Father to Son
| "Father to Son" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Queen from the album Queen II | ||||
| Released | 8 March 1974 | |||
| Recorded | August 1973 at Trident Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Hard rock, progressive rock | |||
| Length | 6:13 | |||
| Label | EMI (UK), Parlophone (Europe), Elektra (US) | |||
| Writer | Brian May | |||
| Producer |
Roy Thomas Baker Queen | |||
| Queen II track listing | ||||
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"Father to Son" is a song by British rock band Queen. It is composed by lead guitarist Brian May. It is the second track on their second studio album Queen II (1974), recorded on August 1973 at Trident Studios, London.
Details
Written by Brian May before the debut album, the song features heavy metal sections as well as a quiet piano part, which May played. Live "Procession" (the track preceding "Father to Son"), has parts with May on multi-tracked guitar, played through the Deacy Amp. The song covers a two-octave range: Mercury (G3-A4), Taylor (G4-A5).
It is written in the father's perspective when talking or thinking about his son.
| “ | [The Who and Led Zeppelin are] probably in there somewhere. They were our favourite groups among a few others. But what we were trying to do differently from either of those groups really was this sort of layered sound. See, The Who had a sort of 'clang' guitar sound – you know, the open chord guitar sound. There is a bit of that in "Father to Son", but our sound is sort of more based around the overdriven guitar sound, which is what is used on the main bulk of the song. Also, what I wanted to do was this business of building up textures behind the main melody lines. So you have in the first entry of the vocal behind it there is a sort of orchestral thing, which is a nine-part guitar thing that was my expedition into sort of proper orchestrating of the guitar. So that was one thing.
It's amazing how few people knew what we were doing. We wanted to make a kind of rock music that still had the power of, like, The Who or Led Zeppelin but which had more melody, more harmony, and more texture than had been done before. That was one of the first songs we did it on and there's lots of harmonies, lots of guitar harmonies and lots of bits of melody, you know.[1] |
” | |
| — Brian May, 1983 | |||
Live performances
The first known live performance was on the Queen I Tour in Autumn 1973, but the song might've performed long before that. It remained on the setlists until 1975, when the song was dropped. However, in 1976 when touring Japan, the song made it back on the setlists but for only a couple of nights. This time featuring Mercury on the piano for the start of the track instead of the backing track being played.
In 2014, two live performances of "Father to Son" were released on Live at the Rainbow '74. Both performances were at the Rainbow Theatre near Finsbury Park, North London. The first performance was in March 1974 as part of the Queen II Tour while the other performance was in November 1974 as part of the Sheer Heart Attack Tour.
Personnel
- Freddie Mercury - lead and backing vocals
- Brian May - acoustic and electric guitars, piano, backing vocals
- Roger Taylor - drums, backing vocals
- John Deacon - bass guitar, acoustic guitar
References
External links
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