Seaside Rendezvous

A return to the vaudeville, and a pretty lovely partner piece to ‘happy little fuck’, or whatever they ended up calling that.

We’re back on the seaside, but this time, things are a bit…erm…more light hearted?

Seaside Rendezvous.

It’s a torrent of bouncy lyrical playfulness, bounding between lovely period detail, rhyme, rhythm and chatty backing vocals. It never lets up, and it just lets go.

And then, of course, there’s that mid-section.

This is an absolute wonder of silliness. Roger and Freddie basically trying to have the most fun possible (in a way that is no doubt incredibly challenging, technically). It’s credited in the liner notes as ‘Vocal Orchestration of Brass – Roger Taylor’ and ‘Vocal Orchestration of Woodwind – Freddie Mercury’, but its basically incredibly well executed titting about.

An entire solo made up of mouth-imitated trumpets, trombones and clarinets, kazoos and slide-whistles. A Freddie-desired actual tap solo was eventually performed using thimbles on the mixing desk, but still, it’s in there.

Apparently, at one point, Roger hits a C6, the highest vocal note on the record. Which, when you account for all the falsetto, is quite the achievement.

For me, there’s a special charm to music that invites you to join in. It’s why I dug In the lap of the gods…revisited, so hard. It’s what pop music is for, and why it’s so special. It needs to get you to dance or sing or play or something, to qualify as pop.

This silly little ditty, and especially the ludicrous vocal play of the solo, beg you to sing and accompany and play. The gleefulness the whole piece is approached with is irresistible. It’s stupidity begs you to act stupidly, and lifts you up for joining in.

It’s a little wonder.

And underlying the stupidity is a remarkably inventive and strange little song. The arrangement never rests, or takes a break, it doesn’t do anything the easy way, it pours into a hundred different spaces, and does it all with so much verve that you don’t notice, and just think it’s a stupid little old fashioned song about the seaside.

Which it is.

And that’s bloody wonderful.

I realise this is a bit of a muso thing to say, but I will say that I feel a bit sorry for people who only have this song on CD (or spotify). I can’t imagine how jarring it must feel to bump straight from this song into the next. But as a side closer, this is perfection. Rounding out a ridiculously varied side with the most out there blast yet.

And even outside all the mouthtrumpet, Freddie has all of the blast there is to have.

I often suspect Freddie was a pretty selfish song writer, giving himself the most absurd little delights. The way he rollicks through this shows clearly that it is something he built to get all his silliest voices and falsettos and tics and tricks out. He revels in every little detail.

You say you’d have to tell your daddy if you can

I’ll be your Valentino –

We’ll ride upon an omnibus and then the casino –

Get a new facial – start a sensation

(It pleases me that the lyric sheet doesn’t include him squeezing in the ‘al’ to blag the rhyme on that last one)

The only thing missing, really, is Brian, who plays no guitar and takes no part in this track (a rarity, even on other guitarless tracks).

Everyone else is here though, bouncing off each other in the vocal part, and just generally mucking about.

It’s the sort of track that makes me wish I was there, in the studio, watching them pull all the stops out for a silly bit of music hall.

Just so that Freddie can end the side with a request for a kiss.

Such a flirt.

 

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Queen: An Exploded Diagram is me having big and little thoughts about every Queen song in chronological order. If you want to support me, making it more financially viable and easier to explain to people at parties, please back my patreon.

Illustration by Emma.