Killer Queen

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

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)

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)

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”)