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The Nation's Favourite Queen Song

Having racked up nearly fifty top 30 hits, Queen are a national treasure whose music has rocked the planet for forty years. The Nation’s Favourite Queen Song uncovers the origins of their best-loved tunes and tells the stories behind the band’s bold and inventive music videos. Featuring interviews with celebrity fans and Queen friends including Katy Perry, Tony Hadley, Mel C, Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), Al Murray, Noddy Holder, Dame Zandra Rhodes, McFly’s Tom Fletcher, and Arlene Phillips, this 90 minute special counts down Britain's 20 favourite Queen songs. As rock’s ultimate showmen, the band formed an irresistible combination with Brian May on guitar, Roger Taylor on drums, John Deacon on bass and Freddie Mercury commanding audiences up front. The programme features brand new interviews with band members Brian and Roger, plus archive interviews with Freddie Mercury. The Nation’s Favourite Queen Song hears from Freddie Mercury’s friends and band members about the singer’s decline in health towards the end of his life. When discussing their 1989 hit I Want It All, Brian May says: “The first time we played it live was at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and I played it with Tony Iommi and Roger Daltrey. I just wish Freddie had been there to enjoy it because that song was made for him, he would have made such a good job of it live.” Arlene Phillips, a friend of Freddie’s, discusses the poignancy of The Show Must Go On, released six weeks before Freddie’s death in 1991. She says: “My favourite song is The Show Must Go On, because ‘The Show’ means life. I think because of what was happening to Freddie, with all of that knowledge there’s an emotion in it you can never take away.” Brian reveals what this song meant to him, saying: “I heard the lyric ‘My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies’. To me, it expressed all that I felt about Freddie and that, unbelievably, we might be losing him.

English
  • Originally Aired November 11, 2014
  • Runtime 90 minutes
  • Network ITV1
  • Notes Is a season finale
  • Created April 4, 2018 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified April 4, 2018 by
    Administrator admin