sessions for the first album as one of three religious songs ("Jesus" and "Mad The Swine" being the others). The song definitely exists, and the sound is reminiscent of early 1970s Black Sabbath.

• "Jailhouse Rock", "Bama Lama Bama Loo". In the early days, Queen (and Wreckage before them) were very fond of the rock'n'roll medley and these two songs were often included in live performances. It has been reported that a studio version of the rock'n'roll medley exists, one of the first things Queen ever recorded.

• "Polar Bear" - A Queen versions of this Smile song has been reported (by the Royal Vision Club), though it is not known whether it is complete. In a similar theme there is thought to be a Smile (or, more precisely, Smile era) version of "White Queen", though this is most likely to be a Brian home demo rather than a proper band recording (from "As It Began" it is known that Brian wrote the lyrics to the song in 1969, and it is likely he would also have set them to music) 1969

• 1973 Radio 1 sessions. These sessions have been heavily bootlegged.
  • "See What A Fool I've Been"
  • "Keep Yourself Alive"
  • "Liar"
  • "Son and Daughter"

• 1974 Radio 1 sessions. These sessions have not been bootlegged widely and are very rare in good condition.
  • "March Of The Black Queen"
  • "Nevermore"
  • "Modern Times Rock'n'Roll"
  • "White Queen" [beautiful version featuring piano]

• 1974 Radio 1 sessions (for Bob Harris). These sessions have not been bootlegged widely and are very rare in good condition.
  • "Now I'm Here"
  • "Stone Cold Crazy"
  • "Flick Of The Wrist"
  • "Tenement Funster"

• 1977 Radio 1 sessions (for Alan Freeman). These sessions have been heavily bootlegged.
  • "Spread Your Wings"
  • "It's Late" [featuring "Get Down Make Love"]
  • "My Melancholy Blues" [version featuring guitar]
  • "We Will Rock You (slow version)"
  • Reading from "Siddartha" by Herman Hesse
  • "We Will Rock You (fast version)"

• "Play The Game" featuring Andy Gibb on vocals during the first verse. This has never been heard by anyone outside of Queen's circle, but it's existence has been reported.

• "Cool Cat" featuring David Bowie on backing vocals. This song, which has appeared on bootleg, was presumably recorded as a b-side for "Under Pressure" but was not used for whatever reason. The bootleg version seems to be a nearly finished version rather than a rough demo.

• "There Must Be More To Life Than This". Originally intended to be the last track on "The Works", this was replaced late in the day when Freddie and Brian wrote "Is This The World We Created" after seeing some news pictures on the TV. Is is possible that "Works" acetates could exist featuring this track though I've never heard of one being found. It is also possible that Freddie simply reused the Queen version of this song on "Mr Bad Guy" rather than rerecording it. There was also a phase in the life of this song where Freddie and Michael Jackson were both doing something with it. What they were doing is, of course, anyone's guess.

• "Is This The World We Created" with piano and guitar. The song as originally recorded featured Freddie on piano as well as Brian on acoustic guitar. However the piano track was lost and it was released with just the guitar.

• "New York New York", just a part of the song was recorded for the "Highlander" movie. It is not impossible that a Queen recording of the entire song does not exist, though it has always been officially denied.

• "Butterfly". Brian has reported that this was the name of the song he is playing at the start of the "In The Studio" section of the "Magic years volume one" video. It is not known whether anything was ever recorded.

• "Dog With A Bone". This song was recorded as a band message at the third Fan Club Convention in 1988. The recording is obviously not up to a commercial release, but it is such a fun song that it is a shame it will not be heard properly. A poor quality bootleg exists.

• "Too Much Love Will Kill You" 1989 version. This song was originally recorded for "The Miracle" album but was omitted due to problems with the Musker/Lamers co-credit (Freddie is reported to have said "It's good, but it's not that good"). A short clip of the song exists on bootleg which Brian claims comes from an advance DJ copy, though this seems unlikely seeing as it is such a short fragment; and it is much more likely to have been stolen at the same time as the demo clips for "Invisible Man" etc. The version of the song that appears on the "Made In Heaven" album sounds as though it is completely different to the 1989 version, presumably resulting from a different take of the 1989 vocals with instruments added in 1994/5.

