Hammer To Fall - Remastered 2011

Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this song, and it is often speculated by those in the Queen camp that he wrote heavy rockers like this and "Tear It Up" in response to the band experimenting with synths more on tracks like "I Want to Break Free," where notably he was forced to back down and have a synth solo rather than a guitar solo. Perhaps in frustration he wrote such straightforward rock songs like "Hammer To Fall."

It's easy to assume the song is purely about the end of the world and the Cold War escalating (with the "hammer" of the title referring to the hammer and sickle of the USSR emblem, and references to "in the shadow of the mushroom cloud"), but in fact the song is more about life and death in general, and how it comes to us all and does not discriminate ("Rich or poor or famous, for your truth is all the same", "Comes to you as to us all, now it's time for the Hammer to Fall"). Brian May confirmed the meaning on his website in 2004, when he noted, "The hammer coming down is only a symbol of the Grim Reaper doing his job!"

A wildly energetic rocker, this song quickly became a fan favorite live and settled into the band's lineup alongside similar songs like "Tear It Up," "Seven Seas of Rhye," "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Tie Your Mother Down." It featured prominently on the Works and Magic tours, and was the third song in their six-song setlist at Live Aid in 1985. A highlight for many of Queen's Live Aid performance is Freddie Mercury breaking off halfway through the second verse to do an impromptu ballet dance with a BBC cameraman. The song also featured in many of Brian May's solo sets in the 1990s, being a set closer on his 1993 Live at Brixton Academy album, and made a strong return during the Queen+Paul Rodgers tours, with the powerful rock vocals suiting Rodgers' bluesy style. On the Return of the Champions tour in 2005, the first 2/3s of the song were performed in a bluesy ballad style, with May kicking back into the original rock arrangement just before the "Rich or poor or famous..." bridge.