A few weeks a friend from Dunedin sent a request that I may
do a little analysis of Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’ I was told that
renditions of this song occur most weekends at Wellington’s Cambridge Hotel,
although I cannot confirm at present whether these renditions stack up in any
way shape or form next to the original. I suspect the bar’s patrons may, after
a few drinks, be able to match Freddie Mercury and co. for enthusiasm; whether
they match him for skill is another matter entirely. What follows is an attempt
to explain the musical construction of the song in terms that can be
comprehended by wide audience. When I refer to musical details, I will bracket
the concurrent lyrics.
‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ was one of Freddie Mercury’s
compositions to appear on Queen’s 1978 album Jazz. This was not one of their finest albums, if only because it
lacked the consistency of top-drawer material that had marked their previous
efforts, such as A Night at the Opera,
A Day at the Races, and News of the World. The album was
infamously derided by Rolling Stone critic
Dave Marsh — he pointedly asked, “why would anyone want to indulge these
creeps” and sneered that Queen may have been the world’s first “fascist” rock
band (in reference to the marching pulse of ‘We Will Rock You,’ which wasn’t
actually on Jazz). Well, people did
indulge the creeps as the album reached no. 2 on the British charts. ‘Don’t
Stop Me Now’ reached no. 9 on the British singles charts, but bombed in the
States, just scraping into the top 87 (at 86th place).
The song can be divided firstly into three sections: an
introduction, the main body of the song, and a coda. Within these broad
divisions, each section has its own phrases which are repeated. The clever
aspect of this song is the way in which each phrase grows out of the previous
one, usually through a common harmony that connects the two parts. It is this
aspect that gives the song its fluid quality – although we can identify
“Verses” or “Choruses,” the transitions between them are often smooth (compare
this to, for example, ‘Save Me’).
The introduction is in F major and opens with Freddie
singing a sweeping broken chord through an octave (“gon-na have my-self”). The
piano accompaniment (also played by Freddie) mimics this grandiose gesture with
broken chords that spread quickly from the left hand octaves (playing the bass
note) to the right hand chords. Freddie’s singing is similarly dramatic on “I
feel a-live…ive…ive…ive”; the melody rises again but now in syncopated rhythm
and with large scoops up to the actual pitch of each syllable. The chords
through this phrase are what we call diatonic
– that is, they are drawn from the key of the song (as opposed to chromatic chords which are drawn from
outside the home key). They progress through the three minor chords of F major
– from bar 2, A minor, to D minor, to G minor – before landing on C (on
“alive”), to complete the phrase. The phrase length, 5 bars, is unusual, but
does not sound ungainly, possibly because the chord progression is logical and
the melody line elegant.
The first and second phrases overlap on the F major chord
(“and the world”) – the tonic harmony
concludes the first progression and begins the second. After this bar, a
flattened seventh is added to the tonic chord (F major) which sends the music
towards Bb – notice the extra drive and harmonic tension on the line “is
turning inside out” – before the harmony heads towards G minor. Freddie is
getting all ecstatic and light-headed (hear how delicate his head-voice is on
the words “floating around in ecstasy”) and then the backing vocalists
punctuate his thoughts with the titular command.
“Don’t stop me now,” they sing in unison as their melody
falls an octave. The piano embellishes their words by playing full chords in
the same staccato (detached) rhythm. The syncopation here is very similar to
the previous bar, and the octave descent is akin to Freddie’s opening melody
except in the opposite direction. Furthermore, the line begins on a G minor
chord, which, again, was where the previous phrase had ended. The title line is
repeated and followed by the vocalists in four-part harmony (Freddie’s lead
vocal plus three backing singers – Freddie, Brian and Roger). The block vocals
are pretty standard fare for Queen and if you listen hard, you can pick out
Roger’s note at the very top of the chord, singing a repeated C. Roger had
(probably still has) a marvelous tenor voice and was able to provide these
delightful flourishes on top of the vocal harmonies.
At this point, things step up a notch and the song takes off
at much fast rate of knots (about 152 beats per minute). Freddie’s piano
playing shifts from broken chords to percussive chords played in quavers and on
the occasional offbeat. If you listen to the song without the lead vocals, you
can hear quite a rough transition between speeds – Freddie must have been
excited about ramping up the tempo and took off with his piano playing out of
time, before settling into the groove after a bar or two.
Of the subsequent verse, there is not much to say except
that it predominantly uses the same harmonic and melodic structure as the
verse. Where it changes is the final segment, with the addition of the tag,
“I’m gonna make a supersonic man out of you.” The bass line is a simply blues
line, G-A-Bb-B-natural, to C. This is doubled by one backing vocalist (possibly
Brian), while another adds a counter-melody a fifth above, and Freddie sings
his melody above this.
