"Innuendo" is a song by the British rock band

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. Written by Freddie Mercury and

Roger Taylor Roger Taylor may refer to: *Roger Taylor (Queen drummer) (born 1949), drummer for Queen *Roger Taylor (Duran Duran drummer) (born 1960), drummer for Duran Duran *Roger Taylor (author), author of epic fantasy Hawklan series *Roger Taylor (college pr ...

but credited to Queen, it is the opening track on the album of the same name (1991), and was released as the first single from the album. The single debuted at

number one Number One most commonly refers to: * 1 (number) Number One, No. 1, or #1 may also refer to: Music Albums * ''Number 1'' (Big Bang album), and the title song * ''No. 1'' (BoA album), and the title song * ''No.1'' (EP), by CLC * ''n.1 ...

on the

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in January 1991, the band's first number-one hit since "

Under Pressure "Under Pressure" is a song by the British rock band Queen and singer David Bowie. Originally released as a single in October 1981, it was later included on Queen's 1982 album ''Hot Space''. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, ...

" in 1981, and additionally reached the top ten in ten other countries. It is included on the band's second compilation album '' Greatest Hits II''. At six-and-a-half minutes, it is one of Queen's epic songs. The song has been described as "reminiscent" of "Bohemian Rhapsody" because it was "harking back to their

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

roots". Its verses are in the Phrygian Dominant and features a

flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

guitar section performed by Yes guitarist

Steve Howe Stephen James Howe (born 8 April 1947) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist in the progressive rock band Yes across three stints since 1970. Born in Holloway, North London, Howe developed an interest in the guitar and began to le ...

and

Brian May Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen (band), Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Fredd ...

, also in that mode,
an operatic interlude and sections of

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

that recall early Queen, in addition to the lyric inspired in part by Mercury's illness; although media stories about his health were being denied strenuously, he was by now seriously ill with

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, from which he would die in November 1991, 10 months after the song was released. The song was accompanied by a music video featuring animated representations of the band on a cinema screen akin to ''

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'', eerie plasticine figure stop-motion and harrowing imagery. It has been described as one of the band's darkest and most moving works.

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described the song as a "superb epic" which deals with "mankind's inability to live harmoniously".

Songwriting

"Innuendo" was pieced together "like a jigsaw puzzle". The recurring theme (with the Boléro-esque beat) started off as a jam session between May, Deacon and Taylor. Mercury then added the melody and some of the lyric, which were then completed by Taylor. The middle section was primarily Mercury's work, according to an interview with May in October 1994's ''Guitar Magazine''. It features a

guitar solo, followed by a classically influenced bridge, and then the solo again but performed with electric guitars. This section is especially complex, featuring a pattern of three bars in 5/4 time (reasonably uncommon in popular music) followed by five bars in the more often used 3/4 time. The end of the flamenco-guitar style is based on the 5/4 bar, but is in 6/4 time. The bridge section ("You can be anything you want to be") features sophisticated orchestration, created by Mercury and producer David Richards using the popular

Korg M1 The Korg M1 is a synthesizer and music workstation manufactured by Korg from 1988 to 1995. According to ''Sound on Sound'', it is one of the bestselling synthesizers, selling an estimated 250,000 units. Development Korg's chief engineer, Junichi ...

keyboard/synth/workstation. Mercury had arranged and co-arranged orchestras in his solo career, and closed the previous Queen album with the track "Was It All Worth It", which included a Gershwin-esque interlude also coming from an M1 synth. The Bridge section in "Innuendo" is in 3/4, showing once again Mercury's affection for triple metres: "Bicycle Race" is another one with main sections in 4/4 and middle-eight in 3/4, and some of his best-known pieces (namely "

We Are the Champions "We Are the Champions" is a song by the British rock band Queen, released from the band's sixth album ''News of the World'' (1977). Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, it remains among rock's most recognisable anthems.

" and " Somebody to Love") were in 6/8, as would be his last composition, " A Winter's Tale".

Steve Howe's involvement

Steve Howe has said he was "so proud" to have played on the song and he became the only Queen non-member to have played guitar on a studio recording of a Queen song. Howe and Mercury had been friends for several years, since they ran into each other quite often at the Townhouse Studios in London. Yes had recorded ''

Going for the One ''Going for the One'' is the eighth studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, released on 15 July 1977 by Atlantic Records. After taking a break in activity in 1975 for each member to release a solo album, and their 1976 tour of the Uni ...

'' at Mountain Studios in 1976–77 shortly before Queen bought the Swiss studio, and

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's debut album was produced by Queen's engineer, Mike Stone. On a break from a recording session in Geneva, Howe drove to Montreux and stopped to have lunch. There he ran into Martin Groves, who had worked for Yes before and by this time was Queen's equipment supervisor. Groves told him Queen were in the studio at the moment. As soon as Steve Howe went into the studios, Mercury asked him to play some guitar (according to producer David Richards, who had worked with Yes in the past as well). Another version is that Brian May was the one who asked him to play the flamenco bit. When the members of Queen asked if Howe wanted to play on the title track, Howe politely suggested they’d lost their minds. It took the combined weight of Mercury, May and Taylor to persuade him. According to Steve Howe: The album's liner notes contain the credit "on "Innuendo": Additional Wandering Minstrel Spanish Guitar - Somewhere In The Middle - by Steve Howe. Many thanks Steve".

