WCSX Classic Cuts
Queen: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
The Hook: Guitarist Brian May says they were completely unaware of the rockabilly revival that was brewing at the time they recorded it.
Album: The Game
Year: 1979 (single) 1980 (album)
Writer: Freddie Mercury
Stats: The band’s first U.S. number-one, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks.
Background: Queen guitarist Brian May says that a rockabilly revival led by The Stray Cats that was just getting under way at the time was the furthest thing from their minds when they recorded “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
Queen guitarist Brian May on “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” coinciding with the early 1980s rockabilly revival led by The Stray Cats. OC:…that’s all. :27
“That’s curious. That’s another example of history just coming to a point at a certain time, because we were totally unaware that there were sort of revival rockabilly groups around at that time waiting to be discovered. We made the thing because we liked how Elvis sounded and it was fun to redo that kind of thing. And then when we put it out everyone said, ‘Hey, you’re spearheading the great rockabilly revival,’ and we were showed into the middle of something else that really wasn’t planned. We just made a record and liked the sound of it, that’s all.”
