Lucy on the Eve of Ghost Town

(Apologies for the title – it scans with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and it amused my tiny mind when I thought about it)

A significant portion of the world seems to be waiting for the arrival of Ghost Town, which will finally be released in the early morning over here for me in the UK.  I will be asleep!  I am not a bad fan, just an exhausted one trying to recover from a chest infection, and also one that has to get up for work in the morning.  The song will still be there when I get up, so I’m sure it won’t be long before I hear it.

It’s been an extremely busy 24 hours for Adam’s hardcore fans; the artwork for the album cover was released overnight, showing the pared down, “less is more” look that now seems to be his new image.

Pic credit: Warner Bros

There have been days of snippets about Ghost Town, which to be honest I’ve not taken a huge amount of notice of; I’d much rather wait and hear the whole thing, then I can have a proper idea of what it’s like.

I prefer real surprises, and I got one; there was something of a Twitterquake around midday UK time.

My poor phone, it’s taken so much punishment since the beginning of this year when I started on this mad journey. I picked it up to silence a sudden flood of alerts and found a bunch of fairly incoherent (but extremely funny) tweets from QAL fans that I follow.  It was mostly about people who thought they were dying, so I hope they’ve recovered over the last few hours.  I shan’t name the guilty, but you know who you are! J

Amongst all this mayhem, there was a link to a list of tracks on The Original High which had been published on iTunes New Zealand.  And three words against a track called Lucy: “featuring Brian May.”  At almost the same time, Queen Online delivered the news of a tour date in Chile.

Pic credit: Icanhazcheezburger.com

Well, he’s gone and done it.  Brian is on Adam’s new album and QAL fans nearly broke the internet.  I’d really been hoping for this, had even had a strong feeling that this would happen, particularly since seeing Adam’s reaction to one of the red carpet reviews at the Brit Awards in January.  When asked if there was any collaboration with Queen on the new album, he couldn’t resist a giggle.

To say there has been an outpouring of joy is putting it mildly, but this is the best sort of vindication for everyone.  It certainly made the day of this hard-hearted old Queenie.

First of all, Brian has well and truly put his money where his mouth is; since QAL came into being (and before) his support of Adam has been constant.  While the haters might have been horrified at him labelling Adam a “gift from God” and other such terrible compliments, the collaboration has brought delight to both sets of fans and we’re more than happy to accept Brian’s view of the situation.

Brian’s opinions of Adam are always candid and heartwarming; in a November 2014 interview from Team Rock, he stated that he thought that Queen’s “arena” days were over, but has been delighted through QAL to discover that they’re not.  And if he’s delighted, so are we.

https://www.teamrock.com/news/2014-11-07/brian-may-queen-arena-shows-behind-them

Taking part in Adam’s new album is another step on that journey, and what an exciting, tantalising one it is for us.

It also justifies our own opinions as fans; we’ve watched this incredible bond developing and now it’s being cemented into recording.  Now we’re all hoping that this is the start of something more.

Pic credit: Getty Images

For Adam’s long-term fans (as I am a mere newbie), this is a vindication of nearly six years of faithful support.  I salute you guys; you put yourselves into this for the long haul, whereas I merely tripped over Adam due to the genius of someone at the BBC.

So, to the song:  Lucy.

Will it be performed at Rock in Rio?  Elsewhere on the South American tour, so temptingly called “Don’t Stop Them Now”?  Will there be a possibility that the set will contain any more of Adam’s new songs?  Too many questions.

All we know at the moment is that one, tiny piece of information, that Brian has had input into this song.  We don’t know whether he’s going to be playing, singing, or both, or indeed whether he’s co-written it with Adam.  Hopefully all will be revealed soon.  The only tiny piece of information we do know is that Brian took a trip to LA in November 2014 and there was a bit of a hoo-haa as the Red Special had its own plane seat.  This might have been when a recording was laid down.

It will be intriguing to know about the style of the song; neither Queen nor Adam seem to have written or recorded much in the way of songs that feature names so this is a departure on both sides.

In an extremely old track by Brian called The Night Comes Down (from their first album), there is the line “Lucy was high and so was I”.  This song was written only a few years after the likes of Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds and its overt references to drug use. There is almost a hint of the Beatles at the start of it before it morphs into prog rock.

(video from Queen Official’s Youtube uploads)

Of course, this could be a complete red herring, but it’s an interesting thought that a line from decades ago might feature again somehow. The style of the song is going to remain a mystery for a while yet; will it be a power ballad in the style of WWTLF? A rock classic like Hammer to Fall? Or something else?

In the meantime, Ghost Town will break the internet overnight, I will wake up to thousands of alerts and Twitter will be littered with dead Glamberts.  I hope enough people survive for me to chat about it tomorrow.  I’m going to be dreaming of my favourite astrophysicist guitar god who has done something tremendous for a great singer.  Night all.

Pic credit: Hiddenfifths.blogspot