Killer Queen

Handling of forces

• Sung by Freddie Mercury - tenor
• Lead/backing vocals, piano, electric guitars, honky tonky, bass guitar, drum kit
• Guitar techniques: slides, bends, pull offs, vibrato
• Recording techniques: overdubbing, reverb, panning
• Killer Queen in verse-chorus form

Melody

• Text is syllabic
• Backing vocalists use mixture of word e.g., bar 8 (ooh, ah)
• Melody starts mostly conjunct wit small leaps of thirds or fourths
• Altered descending sequences (bar 7-8) - Verse and chorus combine both conjunct and wide angular leaps in melodic line
• Leaps often feature a rising major sixth (bar 6-7), however there are some anomalies (octave leap bar 62)

Texture

• Main texture homophonic
• Use of imitation (70-80 “wanna try? You wanna try?)
• Use of layering
• Three part texture during guitar texture
• Use of panning (42 - backing vocals “ba, ba, ba, ba, anytime”)-
• Antiphonal (more than one group of instruments of voices (67-8 “she’s all out to get you)

Harmony and Tonality

• The song is in Eb major
• Song opens in C minor and ends in Eb major.
• Tonality of the song is at time quite ambiguous
• Many passing modulations within the piece strengthened with perfect cadences but contrasted by parallel shifts to new keys
• Majority of chords are in root position, with some being in second or third inversions
• Use of dissonance (bar 30 “spoke just like a baroness”)
• Seventh chords (bar 8)-
• Circle of fifths (bar 20-1 “insatiable an appetite”)
• Use of altered/extended chords (F11 chord guitar solo bar 47)-
• Use of pedal (27-30 “she never kept the same address”)

Tempo, Rhythm, Metre

• Moderato tempo of 112 dotted crotchet bpm
• Time signature is 12/8 with compound quadruple time
• Swung feel to the song
• Occasional inserts of 6/8 bars to extended phrases
• Every verse/chorus features an anacrusis (upbeat)
• Frequent uses of syncopation (16 “gunpowder, gelatine”)
• Use of triplets (18 “guaranteed to blow your mind”)