• "Let Me Live" original version. A very few early American promotional cassette copies of "Made In Heaven" included a version of "Let Me Live" with
  Take another little piece of my heart now, baby
  Take another little piece of my soul now, baby
  Take another little piece of my life now, baby
  in the chorus. These were removed because Janis Joplin's estate considered the song similar to one of theirs and demanded royalties. Queen instead changed "Let Me Live" so it could not be considered similar and so this version of the song is unlikely ever to be released (though it is certain to appear on bootlegs sooner rather than later).

  Note that the lyrics to the song in the LP/CD/MC booklet are for this early withdrawn version and have the extra lines in the chorus which are no longer in the song.

  Brian has reported the existence of a tape, dating from 1976, of Queen and Rod Stewart singing a version of the song. This is likely to be just jamming, rather than a serious song in releasable quality.

Freddie

• Work with Michael Jackson from 1982 or so. Two of the tracks involved were "Victory" (later recorded by The Jacksons"), "State Of Shock" (later recorded by Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger) and "There Must be More To Life Than This" (later recorded and not released by Queen; and recorded and released by Freddie). The master tapes of the work are owned by Jackson and are unlikely ever to be released, though it was once reported by The Jacksons Fan Club that "State Of Shock" would be included on a rarities release towards the end of 1997.

• "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". In 1987, Freddie was reported to be working on an album of cover versions. Only one song that could formed part of this was ever released - "The Great Pretender" (though even this may not have been recorded specifically for the reported album). "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" was one of the other songs he was reported to be working on, and it is not impossible that another was "New York, New York" (though that could be just wishful thinking?!!!). Whatever songs there are are reported to be just fragments. The existence of this project has been denied by the OIQFC.

• Mid 70s album work with Trax. Seems to have been lost.

Brian

• "Slot Machine". In 1987/88, Brian did some work with Steve Hackett (there is an interview where he describes how Hackett went away and left Brian in his studio). Two songs ("Cassandra" and "Don't Fall Away From Me") were released on Hackett albums, but this song (and maybe others) has never appeared.

• Incidental music from "Macbeth". In 1990, Brian wrote music for a production of Macbeth at Hammersmith's Riverside Studios. The music was never released and is quite arty so would not make a radio-friendly single :-) It was very good, though, and deserves to be heard again.

• Original music recorded for the "Rise Of The Robots" computer game was not used in the released version of the game because EMI wanted to delay the release of the game and the game people decided to proceed without the music rather than delay (they did use "The Dark" and "Resurrection" but did not use the music that had been specifically written). The music may have been used in the "Rise 2" game, of course.

• 1988 Olympic Games - TV incidental music.

• "Rolling Stone" - recorded with Lonnie Donnegan

• "Let Your Heart Rule Your Head" - recorded with Lonnie Donnegan

• "Lady Of Leisure" - recorded with Gareth Marks

• "Fork In The Road" - recorded with Jonathan Kelly

• "What The Hell Was I Thinking?" - recorded with Dweezil Zappa

Roger

• "Keep On Running" - originally recorded for the "Strange Frontier" album but not used. (This is a cover of the Spencer Davis Group song)

• "Nazis 1994" original album version. When three songs were played to people attending the 1994 Fan Club Convention, the version of "Nazis" was different to the various single mixes, and included the F word. The album was seriously delayed and when it finally appeared the F word had gone. It is possible this withdrawn version of the song may be the "banned version" that is on several bootlegs, but I have not heard them so I can't confirm or deny. There is also a version of the video that contains the F word and this could either be the unreleased album version or yet another single version.

• 1988 Olympic Games - TV incidental music.

• Album by Sideway Look produced by Roger, including planned single "Bullet Proof Heart"

• "Dear Mr Murdoch" - the OIQFC reported that this started out life as a Cross song, though it is not known whether they ever actually recorded a version of it and, if so, whether Roger's version is significantly different. There is a rare Japanese promo CD of the "Happiness?" album that contains a different version of this track to the one that appeared on the European release of the album (the track did not appear at all on the actual Japanese release).

John

• Work with Errol Brown, including song "This Is Your Time"

• In May 1989, John reported that a third "Morris Minor And The Majors" single was going to be released. Nothing ever appeared, and in any case the extent of John's involvement isn't known.