Sir Brian May, 77, blasted by Roger Taylor for ‘arrogant’ swipe at Queen bandmate: ‘Take issue with that!’
Veterans of the legendary pop group Queen, Sir Brian May, 77, and Roger Taylor, 75, have embroiled themselves in a spat over songwriting.
The falling out partly stems from a long rumoured, and lampooned, disagreement over Queen’s 1975 track I’m In Love With My Car.
Their more recent rift emerged after Queen guitarist May accused drummer Taylor’s songwriting of being “very simplistic”.
“He thinks in barre chords on the whole. My contribution would be to come in and make the melodies work better.
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“It’s a humble task but that’s what I’ve done on Roger’s songs – add a bit of colour,” the 77-year-old explained to Mojo magazine.
Taylor was not best pleased with the critique, emphatically disagreeing with May’s analysis in the same publication.
“I’d take issue with quite a lot of that!
“It’s a little bit, OK, so you’ve got a piano – now I’m going to come in and tune it. I don’t only think in barre chords – that’s a slightly arrogant statement to make,” Taylor fumed.
He continued: “Brian’s a perfectionist and he will chase down the detail, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him f*** up my songs!”
The recent spat conjured up memories of a long-running disagreement between the pair over Taylor’s I’m In Love With My Car.
The “tongue-in-cheek” autophilia themed song featured as the B-side to the band’s enormously successful 1975 single Bohemian Rhapsody.
Outside disagreement over the quality of the song, the band was particularly split over the track receiving the same royalties as frontman Freddie Mercury for his chart-topping track.
“Brian was like, ‘Is this a joke?’” Taylor recalled his furious bandmate asking about the song.
Such was the nature of the dispute that it was turned into a running joke in the 2018 Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
“We were aware of the injustice of I’m in Love With My Car making as much money as Bohemian Rhapsody,” guitarist May told Mojo.
“It was a real sticking point for the band and it’s good we got through it. I think our sense of humour saved us. How long did it take me to get over it? Oh, quite a while,” he admitted.
Taylor explained with mirth: “He’s (May) never forgiven me. And I’ve never stopped laughing about it!”
Tensions over the track were eventually cooled by Mercury, who suggested the band split songwriting credits equally.
“It was Freddie’s idea, bless him, to split everything equally after a while,” reflected Taylor warmly.
The drummer concluded: “He was very generous that way. You win and you lose, but it felt like the grown-up thing to do.”