"Flash" is a song by British

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

. Written by guitarist

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. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and ...

, "Flash" is the theme song of the 1980 film '' Flash Gordon''. There are two versions of the song. The album version ("Flash's Theme") is in fact the start to the film, with all the dialogue from the first scene. The single version contains dialogue cut from various parts of the film, most memorably,

Brian Blessed Brian Blessed (; born 9 October 1936) is an English actor, presenter, writer and mountaineer. Blessed is known for portraying PC "Fancy" Smith in ''Z-Cars'', Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of '' I, Claudius'', King Richard I ...

's character exclaiming "Gordon's alive?!" This version was also included on the ''

Greatest Hits A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be crea ...

'' compilation from 1981. Flash is sung as a duet between Freddie Mercury and

, with Roger Taylor adding the high harmonies. May plays all of the instruments except for the rhythm section. He used an Imperial Bösendorfer Grand Piano (with 97 keys instead of 88, having an extra octave on the low range),

Oberheim Oberheim is an American synthesizer manufacturer founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim. History and products Tom Oberheim founded the company in 1969, originally as a designer and contract manufacturer of electronic effects devices for Maestro (most ...

OB-X synth (which he plays in the video) and his homemade

Red Special The Red Special is the electric guitar designed and built by Queen's guitarist Brian May and his father, Harold, when Brian was a teenager in the early 1960s. The Red Special is sometimes referred to as the Fireplace or the Old Lady by May and ...

electric guitar. The song reached number 10 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

and number three in Germany. On the U.S. charts, "Flash's Theme aka Flash" reached number 42 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It peaked at number 39 on the ''Cash Box'' Top 100.

Music video

The video for the song was filmed at Advision Studios, London, in November 1980 and directed by Don Norman and shows the band performing the song to a screen showing clips from the film. An alternative version broadcast during the Concert for Kampuchea in 1981 with different clips included on the ''Flash Gordon'' 2011 iTunes edition.

Personnel

* Freddie Mercury – lead and backing vocals *

– lead and backing vocals, electric guitar, piano, synthesizer * Roger Taylor – drums, backing vocals,

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

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

Charts

Sales and certifications

Vanguard remix

German producers Vanguard released a cover of "Flash", credited to "Queen + Vanguard", on 10 February 2003. The single peaked at number 15 on the

, number two on the

UK Dance Chart The UK Dance Singles Chart and the UK Dance Albums Chart are music charts compiled in the United Kingdom by the Official Charts Company from sales of songs in the dance music genre (e.g. house, trance, drum and bass, garage, synthpop) in record s ...

, and number 17 in Germany.

Charts

Live recording

*''

Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl ''Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl'' is a DVD/live album by the British rock band Queen released on 25 October 2004 in Europe and on 9 November 2004 in the US. It was recorded live at the Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire, England, on 5 J ...

'' *''

Queen Rock Montreal ''Queen Rock Montreal'' is a live album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 29 October 2007 as a double CD, Blu-ray, DVD, and triple vinyl in the UK and the following day in the US. It was recorded in Montreal, Quebec, at the ...

In other media

The song is played during an

ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. A ...

routine in the 2007 film ''

Blades of Glory ''Blades of Glory'' is a 2007 American sports comedy film directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon, written by Jeff Cox, Craig Cox, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, and starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder with Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, William F ...

''. The song is played in '' The Flash'' episode " Into the Void" where Cisco Ramon plays it when Barry Allen / The Flash enters a black hole to save Chester P. Runk, mentioning that he has been saving the song "for the right moment". In 2022, the song appears in the ''

Toyota Corolla Cross The is a compact crossover SUV (C-segment) produced by the Japanese automaker Toyota since 2020. Adopting the Corolla nameplate, it is positioned as a more practical and larger alternative to the C-HR and built on the same TNGA-C (GA-C) platf ...

'' commercial in Australia but it uses "Cross" instead of "Flash".

References

External links

*
Lyrics at Queen official website
(original version, reprise, single version) {{DEFAULTSORT:Flash (Song) Film theme songs Queen (band) songs 1980 singles 1981 singles Flash Gordon Male vocal duets Songs written for films Songs about comics Songs about fictional male characters Songs about outer space Songs written by Brian May Song recordings produced by Reinhold Mack EMI Records singles Elektra Records singles Hollywood Records singles Virgin Records singles 1980 songs Music based on science fiction works UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles