The composer of the piece “Another One Bites the Dust” groups Queen is the bass player John Deacon, who played rhythm guitar in it. The composition was the result of his fascination with the group’s music Chic and its founder, Nile Rodgers.
“This song represents the world of John Deacon. This is the kind of music he listened to. He was much more inclined towards funk than we were and he brought it into our music. It’s all him and his fascination with Nile Rodgers. It’s his rhythm guitar that you can hear in it, not mine. This funk style is all John. He wanted to achieve a kind of disco sound. Deacy took care of the bass. Deacy took care of the rhythm,” says the guitarist Brian May.
“He also worked with Freddie on the vocals. Deacy didn’t have a voice, so he showed Freddie the lyrics and played the backing track for him on the guitar. You can imagine it was quite a strange process. Freddie fell in love with the song. He sang as if he wanted to take revenge on someone. Until he bled. He had to work hard to reach those high notes and he loved it. Nothing could stop him,” the Queen guitarist further recalls.
The singer’s adoration Freddie Mercury However, the drummer did not agree with Deacon’s song Roger Taylor.
“To be honest, we didn’t really like this song. In fact, Roger didn’t want it to be on the album because he didn’t like it. For him, it was too funky and not rocky enough. I stood in between. Actually, I liked the song I liked it. But there was no doubt that it wasn’t the kind of rock music I wanted to play. I remember that I suggested that there should be a little more dirt in it,” May tried to find a solution.
“So I started playing more grunge fragments. The word didn’t really exist back then. That distorted guitar in the finished song was obviously me. Thanks to it, the composition moved into more rock territory. I remember that when I heard the song Michael Jackson, said he would like to play this kind of music. I think his album ‘Thriller’ is very inspired by ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. He combined funk and rock. He reached the same place as us, although by a completely different route. “It’s interesting,” the rocker muses.
The adventure with the song “Another One Bites the Dust” ended with a happy ending. The song not only appeared on the album “The Game”, but also turned out to be one of the most popular hits of Queen. “This song is a very important part of our band’s canon. It may even be our best-selling single. I’m not sure, but it must be close to the top,” concludes May.
Confirmation of the guitarist’s words can be found in the book “Queen Uncensored, On the Record”, where Deacon’s song is also listed as the group’s best-selling single. It has sold over seven million copies.