Radio Ga GaWritten by: Roger Taylor
Musicians:
Freddie Mercury - lead vocals, sampler
Brian May - guitars
John Deacon - bass guitar
Roger Taylor - drums, drum machine, sampler, Vocoder, backing vocals
Fred Mandel - synthesizer, sampler
- One of Queen's greatest hits and Roger Taylor's first smash hit single.
- It hit #16 in the US (despite what was working against it (see The Works), while it hit #2 in the UK. It also hit #3 in Australia, #1 in The Netherlands, and #16 in Japan.
- It has been played at almost every Queen show since 1984. Roger also played it all almost all The Cross shows and at all of Roger's solo shows. It was resurrected for QPR with Roger and Paul trading vocals in a cool version where Roger sang most of the song with a drum sample behind him but then for the end of the song Rog went back to the kit and played the live drum while Paul finished the song and finally QAL.
- Initially titled Radio Ca Ca after Roger heard his son Felix call a song on the radio that. It stuck in Roger's head and so he developed it! According to Rog, if you listen closely there still are a few Radio Ca Ca's in the backing vocals!
- Freddie had a big hand in this becoming the single. After Roger wrote it and developed it, he took a holiday skiing and told Freddie to work with it if he wanted to. Freddie rearranged parts of it and voila...a hit single.
- The video features film from
Metropolis as well as Queen fan club members doing the iconic overhead clapping that is seen worldwide concertwise after this.
- Lady Ga Ga takes her name from this song:
QUOTES:
- "Roger had an idea of very good melodic content, and to be honest, it was called 'Radio Ca Ca' before, and initially it was to deal with the radio being too old or whatever, and I just said, 'I think you should change the lyrical content', and in fact, we went totally the other way, so, I mean, 'Radio Ga Ga' – I mean, it's good, and so, 'Radio Ca Ca'... we were actually trying to say that video is trying to take over, what's the radio going to be?" - Freddie Mercury - 1984
- "I'm an instinctive musician. I can play keyboards, guitar and drums, and I can write songs. I have a facility for writing music, but I don't want to know anything particularly technical - like what the chords are called. Even in 'Radio Ga Ga,' there are some very difficult chords. I don't know what they're called, but it doesn't matter. I'm a much better guitarist than I am a keyboard player, but now I find melodically it's much easier to write on keyboard. 'Radio Ga Ga' was a completely keyboard-written song. I defy anyone to write that on the guitar because you wouldn't find the chords, they wouldn't come naturally to any guitar player I know." - Roger Taylor – 1984
- “I was desperate for inspiration! One day the radio came on in our house and my three-year old son Felix came out with ‘Radio Ca-Ca.’ I thought that sounded good so I changed it around a bit and came up with Radio Ga Ga.” – Roger Taylor – Sounds – 1984
- "The song came after I locked myself in a studio for three days with a synthesizer and a drum-machine.” – Roger Taylor
- “I liked the title, and I wrote the lyric afterwards. It happened in that order, which is a bit strange. The song is a bit mixed up as far as what I wanted to say. It deals w ith how important radio used to be, historically speaking, before television, and how mmportant it was to me as a kid. It was the first place I heard rock ‘n’ roll. I used to hear a lot of Doris Day, but a few times each day I’d also hear a Bill Haley record or an Elvis Presley song. Today it seems that video, the visual side of rock ‘n’ roll, has become more important than the music itself – too much so, really. I mean, music is supposed to be an experience for the ears more than the eyes.” – Roger Taylor
- “I seem to participate more on John’s or Roger’s tracks. They let me help them and suggest more things. Brian’s got his own sort of writing ideas and they are very strong to start with anyway. I don’t seem to be able to get into his ideas as much. But in a way that’s quite good. I’d rather leave it to him, and it doesn’t tmean I just stay out of it altogether. I let him sort of do a lot of it. Whereas with John’s songs or Roger’s songs, I’m sort of getting there at the early stage. They don’t mind me sort of tearing it apart and then piecing it back together again. Every way. Sometimes I’ll take the whole song over. Like ‘Radio Ga Ga’. I just instantly felt that there was something, there was going to be something in there. You could build that into a really good, strong, saleable commodity. And I think Roger was just thinking about it as just another track. And I just said, ‘No, I think it needs..’ So I virtually took it over. And he went on a holiday skiing for about a week…and he said, ‘Okay, you do what you want.” – Freddie Mercury
THE MAKING OF THE VIDEO- ESSENTIAL
- These are hilarious outtakes of the band while recording the video for the track.
