A new recording of Freddie is big news at any time. Following the smash success of Bohemian Rhapsody and the resurgence of appreciation for the band and its much-missed frontman, this is major music news. There have been rumours of more tracks laid down by the band during Freddie’s final sessions in Switzerland, while the band’s roadie claims there are entire tracks of Queen with David Bowie somewhere out there. Today’s official announcement reveals a completely remastered new track, just Freddie’s incredible voice and a piano.
The original recording was made in January 1986 at Abbey Road Studios.
Freddie recorded two numbers for a star-studded version of a new musical Time, written by his friend Dave Clark. He had originally only been scheduled to perform In My Defence but insisted on coming back and laying down the spine-tingling vocal for Time Waits For No One.
In typically 1980s style, the recording was covered in 96 layers of vocal and instrumental tracks and Clark has spent two years peeling everything back to reveal the purity of just Freddie’s voice.
He also cut together a new video shot in just three hours with four cameras at the Dominion Theatre where the musical Time was playing.
WATCH THE NEW VIDEO BELOW
Clark describes the experience of watching Freddie sing the track as “a magic performance…he tasted every word.”
Clark talks about the entire process, which has started back in October 1985 when Freddie flew over from his home in Munich to record In My Defence: “We got on great…if I didn’t like something I’d say, and vice versa…we were both aiming for the same thing: to make something special.”
Another musician, Mike Moran, was on piano, and he struck up such a bond with Freddie that they later wrote Barcelona together.
The recordings went on late into the night, fuelled, of course, by “fabulous food, vodka and Cristal Champagne”, provided by Freddie’s personal chef and ex-boyfriend Joe Fanelli.
The musical Time ran for two years and was a precursor for the epic rock opera shows like Bat Out of Hell and Queen’s We Will Rock You, which ran for a blockbusting twelve years at the same theatre.
The lyrics of the song Time, itself, are particularly poignant, especially the line: “Time, waits for nobody, We’ve got to build this world together, Or we’ll have no more future at all, Because time – it waits for nobody.”
Hearing Freddie sing them again like this powerful, indeed.
