Episode 16 of Queen’s ‘The Greatest’ video series continues the journey through some of Queen’s outstanding moments from the last 50 years, a celebration of the extraordinary achievement that has seen all four members of the band write hit singles for Queen. This week, ‘The Greatest’ looks at five iconic hits brought to the band by brilliant bassist, John Deacon. You can watch the footage below.
While collectively Queen has accounted for many of the biggest hits of all time, it has not always been apparent who wrote each of those million selling songs.
Previously having shone the light on drummer Roger Taylor’s songwriting achievements, this week’s Queen ‘The Greatest’ turns its focus to the man behind some of their biggest hits and one of the coolest basslines ever.
This week’s episode highlights five classic hits that all came from Queen’s phenomenal bass player John Deacon and his contribution to some of Queen’s most iconic moments – not least the instantly recognizable killer bass hook from the collaboration between Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure”.
While John may not have written as many songs as his fellow band mates, he is nevertheless responsible for some of the band’s biggest hits, as the journey through them in this episode makes evident.
It wasn’t until Queen’s third album, Sheer Heart Attack, that saw John first get in on the songwriting credits where his composition, “Misfire”, appeared. The band’s next album, 1975’s A Night At The Opera would see John get his first composition released as a single – one that would go on to sell over a million copies in the US alone – “You’re My Best Friend”.
1977 saw the release of fan favourite, “Spread Your Wings”…then in 1980, Queen released “Another One Bites The Dust”.
With over 7 million copies sold, not to mention over a billion streams on Spotify, this global hit by John Deacon is the band’s biggest selling single and earned John the No 2 position in a Music Radar poll of the coolest basslines ever (the same poll saw “Under Pressure” assign him also the No.7 position).
More chart topping success followed in 1984 with “I Want To Break Free”, which also resulted in a now legendary, and in some quarters, contentious, video. And then for the A Kind Of Magic album, John teamed up with Freddie Mercury to create “Friends Will Be Friends” released as the band’s 30th single in the UK in June 1986 and featured live throughout the band’s final 1986 ‘The Magic Tour.’ That’s no less than five classic Queen songs written by the brilliant and very cool John Deacon.
Still to come later in the series are the hits originated by Freddie Mercury and Brian May.
Watch every episode of ‘The Greatest’ on Queen’s official YouTube channel.