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“Sleeping On The Sidewalk”, written and sung by Brian May, was inspired by Eric Clapton. Lyrically, it deals with an aspiring trumpet player’s career, delivered in a “rags-to-riches” fashion and recorded in one take. May sings with an American accent, providing some near-authentic blues credibility to the jam, and measures the aforementioned trumpet player’s success by “bucks” (as opposed to pounds). On a close inspection, John Deacon can be heard playing the wrong notes in some bass parts, and May can also be heard laughing at the end of the song. It is also one of the few Queen songs that does not feature Freddie Mercury.
In a 1983 interview with BBC Radio One on their Guitar Greats segment, May elaborated on the writing and recording process of the song. “That was the quickest song I EVER wrote in my life, I just wrote it down. It’s funny because it’s one of the ones I’m quite pleased with as well. It’s not trying too hard, it’s not highly subtle but I think it leaves me with quite a good feeling.’
‘It was sort of a one-take thing as well. Although, I messed around with the take a lot and chopped it about and rearranged it, it was basically the first take, which we used. So, it has that kind of sloppy feel that I think works with the song. Which we never would have DREAMED with the previous albums. We always used to work on the backing tracks until they were a million percent perfect and if they weren’t we would splice together two which were. We’d go to great lengths, but for this album we wanted to get that spontaneity back in. “
In a 1983 interview with BBC Radio One on their Guitar Greats segment, May elaborated on the writing and recording process of the song. “That was the quickest song I EVER wrote in my life, I just wrote it down. It’s funny because it’s one of the ones I’m quite pleased with as well. It’s not trying too hard, it’s not highly subtle but I think it leaves me with quite a good feeling.’
‘It was sort of a one-take thing as well. Although, I messed around with the take a lot and chopped it about and rearranged it, it was basically the first take, which we used. So, it has that kind of sloppy feel that I think works with the song. Which we never would have DREAMED with the previous albums. We always used to work on the backing tracks until they were a million percent perfect and if they weren’t we would splice together two which were. We’d go to great lengths, but for this album we wanted to get that spontaneity back in. “
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Shouts
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xmansonmaniac wrote:
cool song i luv it
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ZiaMary wrote:
One of my favorite from Queen
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backtothelight wrote:
Very underrated! A great Clapton-esque, bluesy song.
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elchingolense wrote:
Agreed, very very underrated song.
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radko wrote:
Funny, I like it a lot.
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RattyMcSpade wrote:
This was all done in one take - apparently, if you listen closely, you can can hear John playing some wrong notes!
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Magnum357 wrote:
Pretty cool song, just not one I'd casually listen to. Still good
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amaroK_usr wrote:
I love this 12 Bar blues!
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Nighthawk551 wrote:
Brian May's masterpiece. I'm a big blues fan as well as a huge Queen fan, so this song is definitely one of my favorites!
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shazzeth wrote:
One of Queen's most underrated songs
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Sleeping on the Sidewalk
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Recent Activity
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dylanhdavis added Sleeping on the Sidewalk to their Loved Tracks. Thursday morning
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Tender-L tagged Queen – Sleeping on the Sidewalk with blues rock and blues. last week
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bander_az tagged Queen – Sleeping on the Sidewalk with 1977, 70s, blues rock and 3 other tags. 23 days ago
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backtothelight updated the wiki page for Sleeping on the Sidewalk. (diff) last month
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