For the first time in over four decades, Queen fans have new material to rave over from the late great Freddie Mercury. The former Queen lead singer’s previously unreleased version of “Time” was shelved away for a very long time as it was originally slated to be used for a concept album of a hit musical the held the same time. It has recently come out that longtime friend and collaborator Dave Clark has been putting the finishing touches to the “lost” song and announced that it’s being released under its full title “Time Waits For No One” today via UMe.
“Time” was the creation of Dave Clark to accompany the West End musical under the same name. When it came time for the former Dave Clark Five leader to find someone to fit the song “In My Defence”, he did not see a better fit than Freddie. After the two made the track along with another song, Freddie asked if there was anything else he might be able to work on and Dave Clark had offered one more song: the musical’s title track. So in January 1986, they came to Abbey Road Studios along with a hand-picked group of musicians to record the song.
The final version of “Time” now is an elaborate production made up of 96 tracks ranging anywhere from rhythm tracks and backup vocals. The work began again when Clark found the rough drafts of the song within his archives. From there, he brought in original keyboardist Mike Moran to rework the piano for the track. Out of the 96 tracks used to create the final version of the track, there was only used from the original recordings: Freddie Mercury’s vocals. To top it off, Clark grabbed some of his own home-video visuals for the song’s music video to serve as a representation of Freddie’s “magic performance.”
The music video of Freddie Mercury’s posthumous release of “Time” below:
Click here to watch the full interview of Freddie Mercury and Dave Clark’s ‘Time’ interview from 1986.
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