A Kind of Magic

Is this a kind of magic? - There can be only one...

- Roger Taylor (A Kind of Magic)

LET THE DRUMS ROLL! ROLL UP, ROLL UP!

Witness our Hero display his magic! Watch him as he:

Survives virtual strangulation by an over-starched ruff... (It's a Hard Life!)

Emerges unscathed from a vat of bleach...

(Who Wants to Live Forever?)

And an extra just for you, folks!

He turns into a flirtatious, gum-chewing schoolgirl!

What a DRAG!

(I Want to Break Free...)

TWO, THREE, COUNT ME IN!

‘When I was a teenager, Roger was quoted as saying ‘I’m no angel, and I don’t pretend to be’ (although many of us thought he looked like one!) It was only from a distance, but the group I adored, and Roger in particular, helped me through those harrowing months when I saw my mother die of cancer*. There are times when we need to draw strength from the good in another human being - after all, we are ‘All God’s People’. Looking back now, I know I couldn’t have made a better choice than Roger – so I wrote a poem to express my feelings about it all today:

To Roger, for my teenage years

It’s the brighter sun I remember

The bad things in life so few

The inspiration that I drew

Even as early as then, you said

Let me take your hand…be your guide

You and me – on each other’s side

The beat came from a different drum

Your heart forever on your sleeve

Always saying what you believe

You were my hero, my role model too

Not for you to sit on the fence

How great to feel your confidence!

…‘Til one day my life went downhill

It was my loss - I won’t pretend

So sorry that it had to end.

(Quotes taken from: Drowse,

These are the Days of Our Lives,

Ride the Wild Wind)

ROGER TAYLOR LYRICS (Quotes from songs by album)

Queen: Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll

Gonna really knock a hole in the wall

Gonna hit ya grab ya hard

Make you feel ten feet tall

Queen II : The Loser in the End

Forget regrets, and just remember

It's not so long since you were young

Sheer Heart Attack: Tenement Funster

I got a way with the girls on my block

Try my best to be a real individual

A Night at the Opera: I’m in love with my Car

Told my girl I'll have to forget her

Rather buy me a new carburettor

So she made tracks saying this is the end

now

Cars don't talk back they're just four wheeled friends now

News of the World: Fight from the Inside

You gotta fight from the inside

Attack from the rear

Fight from the inside

You can't win with your hands tied

News of the World: Sheer Heart Attack

Hey hey hey hey, It was the D.N.A.

Hey hey hey hey, That made me this way

The Works: Radio Ga Ga

You gave them all those old time stars

Through wars of worlds - invaded by Mars

You made 'em laugh, you made 'em cry

You made us feel like we could fly - Radio

The Miracle - Breakthru*

I wake up

I feel just fine

Your face

Fills my mind

I get religion quick

'Cos you're looking divine

Honey you're touching something,you're touchin' me

I'm under your thumb, under your spell,

can't you see ?

If I could only reach you
If I could make you smile

If I could only reach you
That would really be a breakthru..

The Miracle - The Invisible Man*

I'm the invisible man
Incredible how you can
See right through me...

I'm the invisible man
It's criminal how I can
See right through you...

No-one knows what I've been through

- let my flag unfurl
So I make my mark from the edge of the world...

*Queen compositions, lyrics mainly attributed to Roger

A Day at the Races: Drowse

Never wanted to be the boy next door

Always thought I'd be something more

But it ain't easy for a smalltown boy

Jazz: More of That Jazz

Huh, only football gives us thrills

Rock 'n' roll just pays the bills

Only our team is the real team

The Game: Rock it (Prime Jive)

When I hear that rock and roll

It gets down to my soul

When it's real rock and roll...

Hot Space: Action This Day

You've got the power to love and to live...

I gotta feeling that just won't quit...

...we've gotta learn to live

A Kind of Magic: A Kind of Magic

One dream, one soul, one prize, one goal

One golden glance of what should be...

Innuendo - Ride the Wild Wind*

Get your head down...

we're gonna ride tonight

Your angel eyes are shining bright

I wanna take your hand

lead you from this place

Gonna leave it all behind...

Innuendo:

These Are the Days of Our Lives*

Sometimes I get to feelin'
I was back in the old days - long ago
When we were kids, when we were young
Things seemed so perfect - you know ?
The days were endless, we were crazy - we were young
The sun was always shinin' - we just lived for fun

Made in Heaven: Heaven for Everyone

This could be heaven for everyone

This world could be fed,

this world could be fun

This should be love for everyone

This world could be free,

this world could be one

We should bring love

to our daughters and sons

(Talking about ‘One Vision’ in 1985): The original words were actually about Martin Luther King. Now I haven’t got a clue what it’s about. Somebody said it was about Bob Geldof but I don’t think it is. They changed all my words – that rotter Freddie!

(Transcribed from Greatest Hits II DVD)

ictures on this page from: www.queenvideos.cjb.net, www.queenzone.com, www.roger-taylor.net

Remember love’s stronger, remember love walks through walls...

