Queen has officially kicked off their new YouTube series celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary with a look at their very first single, “Keep Yourself Alive.”
Embedded below, the video shows a clip of the original music video shot for the single as well as Brian May explaining the meaning behind the song.
“I wasn’t very sure that I was a songwriter, but I just sort of had this idea,” began May. “Strange enough, the lyrics to ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ are meant to be kind of a comment. They’re meant to be slightly ironic.”
May continued, “But I learned very early on through this song it’s very difficult to be ironic in a song because people take it at face value. Basically, everyone always did thought ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was a jolly song about how great it is to be alive, but it’s actually more about asking the question, ‘Is there more to life than this?’”
Queen announced last week, “Beginning March 19th and continuing weekly through to March 2022, Queen YouTube will take Queen fans on a unique and remarkable journey – a chance to revisit some of the band’s most iconic moments and discover some aspects of the story we didn’t know. Celebrating key moments in Queen’s history the weekly clips series will remind us why Queen and their music continue to be loved across the world.”
The clips that are a part of this 50-week series will be presented in chronological order “…from Queen’s earliest shows at London’s Rainbow and Odeon through vast arenas across the entire world on a journey culminating with the band’s latest record-setting achievements with Adam Lambert.”
Among the content expected in this series include concert footage, backstage film, stories behind some of Queen’s biggest songs and some previously unreleased footage from the band’s extensive archives.