Released 23 February 1974 Genre Hard rock | Format 7" | |
B-side See What a Fool I've Been
Funny How Love Is (UK 3" CD Single)
The Loser in the End (Japan) Recorded 1972-73 at Trident Studios Length 2:47 (Queen II)
1:15 (Queen - instrumental) | ||
"Seven Seas of Rhye" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was primarily written by Freddie Mercury, with Brian May contributing the second middle-eight. The song is officially credited to Mercury only. A rudimentary instrumental version appears as the final track on the group's debut album Queen (1973), with the final version on the follow-up Queen II (1974). The completed version served as the band's third single, the earliest-released song to appear on their Greatest Hits album, with the exception of some versions where their first single, "Keep Yourself Alive", is included.
Contents
Initially Seven Seas of Rhye was simply an "instrumental musical sketch closing their first album". An expanded rendition, planned for inclusion on the album Queen II, was publicly premiered when Queen was offered a sudden chance to appear on Top of the Pops in February 1974, and was rushed to vinyl a mere 2 days later on 23 February. It became their first chart entry after gaining airtime on BBC Radio 1, peaking at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart, which in turn persuaded Freddie Mercury to take up Queen as his full-time career.
The song was dropped from the live set in 1976 and wasn't played in concert again until the Works tour eight years later.
It was the opening song of the set at the first performance of the Queen + Adam Lambert's tour of Asia in Tel Aviv’s Park HaYarkon in Israel.
Style, construction and interpretation
The song features a distinctive arpeggiated piano introduction. These piano runs are sampled in "It's a Beautiful Day (reprise)", on the album Made In Heaven.
The version on Queen II ends with a cross fade, instruments blending into the band singing "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside", accompanied by a stylophone played by Roy Thomas Baker, which was a sole exception to their "no synths" statement. Its inclusion here on the final track of Queen II is briefly mirrored via whistling during the first few seconds of "Brighton Rock", which opens their next album, Sheer Heart Attack.
In a 1977 radio interview, Freddie Mercury described the subject of the song as a "figment of his imagination". In the Queen musical We Will Rock You, the Seven Seas of Rhye is a place where the Bohemians are taken after they are brain-drained by Khashoggi.