Ratings History

Album

Greatest Hits II

Information

"The Show Must Go On" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It appears as the twelfth and final track on their fourteenth studio album "Innuendo", released in 1991, and was the last single issued before the death of lead vocalist Freddie Mercury. The song is credited to Queen but was primarily written by guitarist Brian May. Its lyrics address perseverance and endurance in the face of adversity and are widely interpreted as reflecting Mercury’s determination to continue performing despite his declining health. At the time of recording, Mercury’s HIV/AIDS diagnosis had not been publicly disclosed, although media speculation about his condition was ongoing. According to May, there were concerns during the 1990 recording sessions about whether Mercury was physically able to perform the demanding vocal, which he ultimately completed.

The song, described as a power ballad, was released as a single in the United Kingdom on 14 October 1991 to promote the compilation album "Greatest Hits II". Following Mercury’s death on 24 November 1991, the single re-entered the UK charts and spent a total of five weeks in the top 75, matching its initial chart run, with a peak position of number 16. A live version featuring Elton John on lead vocals was later included on "Greatest Hits III".

"The Show Must Go On" was first performed live on 20 April 1992 at "The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert". The performance featured the remaining members of Queen, with Elton John providing lead vocals and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath playing rhythm guitar. The song has subsequently been performed live by Queen + Paul Rodgers and Queen + Adam Lambert. Since its release, it has been used in television and film, including an operatic arrangement in "Moulin Rouge!", and has been covered by numerous artists.

May discussed how the song came to be, in a 1994 interview.

"'The Show Must Go On' came from Roger and John playing the sequence, and I started to put things down. At the beginning, it was just this chord sequence, but I had this strange feeling that it could be somehow important, and I got very impassioned and went and beavered away at it. I sat down with Freddie, and we decided what the theme should be and wrote the first verse. It's a long story, that song, but I always felt it would be important because we were dealing with things that were hard to talk about at the time, but in the world of music, you could do it." Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.