Queen - Great King Rat

“Great King Rat“ was written by Freddie Mercury. At the Beeb features a different version of the song recorded in December 1973. This song is an example of Queen’s earliest sound, with lengthy, heavy compositions with long guitar solos and sudden tempo changes. In the middle part of the song, the lyrics contain some lines that can be interpreted as anti-religious, such as “Don’t believe all you read in the Bible / You sinners get in line / Saints you leave far behind...“. One of the riffs in the instrumental solo section was later used in the more popular Stone Cold Crazy, from 1974’s Sheer Heart Attack. There was to be a song after this one called “Mad the Swine“ and the two were to link seamlessly into each other (hence the reason why the drum solo at the end has no ending), but the band and producer Roy Thomas Baker had a debate about the quality of the percussion of the song, and it was not included with the album until the 1991 US re-release.