Hi everyone and welcome to my first post!
Today we’ll be discussing “Somebody to Love” by Queen, which is one of my favorite songs, but first I’m going to talk about how this is going to work. I mentioned this in my about me post, which some of you might have missed.
Each week I will be diving into a song and analyzing its production, lyrics, and overall storytelling. Things may be added along the way, but those are our three main categories. Once a month, I will be doing one of two things: a producton-specific post and analyzing an album. I won’t be doing both every month, but this is something that will alternate. This month is a production project as this kind of started as a school project for my Basic Audio Engineering course. More details will come about that later.
You may also notice, I have an intro on all of my videos that is not included in the text of my posts. I figured you wouldn’t want to read that over and over.
I’ve also included the 1976 Fair Use Act in regards to copyright. As I am doing commentary on songs and albums, it is protected. The photos I have used in the text version of this post are also protected by Creative Commons (CC) licenses. I’ve also included the source website of each photo.
Today is our first song post!
As I said earlier, we will be talking about Queen’s song “Somebody to Love.” I’m sure everyone thought it was going to be a Taylor Swift song, which it almost was, so I’m sorry to disappoint this week. Or give you a feeling of relief. I will be diving into a variety of pop and pop-leaning rock music. Yes, this means Taylor Swift will be a lot of it. If you don’t like it, suck it up I guess. I’m kidding, don’t worry. In reality, her songs are a production and lyrical gold mine, so it’s perfect for what I want to achieve!
Anyways, back to our topic of the day!
“Somebody to Love” is an Aretha Franklin inspired song written and produced by Queen. Freddie Mercury loved the gospel feel of her songs, so he wrote a rock song with a gospel feel. Their audio engineer on the project was Mike Stone and the song was remastered in 2011, which is the version of the song I listened to for this post.
When songs are remastered, they take the original unmastered mix of this song and apply modern mastering techniques to give it a more updated sound. Many songs from big artists like Queen, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and the Beatles have been remastered.
Another fun thing about “Somebody to Love” is that it was recorded before the digital age, meaning instead of a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), they used tape. The multitracks were recorded to tapes and mixed through a large format mixing console. Most of these consoles had EQ (equalizer) and dynamics processing on every channel, as well as faders for volume. If you wanted to do any processing that wasn’t built into the mixer, you needed “outboard gear,” otherwise known as “a bunch of extra stuff.”
That extra “stuff” could include compressors, more EQs, noise gates, expanders, distortion, reverbs, and multi-effects processors. If you have no idea what any of that means, that’s ok. Those are things we will talk about more as we learn and grow together. Just know, for right now, in the analog world that just means “expensive.”
Most reverb is done digitally now, but many artists utilized the spaces they were in for reverb. The microphones they used are called condenser mics and have been around since the late 1940s.
If the only thing you retain from this section is “producing was really expensive in the analog age,” then I will be happy. Is producing still expensive now? Yes, just in a different way.
Now that we’ve covered that ground, let’s finally talk about the actual song.
Production
Queen is known for their creativity within the rock genre. From an operatic-rock album to a gospel-feel-rock song to a disco-rock song. They have everything. Part of what makes it so amazing is the production on their songs.
Panning is very commonly used in production to give sound more depth, so let’s take a look at how they do it in this song. Our lead vocals, lead guitar, and drums are pulled center. If you were to take one headphone out, you would still hear these lines very clearly. It is also very easy to identify what lines are pulled to the center just by listening. As soon as you start panning left and right, it gets a little bit harder to identify without careful listening.
It’s harder because there are so many options. Often panning is done on a scale or a digital “knob.” You can control exactly how far it goes. Some things might only be heard in one ear while others might have a little sound leftover in the other one. The piano and bass are examples of this. You can hear the bass lines in both the piano and the actual bass more clearly in your left ear than in your right. The treble lines of the piano were more clear in the right ear. This is helping build an openness to the sound that is crucial for the storytelling.
The background vocals are a whole other story. These vocals are completely panned left or right. You hear certain harmonies on each side. If you don’t believe me, give the song a listen with headphones on and pull one out at a time during the chords. You’ll hear the higher harmonies in your right and the middle harmonies in your left.
Another thing that is used really well in this song is layering. My favorite example is in my favorite part of the song, which is the big build up to the cadenza-like part. It starts with some quiet bass vocals and then adds some harmonies as they crescendo. Then you hear a very pulled back drum. Then you have some more harmonies and then one person clapping. As they keep crescendoing, which adds to the drama, they layer in more claps and voices.
That’s when they start putting some variety in the rhythms and notes. You go from this steady “find me somebody to love” to “find me somebody to looo-ooo-oooove.” Then very suddenly you go back to the original rhythm, but then they change it again to a very driving “somebody, somebody, somebody, somebody, somebody find me, somebody find me somebody to loooove.” After that point it opens back up into the tag of the chorus “can anybody find me” and they hold it, which is when Freddie’s little cadenza happens.
A very underrated part of a song like this is the silence. Take the beginning for example. The tagline is introduced right away, but not in the way we get used to throughout the song. It’s more like:
“Can”
“Anybody”
“Find me”
“Somebody to”
“Love”
It’s very spaced out and has lots of room to breathe. What it’s also doing is creating a sense of longing, which is the purpose of the whole song. There are so many strategies to create that feeling of longing like instrumentation, spaces, modulations/secondary chords, rhythmic differences, and the layering as we’ve discussed.
Another one of my favorite parts is where all the secondary chords happen. It starts when Freddie sings “everyday I try and I try and I try.” This is a “long” temporary modulation because of how far it goes into the song. It finally ends at the guitar solo. What this does is create a lot of tension. It feels different and fun and there’s not really a “home” for the melody. It just kind of wanders and builds tension until the last chord on the “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
There are a lot of things that conrtibute to what makes this a great song in the production. The lyrics are just another piece to the puzzle.
Lyrics
Throughout the song, we feel a sense of longing and even begging. From the very beginning we can feel that because we literally open up with a question: “can anybody find me somebody to love?”
As it continues, we just keep getting lyrics that contribute to that feeling: “I work hard everyday of my life,” “I try and I try and I try,” “everybody wants to put me down,” and “I just keep losing my beat.” He’s just so down on himself because he feels like he’s doing everything he can to find that person, but he’s still just striking out. He’s to the point of begging for someone to love.
After the guitar solo, we’ve got this small chorus and then another verse. At the beginning of this verse it seems like he’s still super down on himself, but then he says “I’m alright, I’m alright, ain’t gonna face no defeat.” You can feel him getting more hopeful as he keeps going, “I just gotta get out of this prision cell, Someday I’m gonna be free.”
Then the big build up that we discussed in depth earlier starts. It gets stronger and you can almost feel him getting more confident, but there’s definitely still this question of “will I ever find them?”
As the outro plays out, you’re feeling hopeful, but in the same shy way he is. It’s making you go “man, I want somebody to love” even if you already have someone to love.
The Conclusion
This is honestly one of my favorite songs of all time and I think it’s a very classic song that people generally love. The production is great. The lyrics are great. The storytelling is great. It’s just one of those songs that you can’t help but love and now you know why.
Be on the lookout for my next post and don’t forget to fill out my Suggestions Form if you’d like me to analyze/cover a song or album!