Newly Unearthed Tapes Reveal How Close Queen Came to Imploding During Queen II Sessions
LONDON — They were young, ambitious, and convinced of their own brilliance. That was precisely the problem.
Newly unearthed tapes from the 1973 Queen II sessions reveal just how close the band came to imploding before they ever conquered the world. At the center of it all: a furious clash between Freddie Mercury and Brian May over a ten-second guitar riff that nearly derailed everything.
Ego. Volume. And the brutal limitations of 16-track recording. The combination almost broke them.
The Clash
The tapes capture a moment of rare tension. The band was deep into recording “The March of the Black Queen,” a track so complex it would push the limits of analog technology. May had crafted a guitar passage he believed essential. Mercury disagreed.
“It’s too much,” Mercury’s voice echoes on the tape. “The song doesn’t need it.”
May pushes back. “It needs weight there. Without it, the whole section collapses.”
The exchange escalates. Voices rise. A producer can be heard attempting to mediate. For several minutes, the future of Queen — still a band without a hit, still fighting for recognition — hangs in the balance.
The Stakes
In 1973, Queen was not yet Queen. Their debut album had made little impact. Studio time was expensive. Record company confidence was fragile. A creative deadlock over a ten-second passage could have fractured everything.
The tapes reveal May walking out of the session. Mercury following moments later. Two geniuses, too stubborn to yield, too convinced of their own vision to hear the other.
The Gamble That Saved It
What happened next is almost unbelievable.
According to engineer sessions logs included with the tapes, May returned to the studio alone at 2 AM. He re-recorded the contested passage — not louder, not heavier, but subtly reimagined. Then he left, saying nothing.
The next day, Mercury heard the playback. He listened once. Then again.
“Leave it,” he said quietly. And walked away.
No apology. No acknowledgment. But the riff stayed. The song remained intact. The album continued.
Why It Matters
The Queen II sessions have long been shrouded in myth. These newly unearthed tapes strip away the legend and reveal the human reality: four young men, stretched to their limits, fighting over art because they cared too much to compromise.
“That ten-second riff could have ended us,” May later reflected. “We were both right. We were both wrong. That’s what happens when you care about something more than you care about getting along.”
The Legacy
Queen II would go on to become the blueprint for everything that followed — the darkness, the theatricality, the ambition that would culminate in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” But without that 2 AM compromise, without someone willing to bend without breaking, it might never have happened.
The newly restored tapes are set to feature in the upcoming Queen II collector’s edition. For fans, they offer something rare: proof that even legends argue, even geniuses clash, and sometimes the only way forward is to walk away — then come back in the dark and fix it alone.
