It feels like a trick pub-quiz question: which number one hit by Queen is over six minutes long, composed of several sections, in several genres…?
Innuendo, by Queen (their 3rd of six #1s)
1 week, from 20th – 27th January 1991
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ everyone will shout, and everyone will be wrong. (For Bo Rap isn’t quite over six minutes long…) No, ‘Innuendo’ is Queen’s true forgotten epic. And what an epic. It starts off brooding, and ominous, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, with apocalyptic lyrics such as: While there’s a wind and the stars and the rainbow, ‘Til the mountains crumble into the plain… Freddie bemoans mankind’s inability to live in harmony, and its insistence on dividing people by race, religion and creed.
Then come the flamenco guitars, which to my untrained ears sounds like some serious musicianship (it was played by Brian May and Steve Howe of Yes), and a bridge that sounds like a cross between the monkish chants used by Enigma, and a Disney theme. After all that, it’s hard not punch the air when a trademark Brian May guitar solo comes swooping in, saving this monster from disappearing up its own arse.
It ends as it began, ominously stomping its way to the end of time. It’s hard not to read this as Freddie coming to grips with his impending death, when he asks: If there’s a God or any kind of justice under the sky, If there’s a point, If there’s a reason to live or die. He knew that this was the last album Queen would release in his lifetime, and so the line Through our sorrow, All through our splendour, Don’t take offence at my innuendo… almost becomes a farewell to Queen’s fans and detractors alike.
Ultimately, though, it ends on a positive note: Yes, we’ll keep on trying…And that line is the moment in this bizarre epic that sounds like classic Queen. Otherwise, it’s one of the weirdest #1 singles ever, in an era of increasingly weird #1s. And it’s amazing to think that it’s only Queen’s 3rd UK chart-topper, after ‘Under Pressure’ and the aforementioned ‘other’ epic’. Just think of the classic Queen hits, the ‘Radio Gaga’s and the ‘Another One Bites the Dust’s, that didn’t make it while this beast (described beautifully by one journalist at the time as ‘seductively monstrous’) did.
It’s unfair to compare this record to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, though it’s perhaps inevitable. Bo Rap was the sound of a band in their infancy, four young men going wild simply because they could, because nobody had told them not to, and there’s a great joie de vivre throughout that song (and I say that as someone who would happily never hear it again). ‘Innuendo’ is far darker and much less optimistic, four middle aged men, one of whom was terminally ill, pledging to ‘keep on trying’ despite the odds being stacked against them, and against mankind.
As a teen, I had Queen’s three-disc Greatest Hits. I usually skipped ‘Innuendo’ in favour of the earlier hits (in fact, I think it was on Disc 3, which I barely bothered playing). But writing this post has given me an appreciation of this dark, strange record. The fact that it was a #1 hit is amazing – down to a combination of low January sales and Queen’s dedicated fanbase – but I’m glad it was. The band will be back before the end of the year, for their fourth #1, under predictably sad circumstances.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Great song. One of my favs by Queen. This tune just soars…
Strangely, I have no recollection whatsoever about this song being played on the radio back in Germany, unlike “The Show Must Go On,” which is the closer of the “Innuendo” album. That said, according to Wikipedia, the single “Innuendo” peaked at no. 5 on the German charts, a notch higher than “The Show Must Go On” (no. 7). I guess my memory must be really bad!
Yes, I was too young at the time, but ‘The Show Must Go On’ is the single from the album that I was most familiar with. ‘Innuendo’ would never have been such a big hit if it hadn’t been the lead single, I don’t think.
As for the radio, I guess it’s just not particularly ‘radio friendly’…
Yep, I would agree. Plus, I feel “The Show Must Go On” has a more memorable melody and rather dramatic instrumentation.
‘Innuendo’ was indeed a remarkable record, unleashed on us at a dull time of year (and I think we had the gloom of the Gulf War dominating news headlines as well, it was not a great time). But on reading this, it reminded me that I barely ever heard it on the radio then,, and I don’t think I have heard it since. Compare it to the number of radio plays the much more radio-friendly ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ has garnered, and of course the inescapable ‘Bo Rap’ – you only have to SEE the title and that turntable in your head starts playing all six minutes. It’s probably not that relevant, but I think my favourite Queen song ever is ’39’ (from ‘A Night at the Opera’), a second cousin of Lindisfarne’s ‘Meet Me on the Corner’ and those old Top 10 hits from 1968 by the late London one-man band and busker Don Partridge. (Oh dear I sound like everyone’s grandad, don’t tell me…)
Interesting context, there, with the Gulf War. That was something that just about made it through my 5 year-old conscience at the time. Yes, it feels very portentous, very ‘the end is nigh’….
A few hours later…having listened to it again, and watched the video for the first time. You’re right, ‘Bo Rap’ was a bunch of 20-something guys having fun, pushing the boundaries out, producing something extraordinary and perhaps rolling around the floor in laughter during playback at the end, listening to what they had just achieved. This is dark, apocalyptic, portentous, chilling. Led Zep’s ‘Kashmir’ is the obvious godfather here. I’m still not sure whether I like it (as in the case of Dylan’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ album), but it’s compellingly interesting, different, the kind of song you need to hear several times just to probe the different layers properly. I now recall that when it was released, some writers (and I think Radio 1 DJs too) commenting on ‘illness’ within the band. Later that year, I wondered if they were putting two and two together and had guessed about Freddie. Sorry, I’ve gone on at great length on these last two posts, but it is that kind of record, isn’t it?
I was searching pictures of the band from the time, to use in the post, and it’s quite clear that Freddie was not well. I presume many people guessed, or knew and were respecting his privacy. Nowadays stars like him, Rock Hudson, Liberace and so on get criticised in some quarters for not announcing that they had AIDS, and for supposedly adding to the stigma, which is extremely harsh and very much a view taken with the benefit of hindsight and a 2020s approach to the disease, and gay rights.
Not one of my favorites by them but I like it. Wait…Another One Bites The Dust…it wasn’t #1 there! Over here…remember what you said about Hey Jude being played to death over there…well Another One Bites the Dust was played to death here. You could not go to the corner store without someone humming the damn thing.
Nope. Their only number ones in Freddie’s lifetime were this, Under Pressure and Bohemian Rhapsody… Another One Bites the Dust only made #7, it seems. I don’t think that album was all that well-received…
When I think of Queen…Dust is the one I think about because The Game album ruled the airwaves here more than any other Queen album. Personally I like the title track the best.
Queen’s forgotten masterpiece and one I didn’t appreciate when it came out – it was bang in at 1, got little airplay and then started dropping and was overlong and dark (it seemed) where Bo Rap was such fun. 30 years later I love this track and like you I can’t stand hearing my former love Bo Rap. It was on Radio 2 2 days ago just like it has been everywhere for the last 48 years never-endingly. This remains fresh and moving, and it was becoming clear Freddie wasn’t well as the year moved on. As for anyone trying to impose modern “it’s all about me” judgemental values on previous generations, they as always are talking out of their ass. Full-blown AIDS was a death sentence and a career-ender, and people were panicking they could catch it from kissing just as people were starting to die from HIV-contaminated blood transfusions, and Freddie had always kept his private life private. Being famous doesn’t mean you have to share anything at all with anyone who’s business it isn’t, if nothing else just to remain sane and grounded in a world obsessed by trivia, gossip and celebrity. Freddie said what he wanted to say at the end and that was more than enough.