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Credit: Far Out \/ LastFM<\/p>\n
Sat 26 September 2026 10:00, UK <\/p>\n
There\u2019s having a sudden wave of inspiration that only comes once in a while, and then there\u2019s having waves of inspiration that seem to arrive at an almost constant rate. If you\u2019re ever going to succeed as a rock<\/a> band, having a songwriter capable of the latter is going to help you out a great deal.<\/p>\n While all four members of Queen were evidently talented songwriters, Freddie Mercury seemed to have this golden touch that allowed him to conjure up complex songs with little to no effort. \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 might well seem as though its development over several years was drawn out, but it seemed to come as a result of Mercury having constant waves of inspiration as to how to get his magnum opus to come together exactly as he wanted it to.<\/p>\n But not every band has the time to wait five or more years<\/a> for their best and most laboured-over material, so it\u2019s probably a good thing that, as well as being able to write a song in half a decade, Mercury was also capable of writing effortlessly catchy pop songs in half an hour.<\/p>\n In 1979, Queen were gearing up to record their eighth studio album in Munich, and while early preparatory sessions for the album appeared to be going well, they were significantly aided by one of Mercury\u2019s most inspired moments, which occurred in, of all places, the bathtub of his hotel room. Suddenly overcome with an idea for a complete song while enjoying a relaxing soak, he exited the bathroom with haste once he\u2019d worked it out and finished it on an acoustic guitar.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Crazy Little Thing Called Love\u2019 took me five or ten minutes,\u201d Mercury would later divulge in a 1981 interview for Melody Maker. \u201cI did that on the guitar, which I can\u2019t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It\u2019s a good discipline, because I simply had to write within a small framework.\u201d<\/p>\n Evidently aware of the fact that he\u2019d come up with an idea for a hit on the spur of the moment<\/a>, he immediately took the song to the studio and showed it to the rest of the band. Roger Taylor remembers being presented with the song by Mercury as a matter of urgency, and that they had to cut the song there and then in the hope that the idea wouldn\u2019t get lost among the other things they were working on.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recorded that song, really, six months before the rest of the album,\u201d Taylor later said in an interview with In the Studio With Redbeard. \u201cIt took half an hour to record. I remember he came in the studio. He says, \u2018My dear, I just wrote this in the bath,\u2019 and he did. He\u2019d just been lying in the bath, and there it was. It was very simple, very easy, and it had a great fresh sound to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Brian May, the band\u2019s irreplaceable guitarist, wasn\u2019t even there for the initial session that produced the recording, and his lead guitar parts and vocal harmonies would have to be overdubbed at a later stage. May\u2019s absence didn\u2019t slow them down; they\u2019d managed to bash out one of the band\u2019s biggest hits in just as much time as it had taken for Mercury to write the song in the first place.<\/p>\n \u2018Crazy Little Thing Called Love\u2019 was the band\u2019s first US number one and reached number two in the UK. There\u2019s inspiration, and then there\u2019s Mercury: a songwriter who could enter a place of supreme creativity almost on a whim<\/a>. The song may well be comparatively simple when pitted against other Queen songs, but that doesn\u2019t make the circumstances any less exceptional.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n