The title line re-enters although not as we’ve heard it
before. This time the line is sung in three-part harmony with the voices
ascending (again, it is an inversion of an earlier melody). The structure of
the voices may sound clunky as each one jumps up a sixth; however, it contrasts
with the smoother lines of Freddie’s verse melody. The original “don’t stop me
now” then reappears four bars later. The chorus ends on an unusual chord (an
Ab6 harmony with a Bb in the bass), which is chromatic (hence it’s special
sound). This technique of using a chromatic chord to finish the chorus is not
uncommon in Queen songs (‘Save Me,’ ‘You’re My Best Friend,’ ‘Crazy Little
Thing Called Love,’ ‘Spread Your Wings,’ etc.) and may be typical of pop songs
of this era (think of Elton John’s ‘Daniel,’ or ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ or,
as I discovered the other day, 10cc’s ‘The Things We Do For Love.’).
From this point, we have a repeat of the verse. This time
round features my favourite point of the song. “Like an atom bomb, I’m going to
woah, woah, woah, woah, woah explode,” are Freddie’s lines. The others join him
on the “woahs,” although each backing vocal part is added one at a time. Thus,
we hear one singer on the first “woah,” two on the next, three on the next, and
so on, until Roger hits the high F on “explode.” The backing vocals don’t
literally explode (as hack writers these days may be wont to say), but they are
somewhat volcanic, growing out of one voice into a vibrant wall of sound. It is
a nice touch; if you listen through a set of good headphones you will notice
that the vocals begin in the left ear before expanding across the stereo image
to fill both ears.
There is an 8-bar breakdown that follows, which may be a nod
to gospel influences. The backing vocalists repeat the title line, and Freddie
gives the impression of improvisatory lines above them. Freddie ushers in Brian
May’s guitar solo, which is very melodic (try sing it back – it’s easy to do)
and played with a little overdrive. You can also hear how he leans into the
held notes of each phrase; the tone of each note comes after the beat, which
may relate to Freddie’s singing style (this is a point I am investigating…).
The song then revisits the verse and chorus with frequent
interjections from Brian’s guitar. Again, this is a fairly common technique in
pop/rock songwriting – keep the lead guitar out until the instrumental and then
have fills in the third verse. The chorus ends with our chromatic chord, this
time with the backing vocalists emphasising the chord and then sliding back to
F major. As this occurs, Freddie’s piano signals a shift back to the slow tempo
of the introduction. The song fades out with Freddie “dah-dah-dahing” the main
melody to complete the structural circle, as it were.
And thus ends ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’ I said at the start that
many of the song’s features are typical of mid-period Queen, and especially
Freddie’s songwriting. These include the piano foundation, which essentially is
a substitute for a rhythm guitar; Freddie’s piano playing, which has a
left-hand bass note or octave, and then chords in two registers (i.e. mid-range
and high) in the right hand; Freddie’s vocal transitions from overly flamboyant
in the introduction (lots of vibrato and scooping/bending up to the notes) to a
much tighter rock vocal in the main part of the song; the wide range of
diatonic harmonies and chromatic harmonies being used as embellishments; the
three-part vocal harmonies; and May’s guitar style, as mentioned above.
Overall, the song probably sits in the music hall section of
Queen’s repertoire. This influence is not as pronounced as on, say, ‘Good Old
Fashioned Lover Boy’ (compare the piano part on this to Paul McCartney’s
‘Martha, My Dear’) or ‘Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon,’ but the piano harmonies
and style seem to derive from music hall. The same can be said of Freddie’s
camp (i.e. over-the-top) vocal style to open and close the song.
Despite these comments, I can’t help but feel that this is
not one of Queen’s greatest songs. I think the reason for this boils down to an
aspect not really analysed: the lyrics. For ultimately, the lyrics of ‘Don’t
Stop Me Now’ are pretty trivial. This is not to say that good songs have to
present some deeper meaning in their lyrics, but they lack the cheekiness that
marks other Queen hits. This trait does derive from British music hall, I
believe, in which songs would parody or send up certain aspects of life around
them. In Queen’s case, ‘Killer Queen’ is a archetype, being a little ditty
about a high class prostitute who mixes with heads-of-state. Even a song like ‘Fat
Bottomed Girls’ can be seen in this light; it seems to play off the rock n roll
stereotype of svelte, model-like women being the objects of singers’
affections.
In a way, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ presents a pretty absurd set
of lyrics, but it lacks the subtle edge that creates humour in their other
songs. Perhaps the best line is “I’m a sex machine, ready to unload…” which is
funny simply because there’s no attempt to disguise the sexual innuendo.
But to conclude, it is easy to see why this song has
remained one of Queen’s most popular. It is upbeat, has a catchy melody, has a
superb hook in the bouncy title line, and, above all, showcases the skills of a
band who were near the height of their game when the song was written. If
nothing else, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ gave us this video. And with that, it is now
time for me to stop.