The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke - widely overlooked, sort of bizarre, based on a painting by Richard Dadd, but a very good Queen song. And from a technical standpoint, it’s absolutely mind-blowing. Put your headphones on, and just listen to how many amazing things are happening in this song. Try to go through a couple times and focus on one element (vocals, harmonies, guitar, bass, drums) each time. If you don’t think Freddie Mercury is unbelievably talented already, just try recording harmonies like that yourself! Make special note of the vocals at around 1:51, when Freddie sings, double tracked, “And the arch-magician presides / He is the leader.”

For those who may not know, double-tracking is a recording technique where the singer records one track, and then goes back and records another track of the same lines, trying to match as closely as possible. Due to the very slight variations in the way the singer records each track, the vocals end up sounding “fatter.” This is much harder to do than it sounds. In fact, the story goes that John Lennon used to hate the tedious process of double tracking so much that he had his engineers develop a method of doing it automatically using a second tape machine and a variable delay. You have to use a variable delay, because if you have two exact copies of a track and just slightly delay one of them, you’ll get an effect called flanging. Even if you don’t know what the effect is by name, you definitely know its sound. Here is an example.

Anyway, on this line, Freddie sings the second take so accurately that it produces a slight flanging effect! It’s ridiculous!

Finally, pay special attention to John Deacon’s incredible bass line. John Deacon may not be a monster like John Entwistle of The Who, but he can definitely hold his own and then some, as this song shows. To get a better understanding of what’s going on with the bass part, check out this video of a very talented bassist playing along to the song.

And now you have a greater appreciation for an under-appreciated song by one of the greatest bands of all time.

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