Who knows where ideas originate? Since the beginning of time, people have attempted to solve this mystery. It’s a remarkable phenomenon when ideas just appear out of nowhere. An artist is struck with lightning-fast brilliance in an instant, and the rest is history. Freddie Mercury was familiar with that feeling, having written one of his most popular songs in a matter of minutes after a flash of divine inspiration.
There are a few well-known accounts of extremely quick writing of huge hits. Paul McCartney completely composed “Let It Be” in his mind when he awoke. Bob Dylan used the duration of a cab ride to pen his epic song “Desolation Row.” Mercury wrote “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” for Queen in just five or ten minutes.
Granted, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” isn’t the band’s most complex song lyrically. It would be an incredible achievement if he could say that he wrote a song like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” with its narrative and spiraling verses, in just a few minutes. However, it’s still amazing that they could make a rock and roll song as strong and classic as their 1979 hit so quickly. In particular, he wrote the song while taking a bath. It seems that the soothing atmosphere and warm water inspired him to start thinking of the toe-tapper.
While the band worked on their album The Game, he was content to relax in his room at the Munich Hilton. Desperate to record the song in time, he left the band as soon as the song began to take shape.
The road crew leader for the band, Peter Hince, recalled, “He got the idea for the song while he was in the bath.” “He came out, all towelled up. I gave him the guitar, and he immediately began to figure out the chords. Fred had a talent for selecting catchy pop tunes.
It seems strange to imagine Freddie Mercury reaching for a guitar. Normally, he would have left that to Brian May, but the frontman was just that. Not so much for his playing as for his captivating on-stage persona, he was the band’s singer. But perhaps, he reasoned, the song benefited from his meagre instrumentation.
In his autobiography, he said, “‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love‘ took me five or ten minutes.” I performed that on the guitar, which I am not very good at playing. But it was actually kind of advantageous for me to be limited to just a few chords. I only had to write inside a limited framework, which made it a great discipline. I believe I wrote a decent song because I was limited in how many chords I could work through.
Mercury was able to compose a timeless rock and roll song using just a few fundamental chords. The song’s fundamentals are what make it so great. It gave a nostalgic vibe and the vigour of a song from the early 1960s.
Most of the time, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” sounds like a song that doesn’t seem overdone or overanalyzed. It’s just an infectious song, but it gave the band another massive hit and a bright, energising track to add to their intense live set. Its rapid writing allowed it to exist as a happy, enjoyable package, which is why its spontaneity is what makes it so beautiful. It debuted on Mercury.