Roger Taylor (Don't Lose Your Head)

For 'Roger Glossary', click here.

Our Drummer’s Diamond Days

I wrote the following piece to commemorate Roger's sixtieth birthday in July

Roger is now a sexagenarian – thought I’d get the ‘sex’ thing out of the way early on. He was my teen hero back in the seventies. It may very well have been because of Roger, but I don’t remember it all that clearly, that I found myself playing drums in a school band that was called ‘Jeopardy’. I do remember that he was my role model as a drummer so I was always pretending to be him. But there were other things too – that determination, that assertiveness, that dislike of the ‘artificial’. Hence the look of disdain on his face during the performance of ‘Killer Queen’ on Top of the Pops - it surely had a lot to do with having to lip-synch!

Moving on to more recent times, and January 2008 finds me in Vienna, discussing with two of the ‘We Will Rock You’ cast members just how underrated Roger’s solo material is. He had, of course, always been composing, having had one song included on each of Queen’s early albums. Two of those tracks in particular, ‘Tenement Funster’ and ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, count among my indelible adolescent memories which had, until recently, been – no, not ‘lost’, but should I rather say ‘mislaid’ in the mists of time. When I finally caught up with Roger’s achievements over the years, I was fascinated to find out that he’d written songs about Neo-Nazism and the disproportionate power of a press baron – both issues that were close to my heart as well.

It appears that when Roger wants to spout forth on something, it’ll go in a song. His compositions and press interviews are generally the places where he expresses his views, as an on-line ‘soapbox’ has been, and remains, conspicuously absent. However, in those primeval dawnings of the World Wide Web, all of eleven years ago, we had the initial success of a record-breaking internet concert. But somehow the word ‘Cyberbarn’ has acquired quite a primitive ring to it in these days of high-speed broadband….

It appears, though, that Mr. Taylor would rather be travelling – in his yacht nowadays, perhaps – than behind a computer. “I don’t know until I’ve seen them all”, Roger informed a Dutch magazine in the seventies in response to the question, “What’s your favourite country?” The theme of foreign climes therefore comes to feature in some of his compositions, notably ‘Revelation’. I wonder if, when he penned his findings about The Ukraine in that song, he ever dreamed he might one day be performing there in front of 350,000 people?

At a certain point in his student days it should have become clear that music would be Roger’s destiny. But what of the “small town boy” who arrived in London in the late sixties and who was studying biology when he was diverted by the attraction of a career in rock ‘n’ roll…or was it that he was studying rock ‘n’ roll and biology was the diversion? Anyway, I’m not sure if his degree subject, not one reference to which seems to appear later (apart from that trace of “DNA” in ‘Sheer Heart Attack’), was behind one of Roger’s more puzzling decisions - to dedicate the ‘Happiness?’ album to the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacinus cynocephalus). This is actually a type of wolf that was declared extinct in 1936. It is recorded as being a nocturnal animal, “typically shy and secretive, with awareness of the presence of humans and generally avoiding contact, though it occasionally showed inquisitive traits” (Wikipedia). A number of ‘sightings’ have been registered over the years, calling into question the very idea of its extinction. The album is also dedicated to Freddie. “Most especially”.

Wherever Roger’s solo ventures were to take him, Queen was always the home he returned to. I think it’s fair to say that being drummer - and vocalist - in the greatest rock band ever has inevitably overshadowed his other achievements. The lines between his ‘extra-curricular’ work and Queen came to overlap at times – ‘The Cross’ song ‘Heaven for Everyone’ probably being the best known example. But clearly it might also just have happened by accident rather than by design….

In the Orwellian year of 1984 there were two releases that Roger had been involved in. When Queen were recording ‘The Works’ in L.A, he had also hired an adjacent studio to create material for his solo album ‘Strange Frontier’, in which the committed CND member was set to communicate some anti-nuclear messages. As he was working on one particular song, the other three band members popped in to help out. Brian played guitar on it, John added a good bass line and Freddie just went totally crazy. Thus it became a Queen song.* And the age of Ga Ga was born. Encapsulating the epoch of enslavement by the telescreen, there would now be this constant reminder of the aural aura of music:

Today we can find that a radio station in Romania, radio shows in Australia and Slovenia and a Norwegian cartoon all bear the title of the song, as well as a German ‘teen read’ novel about some youngsters who set up their own radio station on the former inner German border!

So we are back in ever-present. Even on the latest offering with Paul, ‘The Cosmos Rocks’, Roger’s songs reveal familiar patterns – the social message: ‘Say It’s Not True’, the satirical: ‘C-lebrity’ and the downright fun: ‘Surf’s Up, School’s Out’. “Without new material we would just be old men with old songs!”+, he remarked.

Indeed it appears that we’re far from any idea of retirement at sixty - or any time like it – and we only hope that there’ll soon be more to come!

* Queen interview with ‘Popcorn’, 1984. Source: www.meddows.com

+ Interview with Thomas Zeidler, ‘Österreich’, 2008.

Some of Roger's Musical Tastes and Influences

Thanks to Jerome Lelkes for the Dutch articl