Love of My Life (Queen song)
| "Love of My Life" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Queen from the album A Night at the Opera | ||||
| Released | 21 November 1975 | |||
| Recorded | 1975 at various studios | |||
| Length | 3:39 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Writer(s) | Freddie Mercury | |||
| Producer(s) |
Queen Roy Thomas Baker |
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| A Night at the Opera track listing | ||||
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| 12 tracks |
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| "Love of My Life (Live at Festhalle Frankfurt, 2 Feb '79)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Queen | ||||
| from the album Live Killers | ||||
| B-side | Now I'm Here (Live at Festhalle Frankfurt, 2 Feb '79) | |||
| Released | 29 June 1979 | |||
| Format | Vinyl record (7") | |||
| Recorded | 1979 | |||
| Length | 3:43 | |||
| Label | EMI | |||
| Queen singles chronology | ||||
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"Love of My Life" is a ballad by the British rock band Queen from their 1975 album A Night at the Opera. The song was written by Freddie Mercury about Mary Austin, with whom he had a long term relationship in the early 1970s. After performing the song in South America in 1981, the version from their live album Live Killers reached number 1 in the singles chart in Argentina and Brazil, and stayed in the charts in Argentina for an entire year.
Freddie Mercury wrote it on the piano and guitar first, and Brian May rearranged the song for acoustic 12-string guitar for live performances, also lowering the key by a minor third. May contributed occasional guitar phrases to the original recording and played the swooping harp glissandos by pasting together multiple takes of single chords. The song is an example of Mercury's familiarity with rubato phrasing, showcasing his classical piano influences, notably by Chopin and Beethoven.
With its similar lyrical theme, the Roger Taylor penned single "These Are the Days of Our Lives" would later hearken back to "Love of My Life", twice using the line "I still love you". At the end of "These Are the Days of Our Lives", Mercury simply speaks those words, as he would often do in live versions of "Love of My Life".
During the voyage of the space shuttle Columbia (STS-107), Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, asked to play the song. The song was played in the shuttle and Ramon said: "A special good morning to my wife, Rona, the love of my life." Ramon died in the Columbia disaster shortly thereafter, during its return to the atmosphere in 2003.
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Wikipedia