Music video

A very elaborate music video was created to accompany the single and released on 20 December 1990, combining

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animation with rotoscoping and featuring dolls in a detailed miniature cinema set. The band members only appear as illustrations and images, mainly taken from earlier Queen music videos (such as " The Miracle", "

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", " Breakthru", "

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", " I Want It All", and clips from the then unreleased " Live at Wembley '1986"), on a cinema screen in the same manner as in the film ''

'', with Mercury drawn in the style of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

, May in the style of Victorian etchings, Taylor in the style of

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

, and Deacon in the style of

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. It also featured a montage of historical stock footages, including from both

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and the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

. The interlude of Flamenco music showed

claymation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Tra ...

figures of

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performing, which were animated by Klaybow Films. The video received

heavy rotation In broadcasting, rotation is the repeated airing of a limited playlist of songs on a radio station or satellite radio channel, or music videos on a TV network. They are usually in a different order each time. However, they are not completely sh ...

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and won production company

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(who also produced the videos to all other singles from the ''Innuendo'' album) a Monitor Award for Best Achievement in Music Video.

Critical reception

Ian Gittins, writing for ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'', considered the song to be "Bohemian Rhapsody" Vol II and described it as "seductively monstrous". He added, "All ill-starred vocal operatics, hairy-palmed guitar runs and portentous drivel, it even breaks into Spanish rhumba at one sublime point."

David Quantick David Quantick (born 14 May 1961) is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former freelance writer for the music magazine ''NME'', his writing credits have included '' On the Hour'', '' ...

of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' described it as a "spectacularly tossy rock anthem".

Track listings

* 7-inch single :A. "Innuendo" (album version) – 6:30 :B. "Bijou" – 3:37 * 12-inch and CD single # "Innuendo" (explosive version) – 6:46 # "Under Pressure" – 4:04 # "Bijou" - 3:37

Personnel

Queen * Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals, keyboards *

– electric guitar, classical guitar *

– drums, percussion *

John Deacon John Richard Deacon (born 19 August 1951) is an English retired musician, best known for being the bass guitarist for the rock band Queen. He wrote several songs for the group, including Top 10 hits " You're My Best Friend", "Another One Bite ...

– bass guitar Additional musicians *

– classical guitars and Spanish guitar solos * David Richards – keyboard programming

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Other versions

The song and parts of the

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...

songs "

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

" and "

Thank You "''Thank you''" (often expanded to ''thank you very much'' or ''thanks a lot'', or informally abbreviated to ''thanks'' or alternately as ''many thanks''Geoffrey Leech, ''The Pragmatics of Politeness'' (2014), p. 200.) is a common expression of ...

" were performed by that band's lead singer

Robert Plant Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968 until 1980, when the band broke up following the ...

with the three surviving members of Queen (May, Taylor and Deacon) at

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was a benefit concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992, at Wembley Stadium in London, United Kingdom for an audience of 72,000. The concert was produced for television by Ray Burdis, ...

in 1992 at

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

. "Kashmir" had been one of the inspirations for "Innuendo". However, the song was left off the DVD release at Plant's request, as he forgot part of the lyrics and his vocal was, by his own admission, not in the best shape. As in "Kashmir", the title of the song appears in the lyrics only once. The 12-inch "explosive version" of "Innuendo" features a noise similar to an atomic bomb after Mercury sings the line "until the end of time". There was a "promo version" released of the song, accompanied by an edited video. This version clocks in at only 3 minutes and 28 seconds.

Chris Daughtry Christopher Adam Daughtry (; born December 26, 1979) is an American singer, musician, and actor. He is the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the rock band Daughtry, which he formed after placing fourth on the fifth season of ''American I ...

covered this song on the

themed week on ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

s fifth season. Hard rock band

Queensrÿche Queensrÿche is an American heavy metal band. It formed in 1982 in Bellevue, Washington, out of the local band the Mob. The band has released 16 studio albums, one EP, and several DVDs, and continues to tour and record. The original lineup ...

has covered this song in their '' Take Cover'' album. Power metal band

Lords of Black Lords of Black is a Spanish heavy metal band formed in Madrid in 2014 by guitarist Tony Hernando and singer Ronnie Romero. History First album: 2014 In 2014, guitarist Tony Hernando founded Lords of Black together with vocalist Ronnie Romero. ...

recorded a cover of the song in their second studio album II (2016). It appears as a bonus for the digital edition.

In popular culture

* The song is included in the competitive

karaoke Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music is ...

videogame Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedb ...

SingStar Queen ''SingStar Queen'' is a competitive karaoke video game for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2, developed by London Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The game features the music of rock band Queen. Gameplay '' SingStar' ...

'' for

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

and

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

. * The song is used as an introduction videomix for ''

We Will Rock You "We Will Rock You" is a song written by Brian May and recorded by British rock band Queen for their 1977 album ''News of the World''. ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it number 330 of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and it placed at numbe ...

''. * The song was used during an episode of ''

The Death of Yugoslavia ''The Death of Yugoslavia'' (broadcast as ''Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation'' in the US) is a BBC documentary series first broadcast in September and October 1995, and returning in June 1996. It is also the title of a BBC book by Allan Little and ...

''.

References

External links

Lyrics at Queen official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Innuendo (Song) Queen (band) songs 1991 singles 1991 songs Animated music videos British progressive rock songs Hollywood Records singles Number-one singles in Portugal Parlophone singles Songs written by Freddie Mercury Songs written by Roger Taylor (Queen drummer) UK Singles Chart number-one singles