Queen
Face It Alone

I discovered Queen in the spring of 1992. Freddie had left less than six months before. I remember feeling a mix of emotions inside me. On one hand, there was the astonishment at having been so out of touch with the world to arrive so late, on the other hand, there was the sadness for the premature and absurd death of a musical genius. However, the alibi was within reach: I was just twelve years old. There was plenty of time to make up for it: fourteen albums to discover, one after the other.

After exactly thirty years, I can say that Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor feel like family to me. I can say that I've worn out their records from listening to them and after having had the opportunity to walk on the star dedicated to them on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I can also admit that I have forgiven that preteen who arrived late.

Queen have always released everything they wrote, every single song. But something, apparently, remained at the bottom of the drawer in Garden Lodge.

"Face It Alone" belongs to the category of illustrious rarities. It's still to be understood whether it was considered a future b-side at the time or just a song to be kept hidden for presumable reasons, which will become clear once listening is complete.

Dating back to 1989, it should have been part of the tracklist of the album "The Miracle" (the one with I Want it All and Breakthru). It's a good thing that the remaining members decided to release it today, I would say. Because after thirty years and the long tail of the nostalgia effect, we're talking about pure fuel for our emotions.

Intimate, resigned, private. These are the first three adjectives that came to my mind after the first listen. The cleaning work done on the original recording is incredible. The echo of the opening percussion sounds like the noise of a basketball bouncing on the parquet of a small gym (bear with my basketball comparison). Then comes the dreamlike plucking of Brian May, introducing Freddie's warm voice. Here we feel as if we're meeting an old dear friend, whom we had resigned to having lost.

Freddie's three octaves only warm up, they scratch but only come close for a moment to the wonderful peaks he always accustomed us to. It's the late Eighties and the terrible discovery has only been recently made. The countdown is a concrete thing, and resignation is an integral part of the lyrics. The soul burns and you know you have to cry and shout:

"When something so dear to your life explodes inside

You feel your soul is burned alive (burned alive)

When something so deep and so far and wide falls down beside

Your cries can be heard so loud and clear"

But despite everything, inner strength must necessarily prevail. Because we are often alone in facing such difficult challenges. Life is yours, and you have to face everything alone:

"Your life is your own

You're in charge of yourself

Master of your home

In the end

In the end

You have to face it alone"

There are the illustrious strings of the Red Special, from which a beautiful solo by Brian May emerges halfway through the track. There is also John Deacon's soft bass, accompanying Roger Taylor's timid snare drum. There's Freddie, once again as if for the first time, and this is the only important thing.

I believe that "Face It Alone" cannot be defined as a b-side in any way, both for its content and for the quality of its composition. Even though as usual I read too much severity, I partly agree with the criticism, which considers the track important in itself only because it is presented in the midst of a clever nostalgia operation. As the Guardian says, if "Face It Alone" had found its originally intended place, we would have quickly forgotten it, losing it among so many songs that, in the following decades, would make history and fill the "Greatest Hits". Perhaps if we tried to be more cynical and less romantic, we might even agree.

Surely listening to this piece doesn't make us shout miracle or wonder how we could have lived without it until today. But it's all subjective. Or maybe not. It's undeniable that a band like Queen and a frontman like Freddie Mercury are born every thousand years.

And while we wait for it to happen again, we just want to remember. No ifs, no buts.