Freddie Auction and Sotheby's book discussion

Re: Sheer Heart Attack album:
“One list shows 16 songs being whittled down to 11, although the selection does not always match the completed album. Each song has a credited writer so we can see that six out of seven of Freddie's songs were selected, Brian contributed six songs of which three were approved, whilst Roger had two songs of which one was selected, as was the only song from John.“

Oh to know those four rejected songs from Brian and Freddie (we know Roger’s is Sheer Heart Attack)…

I've downloaded a few (for future reference, research etc.). On a desktop browser you can zoom in on a given image then right-click and see the URLs for various image sizes. For the collage of Barcelona lyrics and scores, say, the highest resolution image available is (probably) this one.

The written stuff in this collection is a goldmine.

Edit: It looks like the images are now lower resolution than they were originally (plus they also have a copyright notice, which is fine). I have ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘We are the Champions’ at ~5000px from when the website first went live, but they’re now less than half that. Still mostly fine for research purposes, I suppose. 

If everything goes for the estimate, which I acknowledge won't be the case, there are some (relative) bargains to be had from in there, and possibly some absolute gems.

For example.

NOTW clock used to go for £250, probably £600 these days, add in the fact that it was Freddie's and surely that trebles?

Bo Rhap blue vinyl goes for about £3k for a random number. Freddie's #2, framed? £15k, surely?

A couple of random finds from a notebook:

• List of Miracle songs (including ‘Rock Jam’ [2:25], ‘Stay Tonight’ [3:20], ‘Now It’s Over (Ballad)’ [3:00], ‘Have a Nice Day - Band’ [1:30])
• Face It Alone lyrics (with some not in the released recording, and presumably not recorded)

Guys, sorry but I've removed a couple of posts. We can't be openly discussing how to circumvent the copyrights to download the images. Good luck if you've managed to do it yourself, but please refrain from posting methods on here.

Thanks.

I guess "all the stars in heaven" could be 'in the same place'...?

Could’ve started off with a different set of lyrics that evolved into Long Away. It could also be, as you’re suggesting, a completely different song: on the tape boxes from October or November ‘76 the song is referred to as Brian’s 12 String Thing, thus presuming it hadn’t gotten to its final title by then. Other songs seem to have their titles more or less figured out, so perhaps Long Away was a late addition lieu of In The Same Place. If only there was an archivist who worked for a company that didn’t treat the contents of their archives like the Pentagon Papers to help clear up the mystery…

Speaking of the archivist, I wonder if he wrote the little notes after the contents of the lots. It kind of has the odd, reverent exuberance in most of his writings, but there’s enough “presumably”s (notably when Don’t Say No is pointed out in the Jazz lyrics lot) to make me think it might’ve been someone who knows enough about the history of the band — especially their early years — but doesn’t have access to the archives.

maybe if the song had a different original title and lyric?

what if this:
Wake up in the morning with a good face
Stare at the Moon all-day
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
Does anyone care anyway?


began as life as this:
Wake up in the morning in the same place
Stare at the Moon all-day
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
Does anyone care anyway?

it does (kind of) ring true with the general mood of the rest of the song

I'm also wondering about the Miracle song list, where it seems to be fragments of songs, almost like it's a sound collage of some sort. Roger was also working on his own sound collage at the time (A Long Day's Journey Into Nightlife), so maybe there was something in the water at the time and everyone wanted to do sound collages...

The total running time is 34 minutes – not enough to be an album, at least certainly not in 1989 – and there seem to be instructions ("Let's go" is presumably "A Fiddly Jam", but so too could be "Rock Jam"; I don't know what "Speeded up" could be – maybe the ending of The Miracle?). And there seem to be two otherwise unknown (maybe unrecorded?) songs, Stay Tonight and Now It's Over (which is evidently a ballad), and You Know You Belong to Me is also listed, running roughly the same length as that on the Collector's Edition. Very curious.

Or maybe it's nothing more nefarious than songs or demos recorded up to that certain point, whenever the list was compiled.

EDIT: In the summer Fan Club newsletter, Roger writes that Freddie "has come up with a very interesting new idea. More on this later – for now, my lips are sealed!?" Maybe this 34 minute whatever was the "very interesting new idea"?

What were his thoughts?

Lot 185 - odd to see "Bootleg" there. Possible album title?

Lot 211 - why did he keep this? This also goes to a lot of the stuff in here - it's like he kept everything he ever owned. And we thought Brian was the hoarder. If this stuff was in Garden Lodge, the spare bedrooms must have been Trumptastically full of boxes!

Lot 263 - why were EMI trying to guess the lyrics of Barcelona? I'm pretty sure Polydor was an entirely separate organisation at that point. Did EMI pass on Barcelona, or was it just the sender defaulting to "the record company" being "EMI"?

Lot 605 - the bar bill from the Hendersons party in '85 probably works out at about £40k in current values.... now THAT'S a party

Lot 607 - Something that size would cost more than that estimate new!

Lot 1795 - estimate is a lot less than Freddie paid for it...

Lot 2011 - wow, Mr Scully is currently raiding his bind aunt's piggy bank.

Lot 2113 - not happy with show, venues, staff, fan club.

Lot 2181 - includes 80 mock up covers for a Radio Ga Ga album, some signed..... was The Works originally called that? Pity we can't see any of it....

Lot 2295 - Item 2 - which video do we think? A Kind Of Magic?

 

Also, the mystery writer praises Jazz as "ONE OF QUEEN'S MOST SUCCESSFUL ALBUMS" which I suppose is technically correct, but I don't know if I'd call 15th place "MOST SUCCESSFUL". I'd probably have gone with "MOST ECLECTIC", or just gotten rid of "MOST SUCCESSFUL" entirely.

Also also, anyone who has it, is the book worth it? I don't know if I want to drop ~$60 on something when I'm really mostly interested in the lyrics/studio stuff.

Just checked - Buyer's Premium is 26%, Overhead Premium is 1%. Bid carefully everyone!

I have participated in a lot of similar on-line auctions for Astronaut Autographs, and this is a live auction and will just go on bidding. You can of course place a bid early and the auctioneer takes these into account, and sometimes starts the bidding on the highest pre-bid.

Will be interesting watching this one.