Killer Queen

Mercury wrote Killer Queen in a single night, and unusually for him he wrote the lyrics before the music. He said it was about a high class call girl and that he was trying to say classy people can be whores as well. He described it as a bowler hat and suspender belt number that you almost expect Noel Coward to sing. The first verse quotes the line about cake that is traditionally, if falsely, credited to Marie Antoinette.

It was partly recorded at Rockfield in Wales. Mercury played grand piano and a tack piano and added finger snaps, and the choruses have four-part harmonies. May recorded his guitar solo after recovering from his illness, building it from multitracked parts, and said later that Killer Queen was the turning point. Released as a double A-side with Flick of the Wrist, it reached number two in Britain and number 12 in the United States, their first American hit.

Live

The band played it on Top of the Pops after it charted, and it stayed in their sets, usually inside a medley, from 1974 to 1981, returning on The Works Tour in 1984 and 1985. It appears in 473 logged setlists.