Released 8 April 1985 Recorded 1984 | Format 7" single Genre Pop rock, disco | |
B-side "Stop All the Fighting" Length 3:37 (7" and album version)
7:03 (12" extended version) | ||
"I Was Born to Love You" is a 1985 song by Freddie Mercury, and was released as a single and on the Mr. Bad Guy album. After Mercury's death, Queen re-worked this song for their album Made in Heaven in 1995, by having the other members play their instrumental parts over the original track transforming the song from a disco number to a hard rocker.
Contents
The song received its live debut on the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour of Japan. Brian May and Roger Taylor performed the song acoustically. The song was also performed during Queen + Adam Lambert's concerts in South Korea and Japan, which was the first time that a full live band was used for the performance.
The Queen version from the Made In Heaven album also includes samples of Mercury's ad-lib vocals taken from "A Kind of Magic" from the 1986 album of the same name and from "Living On My Own" from his Mr. Bad Guy album.
Music videos
The video for the original Freddie Mercury version of the song was directed by David Mallet and filmed at the now demolished Limehouse Studios, London. The video was choreographed by Arlene Phillips and features Freddie singing in front of a wall of mirrors, then running through a house with an unknown woman (Debbie Ash), before dancing on a podium.
The video for the Made in Heaven version was directed by Richard Heslop for the British Film Institute, and was included on Made In Heaven: The Films. It features the inhabitants of a block of council flats, showing people of every sexual persuasion. Couples kiss, kids play, and teenagers steal and destroy a car in a monochrome film. The audio also uses the vinyl edit.
The video for the Queen version of the song included on Queen Jewels, the 2004 Greatest Karaoke Hits DVD and the Japanese releases of the Days Of Our Lives documentary in Japan features footage from Freddie's original solo video intercut with footage of Queen performing live at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 12 July 1986, One Vision, A Kind Of Magic and Now I'm Here, and Freddie's solo video Living On My Own.
Appearances in other media
The song has been featured in the multiple television advertisements, mainly in Japan. The original version recorded by Mercury was featured in the TV commercial of Japanese cosmetics company Noevia in the mid 1980s. The Queen version was released as a single exclusively in Japan in February 1996, because the song was used in a TV ad for Kirin Ichiban Shibori, one of the best-selling liquors of the country produced by the Kirin Brewery Company. The single became their first song that entered the Japanese chart since "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)", released in 1977.
In 2004, Queen's version was used as the theme for Pride, the successful Japanese drama starring Takuya Kimura and Yūko Takeuchi, aired on Fuji Television, that featured the songs by the band. Jewels, their tie-in compilation album featured "I Was Born to Love You" and released only in Japan, and the song re-entered the Japanese chart.
A cover version of this song—based around the Queen version—is featured in the fourth level of the Nintendo DS video game Elite Beat Agents.
A eurodance cover version of the song was done by the boy band Worlds Apart.
This song was featured in episode 29 of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, during a competitive game of gym-class volleyball.
This song was also released as a Japan only release by rocker Andrew W.K. in February 2011.