Freddie Mercury might be hitting the charts again after a previously unreleased song was found by the queer rock legend’s longtime friend Dave Clark. Mercury wrote “Time Waits for No One” for the 1986 West End musical Time at the peak of Queen’s popularity, five years before his death. Clark, who wrote the musical (which was a critical flop, but a commercial success) has been searching for the song for 10 years.
“When we first recorded it, I went to Abbey Road and we ran through with just Freddie and [a] piano. It gave me goosebumps. It was magic,” Clark said during an interview on BBC Radio 2, which premiered the track.“Then we got down to recording the track and we [added] 48 tracks of voices, which had never been done in Abbey Road before, then the whole backing. It was fabulous — but I still felt there was something about the original rehearsal.”
The version released this week is a stripped back piano number, letting Mercury’s singular voice shine. Clark added that it was recorded during a “haze of late nights and fueled by fabulous food, vodka, and Cristal Champagne” and that the final result is a “magic performance… he tasted every word.”
“Time Waits for No One” will be released by Virgin EMI on June 21, but you can listen to the song below, paired with a video recorded before a performance of Time.
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