After 34 years, a lost song by Queen is set to be released ahead of the reissue of the band’s 13th album The Miracle. The track was rediscovered when Queen’s archive and production team came together to work on the upcoming album release. The song, ‘Face it Alone’, was originally recorded in 1988 but remained unfinished. The Miracle reissue will come as an eight-disc collector’s edition box set and will feature The Miracle Sessions which includes unreleased recordings and six unpublished songs.
“I’m happy that our team were able to find this track,” said guitarist Brian May, “After all these years, it’s great to hear all four of us, yes, Deacy is there too, working in the studio on a great song idea which never quite got completed… until now.” The album will not only feature this lost track but it will also include some of the band’s conversations in studios in London and Montreux, Switzerland.“It was kind of hiding in plain sight,” May continued, “We looked at it many times and thought, oh, no, we can’t really rescue that. But, in fact, we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team went, ok, we can do this and this. It’s kind of stitching bits together.”
Roger Taylor, Queen’s drummer, went on to say that they had “kind of forgotten about this track,” but described the song as “wonderful, a real discovery. It’s a very passionate piece.” This will mark the first new song featuring Freddie Mercury since the Queen Forever album which was released in 2014. It featured three unheard tracks: ‘Love Kills’, ‘Let Me In Your Heart Again’, and ‘There Must Be More to Life Than This’.
The original release of The Miracle went to number one in the UK, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland and received critical acclaim with Rolling Stone saying: “The Miracle is a showcase for Freddie Mercury and his love of sweeping, quasi-operatic vocals. And indeed, Mercury – especially on the title track – has never sounded better…”
Queen formed in 1970 and went on to be one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. Their 1981 Greatest Hits album is the best-selling album in the UK and has been certified nine times platinum in the US. The band comprised of Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals) and John Deacon (bass). Freddie Mercury passed away in 1991 from AIDs-related complications. He performed for the final time with Queen at Knebworth in 1986. Today, Roger Taylor and Brian May still perform as Queen with Adam Lambert on vocals.
