Chords for Queen: The Making of "Death On Two Legs"

[G#] _ _ [G#m] Immediately prior to Night at [D#] the Opera,
we were really going through a difficult period.
We'd had a very successful _ album this year, Heart Attack.
We thought it was a very good album.
It had done very well.
We'd had a major worldwide hit with Killer Queen.
_ And we were broke, and _ we wanted to know why.
When we were planning to put this record out at Night at the Opera,
the first track on the record, Death on Two Legs,
was a pretty obvious statement from Freddie's point of view
as [G] to the kind of people he'd been in business with.
There's a sense of humour to it,
but with Freddie, there was a lot of anger there.
He was very aggrieved at our management at the time,
who he felt didn't respect him, hadn't paid him,
_ had stolen from him, you know, whatever.
_ _ _ And_
[F#] _ And he wanted to put it down on record.
[Em] _ _ _
[Bm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
MUSIC PLAYS
MUSIC _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _
CONTINUES
_ _ MUSIC CONTINUES
Musically, it's great, too.
The riff is great.
Of course, I didn't invent the riff.
This is Freddie's riff, cos it was done on piano first.
But it works great on guitar, [Bm] this_ _ [D#m] MUSIC CONTINUES [A] _ _ _ [G#] _ _ [G] _ MUSIC [F#] CONTINUES _ [Bm] MUSIC CONTINUES
_ _ [D] _ _ [A] MUSIC CONTINUES
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ MUSIC CONTINUES
MUSIC _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ CONTINUES [Bm] MUSIC [F#] CONTINUES MUSIC CONTINUES
My ass, goodbye!
I think even we were a bit taken aback with the, _ _ erm_
with how vicious Freddie wanted it to be.
I remember thinking,
um, _ _ _ but it was what Freddie wanted, you know,
and the kind of unwritten law was that the author of the song got his own way.
Sometimes you just disagree. _ _
And in the end, what does happen is the writer is the boss,
that he can say, look, this is the way I want the song
and this is the way I'm gonna have it.
Dog with disease
You're the king of the sleaze
Put your money where your mouth is, Mr.
Know-all
What's the fin on your back?
Part of the deal
_ _ [C] [B] Shocked
_ [F#] Toots, _ [A] _ you're tearing [G#] me apart
[F#m] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [D#m] _ _ [A] Toots, you never had _ a heart [D] of gold _
[F#] It's safe _ _ [B] inside _
Surratt, _ _ sensible, not wise
[A] Made out of pie, make yourself another pie
[D]
You feel good, I [F#] feel [N] _ _
good
To cut a very long story short,
we agreed that we would go with John Reed as our manager.
And John Reed's plan, you know, because we said, how do we get out of this?
His plan was, okay, boys, I will deal with the financial situation.
You guys go back in the studio and make the best album you've ever made.
I think maybe we were subconsciously influenced by the fact_
by the Beatles albums, I think, really,
_ especially the later ones like, you know,
Rubber Soul, Revolver and _ Abbey Road.
They were very eclectic albums. _ _