"Innuendo" | ||||
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Single by Queen | ||||
from the album Innuendo | ||||
B-side | "Bijou" | |||
Released | 14 January 1991 | |||
Format | 7"/12" single, CD single | |||
Recorded | Early 1989 – Mid 1990 | |||
Genre | Progressive rock | |||
Length | 6:30 (Album version) 6:46 (12" explosive version) |
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Label |
Parlophone (Europe) Hollywood (North America) |
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Writer(s) |
Queen (Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor) |
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Producer(s) | Queen and David Richards | |||
Queen singles chronology | ||||
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"Innuendo" is a 1991 single by the British rock band Queen. It is the opening track on the album of the same name, and was released as the first single from the album. The single went straight to Number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1991.
At six and a half minutes, it is one of Queen's epic songs and their longest ever released as a single, exceeding "Bohemian Rhapsody" by 35 seconds. The song has been described as "reminiscent" of "Bohemian Rhapsody" because it was "harking back to their progressive rock roots". It features a flamenco guitar section performed by Yes guitarist Steve Howe and Brian May, an operatic interlude and sections of hard rock that recall early Queen, in addition to lyrics inspired in part by lead singer Freddie Mercury's illness; although media stories about his health were being strenuously denied, he was by now seriously ill with AIDS, which would claim his life in November 1991, 10 months after the single was released.
Accompanied by a music video featuring animated representations of the band on a cinema screen akin to Nineteen Eighty-Four, eerie plasticine figure stop-motion and harrowing imagery, it has been described as one of the band's darkest and most moving works.AllMusic described the song as a "superb epic", which deals with "mankind's inability to live harmoniously".
"Innuendo" was pieced together "like a jigsaw puzzle". The recurring theme (with the Boléro-esque beat) started off as a jam session between May, Deacon and Taylor. Mercury then added the melody and some of the lyrics, which were then completed by Taylor.
The middle section was primarily Mercury's work, according to an interview with May in October 1994's Guitar Magazine. It features a flamenco guitar solo, followed by a classically influenced bridge, and then the solo again but performed with electric guitars. This section is especially complex, featuring a pattern of three bars in 5/4 time (reasonably uncommon in popular music) followed by five bars in the more often used 3/4 time. The end of the flamenco-guitar style is based on the 5/4 bar, but is in 6/4 time.