Freddie Mercury

Autograph🧸 working lyrics for 'Seven Seas of Rhye'

comprising three s▨ets of lyrics: near-final draft of the complete song with some revisions, with notes on musical elements ("4 Verse in G" and "4 Verse in Harmony"), blue ballpoint with revisions in cyan fibretip, 1 page; an early draft of the song with extensive revisions and several abandoned verses, also some notes on harmonies, blue and black ballpoint, 2 pages; incomplete draft with abandoned lines (e📖.g. "Fight the raging storm just to be with you"), 2 pages; altogether 5 pages, on three leaves of plain paper of different paper stock (330 x 200mm, 180 x 123mm, and 120 x 127mm), c.1973

"Seven Seas of Rhye was the track that broke us in England [...] Seven Seas of Rhye is really just fictitious. I know that's the easy way out, but that's what it is. It was just a figment of my imagination. At that time I was learning about a lot of things in song writing, like song structure - I was just learning different techniques all the time" (Freddie Mercury: A Life, in his Own Words, p.66)

'Seven Seas of Rhye' began life as a short instrumental outro to the band's eponymous debut. Freddie subsequently developed the song and added lyrics. The complete song was included on Queen II, which was recorded at Trident Studios in August 1973, and was the only single released from the album. Queen played 'Seven Seas of Rhye' on their first appearance on the BBC TV's Top of the Pops on 19 February 1974, filling a spot that had been left empty because David Bowie's promo video for 'Rebel Rebel' was not ready on time. The song had not yet been released so 💙Trident thꦯen quickly distributed white label copies to radio stations, ensuring a strong buzz around the record before release. The song subsequently became the band's first top ten hit in the UK. Its release coincided with an extensive UK tour and was the best sign yet that Queen had a future in the music industry. 

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