track

Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Remastered 2011

1975Released
3:43

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Remastered 2011. By Songfacts®.

Freddie Mercury wrote this and dedicated it to Norman Sheffield, Queen's former manager and a co-owner of Trident Studios. Queen felt that Norman had not provided them with the support they needed, and so Mr. Sheffield and the band parted company prior to the recording of A Night At The Opera. The surviving band members noted the unhappy atmosphere in the Days of our Lives documentary, explaining that the band felt hard done by when they were producing hit singles without seeing any of the money - and with incidents such as Roger Taylor being told he couldn't hit the drums too hard as they supposedly "couldn't afford" new drumsticks. But as Taylor noted, "you see them (the management) running around in stretch limos and think 'hang on there's something not right here!'" The split occurred under very acrimonious circumstances, and this song acted as something of a final word from the band. The lyrics form a harsh character portrait that outline the band's full animosity towards their former acquaintance. Mercury was reportedly not a fan of the song after writing it, having felt it was too angry and bitter, but May encouraged him to complete it.

As it appears on the album, the song had "Dedicated to..." written after it. We found out it was dedicated to their ex-manager when he tried to sue for defamation of character. By doing so he rather admitted there was cause for them to dedicate the song to him. Queen's next manager, John Reid, spent a lot of his initial time working with the band clearing up their finances and resolving the bad deals they had gotten into. As Brian May admitted in the Days of our Lives documentary, the band had actually signed a publishing agreement with Trident Studios, who then sold their records to a record company. "In hindsight it was the worst decision we ever made" he noted.

This song was covered by Rooney for the 2005 Queen tribute album Killer Queen.

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Remastered 2011.
DKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
125BPM

Album

The album Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Remastered 2011 is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Remastered 2011.
Universal Music Group
© 2011 Queen Productions Ltd. under exclusive licence to Universal International Music BV
℗ 2011 Queen Productions Ltd. under exclusive licence to Universal International Music BV

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