Freddie Mercury | Autograph manuscript lyrics of songs for the album Queen I, c.1971-72

Freddie Mercury

Autograph manuscript draft lyrics for songs for the album Queen, comprising: 

i) 'Keep Yourself Alive', brief notes on instrumentation ("Acoustic beginning then with electric"), 1 page, in black ballpoint, on a leaf of plain notepaper (204 x 127mm)

ii) 'My Fairy King', autograph manuscript draft lyrics, with drafts of the entire song, 7 pages, and notes on vocal harmonies and instrumentation, 6 pages, in black ballpoint, on 8 leaves of plain notepaper (190 x 126mm), 1 leaf of lined notepaper (203 x 125mm) and one leaf of lined paper (254 x 204mm)

iii) 'Liar', autograph draft lyrics of the first half of the song, and notes on instrumentation, 2 pages, black ballpoint, on 2 leaves of plain notepaper (204 x 126mm)

iv) 'Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll', fair copy lyrics of the first two verses with minor corrections, written in capitals, almost certainly in the hand of Roger Taylor, 1 page, black ballpoint with one correction in pencil, lined paper (254 x 204mm)

v) 'Mad the Swine', autograph manuscript draft lyrics, in black ballpoint and pencil, 3 pages, on 2 leaves of plain notepaper (204 x 126mm)

vi) Track listings and further lyric fragments, 5 pages, chiefly in Freddie Mercury's hand, some in the hand of Roger Taylor, on various paper stocks including on the unused verso of a print-out of a computer programming routine by John Deacon, May 1971

altogether 25 pages on 19 leaves, 1971-72

A SUBSTANTIAL GROUP OF MANUSCRIPTS RELATING TO QUEEN'S DEBUT ALBUM. Queen had been formed in 1970 and the make-up of the band had been finalised in February 1971 with the arrival of John Deacon. They recorded a demo in September of the same year, on the back of which the owners of Trident Studios - Barry and Norman Sheffield - offered them a management contract. Queen had the use of Trident Studios whilst the Sheffield brothers tried to find the band a recording contract. They worked with producers John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker (who would go on to produce four further Queen albums in the 70s) but they were only given recording time when the studios were dark, as a result of which - especially as Queen's perfectionism was already in evidence - recording stretched for several months. They were forced to work around the timetables of other more established artists: over the summer of 1972 Lou Reed was recording Transformer at Trident, which was produced by Bowie; and Queen were still in the studio later in the year when Bowie was back in the studio in his own right for Aladdin Sane.

Queen's live sets gave the band a reasonably a large pool of songs, mostly by Freddie and Brian, from which to choose album tracks. The current lot includes extensive drafts for 'My Fairy King' - the song that includes the lines "Mother Mercury / Look what they've done to me", which inspired Freddie to adopt his new surname. There are also extensive musical notes for this song including the earliest examples of his notes on vocal harmonies - a feature that would be highly characteristic of Freddie's manuscripts for the coming years. His focus on work in the studio is also evident in his notes relating to the recording and mixing process, which describe for example where he wants sound levels to change, cues for the fade in of the piano, and how he wants to multi-track vocals.

These notes were used concurrently with Freddie's red notebook (lot 104) and the drafts for 'Liar' are incomplete, and no loose manuscripts survive for two Mercury compositions on the album ('Great King Rat' and 'Jesus'). There are draft lyrics for 'Mad the Swine', which was recorded for the album but not released until 1991. The current lot also includes a fair copy of 'Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll' by Roger Taylor, which was probably written for studio use. Amongst the various fragments is a what appears to be a list of possible tracks for the album bearing evidence of the voting process by which a final selection was made. 

The album was completed before Trident had secured the band a record deal, but EMI signed them in March 1973 and the US label Elektra signed them the following month. The album was released on 13 July 1973 but it sold poorly on initial release and its only single, 'Keep Yourself Alive', failed to chart. 

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