Last Party

This tender ballad is a tribute to Freddie Mercury, an artist Mika has often been compared to. It was made available as an instant grat track for fans who pre-ordered his No Place In Heaven album via iTunes.

The song's performance video is a simple montage shot by Mika's friend Peter Lindbergh. It was the first time the celebrated fashion photographer has ever collaborated with a music artist. "This collaboration was born naturally and out of friendship," said Mika. "Peter wanted to capture me in complete honesty, and as naturally as possible. Simplicity and emotion being one of the hardest things to achieve, it was only with someone like Peter that I could let my guard down so much." "The photos were done first and then came the idea of bringing them to life with 'a photo that talks to you,' he continued. "We booked the same studio and with the same crew we shot the 'Last Party' video a few weeks later. Working and knowing Peter is an honor."

Mika explained the song's meaning to Billboard magazine: "It's about, in a sense, Freddie Mercury when he found out he was HIV positive, and had this very strong reaction that kind of manifested into him closing himself up in a nightclub for a couple days and having this mad party," he said. "It's probably a myth, I don't know how true it is, but certainly it's a story that's quite well-known." "It made me think about when you find out terrible news, how do you deal with it?," Mika continued. "I wanted to put that into a song as best I could, and tried to make it as intimate as possible and this thing that I crafted and the way I produced it, I tried to make it as out-of-context of contemporary pop music as I could make it. And it's weird because with pop music, you have a particular opportunity to describe the things that are really hard to describe a normal daily life or normal words." "This strange combination of terrible news and that rush of adrenaline - I know because in my life I've had all these awful things happen but this strange rush of adrenaline at the same time and trying to convey that in a song is almost one of the most representative ways of that strange clash of emotions."