Brian May And Roger Taylor’s Conflicting Views On ‘Sheer Heart Attack’

Brian May and Roger Taylor’s efforts to preserve Queen’s legacy in music are astounding. The two have spent their whole lives sharing a common love of the creative process, and they have grown to become good friends as a result. Even yet, they have had a hard time in the past coming to terms with various matters, especially when it comes to Queen.

The 1977 album News of the World was the time drummer Roger Taylor truly shined as a songwriter, contributing the songs “Fight from the Inside” and “Sheer Heart Attack,” the latter, sharing the name of their previous 1974 album. When it came to the latter song as well, May and Taylor also had trouble agreeing. The song became one of Queen’s early representations of punk-rock, which was noticed from its face-paced tempo.

Roger Taylor not only composed the music but also played many instruments in it. In a 2017 interview with Jonesy’s Jukebox, May revealed that he wasn’t all that excited when Taylor first came up with the idea for the song. As the guitarist, Taylor was the one who was well-aware of the trends and was also willingly open to following them. With punk-rock emerging strongly at this point, “Sheer Heart Attack” was Taylor’s product out of admiration for the genre.

May explained: “‘Sheer Heart Attack’ is Roger’s track. Roger was the one guy in the band who was aware of what was going on around him – very aware of fashions and trends in music and stuff. But he had that track for quite a while – he had it in his head, and he went, ‘I want this on the album. The things are going the punk way, and this is my punk track.’ And I thought, ‘What is this racket?’ Roger and I are famously never in agreement about anything. And I was not in that frame at all. Because in my mind, I think we were punks anyway from the beginning—my strange, deranged brain.”

Thankfully, the two sorted out their differences, and May finally cave in to release this Taylor-written gem. You can listen to the song here.