{"id":320465,"date":"2026-08-13T16:36:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320465\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:36:45","slug":"the-queen-song-brian-may-wrote-about-losing-his-childhood-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320465\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queen Song Brian May Wrote About Losing His Childhood Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legendary frontman Freddie Mercury might be widely seen as the driving force behind many of rock band Queen\u2019s most memorable hits, but in truth the rest of the band\u2014guitarist Brian May, bassist John Deacon, and drummer Roger Taylor\u2014were just as instrumental in carving out their place on the charts. In fact, Queen is the only band in history<\/a> to have scored international number one hits with tracks written by each of its band members, leading to all four of the band\u2019s lineup being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among Brian May\u2019s many contributions to the band\u2019s list of hits is their classic track \u201cWe Will Rock You,\u201d which was released as the B-side to Queen\u2019s 1977 global smash hit, \u201cWe Are the Champions.\u201d But trawl a little deeper into the band\u2019s back catalog, and you\u2019ll find another of May\u2019s solo songwriting credits in the form of a rather unassuming three-minute-long shuffling piano ballad called \u201cAll Dead, All Dead\u201d\u2014a track May later confirmed he had written at least partly in memory of his childhood pet cat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Story Behind \u201cAll Dead, All Dead\u201d \"Brian<\/p>\n

Queen’s Brian May | Rob Verhorst\/GettyImages<\/p>\n

Although never released as a single, \u201cAll Dead, All Dead\u201d was included as the fourth track on Queen\u2019s sixth studio album, News of the World, in 1977. The band had recorded the album that summer in a flurry of studio activity that followed the completion of their world tour in support of their previous album, A Day at the Races.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At that time<\/a>, the punk rock movement\u2014spearheaded by the arrival of the Sex Pistols\u2014was taking over the mainstream music scene, and popular music was embracing a simpler, rootsier sound. In response, Queen pared back some of their trademark elaborate sound on News of the World, producing simpler, stripped-down tracks like the hand-clapping and boot-stomping \u201cWe Will Rock You.\u201d And it was against this backdrop that May wrote \u201cAll Dead, All Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of my favorites,\u201d May said of the song in a later interview <\/a>with Guitar Magazine. \u201c[\u2018All Dead, All Dead\u2019] was one of the ones which I thought came off best, and I was really pleased with the sound. It always gives me a surprise when I listen to it because it was meant to really bring tears to your eyes. It almost does it to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lyrics<\/a>, certainly, are heartfelt and plainly address a sudden and painful loss: \u201cAll dead, all dead,\u201d May sings over the piano, \u201cTake me back again \/ You know my little friend\u2019s \/ All dead and gone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cat Who Inspired \u201cAll Dead, All Dead\u201d<\/p>\n

The identity of May\u2019s \u201clittle friend\u201d in the song remained the subject of nothing more than rumor and fan speculation until long after the album was released, and May began to address <\/a>the song in interviews. Eventually, he made it clear that the song was at least partly inspired by his childhood pet cat, Pixie, who he admitted was the \u201cclosest\u201d thing<\/a> he had to a sibling growing up. Pixie\u2019s death was May\u2019s first experience of true grief, and it was those feelings that he bottled up and used in \u201cAll Dead, All Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fittingly, to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World in 2017, May worked with filmmakers Jason Jameson and Robert Milne to bring Pixie back to life on screen in an animated lyric video<\/a> for the song released on the band\u2019s official YouTube channel.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary frontman Freddie Mercury might be widely seen as the driving force behind many of rock band Queen\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-320465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}