ALTERNATIVE RELEASED VERSIONS:
US EDITNO YT Video
- NOT ESSENTIAL
- Issued as a 12” Vinyl promo in the US.
- Intro is edited and middle instrumental passage edited
12” EXTENDED - NOT ESSSENTIAL
- Appears on The Works 1991 Hollywood remaster and The 12” Collection
- Issued as a 12” single in 1984 backed with ‘Radio Ga Ga (Instrumental) and ‘I Go Crazy’ in the US and the UK.
- A large instrumental section added to the beginning.
12" INSTRUMENTAL- NOT ESSENTIAL
- Issued on the B-Side to ‘Radio Ga Ga (12” Extended)’ in the US and the UK.
- As the title suggests, instrumental - a few new elements added.
HOT TRACKS MIX:
NO YT VIDEO
- NOT ESSENTIAL
- Issued on a DJ 12” Vinyl of ‘Radio Ga Ga’, remixed by Loretti Manni.
- Long mix combining bits of the extended and instrumental
GREATEST HITS II EDIT:
- NOT ESSENTIAL
- Early fade out.
1992 RECUT- NOT ESSENTIAL
- Appears on In Memories of Freddie Mercury, a semi-official compilation of remixes.
- Much like the Hollywood remixes.
ULTRATRAXX REMIX- NOT ESSENTIAL
- Appears on the UltraTraxx Collection., collected in 2009 but it is unknown when it was actually remixed.
OFFICIAL LIVE VERSIONS:
LIVE MAGIC- EDITED audio only but taken from Queen's final show at Knebworth
LIVE AT WEMBLEY - 1986- Both days from the legendary performance.
HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY - 1986- Video has been blocked so audio only
QUEEN + PAUL YOUNG - 1992- Freddie Tribute, Paul is not quite up to task as friendly as he is. The crowd makes up for it though!
ROGER TAYLOR + SAS BAND - 2000- On official SAS DVD
LIVE AT THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE - 2002- Roger on vocals, Phil Collins on drums!
LIVE AT 46664 CAPETOWN - 2003 Can't find a YT Vid of just that - so you will see it when we get to 2003
- Roger on vocals
QPR - RETURN OF THE CHAMPIONS - 2005- Perfect example of why live drums are so much better. Listen to the difference between when Roger is singing lead and when he brings the thunder later on.
QPR - LIVE IN UKRAINE - 2008- This is all Paul, but still decent.
UNRELEASED LIVE VERSIONS
ROGER TAYLOR LIVE 1998ROGER TAYLOR ON CHRIS EVANS TV SHOW - 1999[u}QUEEN AT PAVORATTI & FRIENDS - 2003[/u]
- Roger on vocals
ROGER TAYLOR LIVE ON BBC WORLD SERVICE - 2012- In March of 2012 BBC World Service celebrated 80 years of international radio broadcast. Includes guest editor William Orbit on guitar, Malian duo Amadou and Mariam on backing vocals, Anoushka Shankar on sitar, Pirashanna Thevarajah on percussion, Rosey Chan and Spike Edney on keyboards and Gus Isidore and Neil Fairclough on guitar and backing vocals
QAL - LIVE IN KIEV 2012- Decent version with Adam tackling the song fairly easily. I actually prefer Roger on vocals of this song to Adam or even Freddie to be honest. It just hits his voice better to my ears for some reason.
WHEW!
PERSONAL NOTES:
- This song is one of Queen's most famous songs except in the US. :D I think it's a decent song, although live it is far better due to audience participation. I think a lot of Queen fans though at this point would rather see Roger dip back into his past a bit more than trudge this out again and again and again.
Next up, Brian is happy to be rocking again..
Tear It Up
I think I may have but I never linked to it in the index 
SO I can give the story again. In fact perhaps I will expand a bit. 
