Crazy Little Thing Called Love/Fat Bottomed Girls

Albums: The Game (1980)/Jazz (1978)

"Crazy Little Thing Called Love” foregoes Queen's quintessential block harmonies in favor of call-and-
response backing vocals, featured prominently in the second verse and in the breakdown "Ready
Freddie” section. During the live sets, Brian May would change guitars from acoustic 12-string in the
intro to solid-body Fender Telecaster for that 1950s-twang guitar solo, then back to the Red Special for
the full-on outro. The changes always seemed effortlessly fast-and everyone in the crowd was probably
watching Freddie anyway. In the Berklee medley, lead vocalist Miguel Soto goes into full showmanship
stage-owning mode with self-accompanied rhythm guitar. Faculty member Lee Abe's arrangement
maintains a nod to that original Telecaster solo, but adds new instrumentation, including some 'trading
licks' in the solo from Trace Zakur's tenor sax. "Fat Bottomed Girls” was a double A-side single, meaning
that radio stations were encouraged to choose either one for airplay-the flipside contained “Bicycle
Race.” Both songs' lyrics refer to each other; “Fat Bottomed Girls" contains the outro line "Get on your
bikes and ride!" and "Bicycle Race” responds with "Fat bottomed girls will be riding today.” Like so
much of Queen’s work, the stacked vocal harmonies carry much of the texture, from the a cappella
opening to the fully harmonized choruses, and, this being a Brian May song, the guitar riff is central to
the song’s identity, in the verses particularly.

Somebody to Love

Album: A Day at the Races (1976)

By 1976, vocal layering was a recognizable and familiar part of the Queen sound, and this gospel-
style song was described by the band as showing off Freddie’s Aretha Franklin influence. Brian, Roger,
and Freddie stacked up around 100 parts in the studio to make the full choir, contributing texture,
dynamics, and overlapping commentary on the narrator's loneliness. Given that lead vocalist and
Harvard/Berklee dual degree program student Isabella Pefia is bilingual, the production team decided
itwould be cool to do the whole of verse two in Spanish, including the wall of background vocals.
Here's your starter: “trabajar, trabajar sin parar mis huesos no aguantan mas.” Towards the end of the
song, you may get a cue for some audience participation-be ready!

Barcelona

Album: Barcelona (1988)

Although not strictly a Queen song, we couldn't ignore this groundbreaking pop/opera duet in our
celebration of their work. The song was originally commissioned for the 1992 Summer Olympic
Games; Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, a native of the city, asked her friend Freddie Mercury to
write the song, which was completed with additional cowriting and production from industry stalwart
Mike Moran. Freddie's vocal part was recorded first, adding the soprano parts for demo purposes in
his falsetto range. He was reportedly in awe of Caballé’s remarkable dynamic control and vocal tone.
As most readers will know, Berklee and the Boston Conservatory merged in 2016, enabling ever
more exciting creative collaborations within our community. Tonight, we are pleased to welcome two
amazing Conservatory performers: opera master's student Danielle Bavli takes the soprano role, with
Conservatory brass performance major Jimmy Millen performing the lead trumpet part. The core band
is augmented by the rich textures of our 18-piece pop-up “flash mob” orchestra’bass trombone,
French horn, flutes, piccolo, trumpets, harp, strings, and tubular bells.