Songoftheday 11/10/18 - Each morning I get up I die a little can barely stand on my feet, take a look in the mirror and cry Lord what you're doing to me...
from the EP Five Live (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song of the day was a collaboration between British pop star George Michael, who had been fighting with his record company over promotion of his work, and legendary rock band Queen, who had lost their lead singer Freddie Mercury to AIDS in 1991. Michael, whose Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 2 had been stopped by Sony, had lifted a couple tracks meant for it for the charity record Red Hot + Dance, landing yet another top ten pop hit in America in the summer of 1992 in the process with "Too Funky". Meanwhile, Queen had experienced a resurgence in popularity due to the Wayne's World movie, which featured their classic "Bohemian Rhapsody", causing the song to re-enter the pop chart in the U.S. and rise all the way to #2 in the spring of that same year. At that same time, the rest of the band -John Deacon, Roger Taylor, and Brian May - put together a charity concert to benefit the fight against AIDS as well as pay homage to their bandmate. The resulting sold-out concert at Wembley Arena in London featured the band playing with an all-star cast of guest vocalists including David Bowie, Elton John, Robert Plant, Annie Lennox, Roger Daltrey and many more, and was broadcast on radio and TV just like the legendary Live Aid show back in 1985. While the concert itself found itself on videocassette, and performances from various players, like Guns N' Roses, Metallica, and Def Leppard found themselves on different music releases, the set featuring George Michael (and in one song Lisa Stansfield as well) into the EP Five Live, which was released a year after the show. On the shortened disc was two performances from the tribute show: "These Are The Days Of Our Lives" with Stansfield, and "Somebody To Love". Also, non-Queen covers of Seal's Killer, the Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone", and "Calling You" from the movie Baghdad Cafe made up the rest of the set. "Somebody To Love" was issued as a single - it originally appeared on Queen's iconic Day At The Races album in 1976 and climbed to #13 on the American pop chart. Michael's live take substitute's the band's multi-layers harmonies with his booming voice along with a huge choir of backing singers...
George and Queen's live version of "Somebody To Love" made it to the American top-40 in May of 1993. It would be the band's final trip to the Billboard magazine Hot 100 pop chart (they would "bubble under" the list in 1996 with the Mercury-posthumous release "Too Much Love Will Kill You" at #118). The single would also climb to #42 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, the record did much better; in the UK and Ireland, where the Five Live EP charted as one piece, it went all the way to #1. Elsewhere, the song hit the top ten in the Netherlands (#6), Belgium (#8), and New Zealand (#8), and made the top-40 in Canada (#13), Austria (#15), France (#16), Australia (#19), and Germany (#21).
Michael released an edited version of the "Killer/Papa Was A Rolling Stone" medley as a proper single to follow "Somebody To Love". It went to #69 in the U.S., while having success in New Zealand peaking at #8 and in Canada at #19.
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Here's the original from Queen to contrast with this live version - you can tell how much an influence Freddie was on George's singing style...
Many many other artists have covered the song, admiring its soaring melody and universal yet common-man message. In 2009, the musical television show Glee took on the classic in its first season - and the result saw it come back to the top-40 in America (#28), the UK (#26), and Canada (#33), while going all the way to #10 in Ireland...
This year, the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody was released, and along with the soundtrack of Queen performances, three singles from newer artists covering the band's work came out. Troye Sivan, a singer who can in some ways be the legacy of Mercury as he can be an out gay (and sexual) artist with a mainstream following, was the one chosen for "Somebody To Love"...
And finally, here's a clip of George Michael rehearsing the song with Queen prior to the concert, with a couple of famous fans on the sidelines and even getting a "beautiful" kudos mid song from Brian May (at 1:43)...
Up tomorrow: British singer salutes slumbering spacecraft.
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