My Sunday Song – “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic

For My Sunday Song #230, we are ending the Queen 10 song set with “Who Wants to Live Forever” off the 1986 album, ‘A Kind of Magic’. The song was from the movie ‘Highlander’ which I love that movie, but it doesn’t really hold up well when I watched it a few months back but I am getting off topic. The song only charted in the UK and sold well over 400,000 copies and is still a fan favorite as Queen still plays it in their shows today. It is one of my favorite Queen songs and so that it is why it is ending this set.

The song was written by Brian May and he wrote it in only 20 short minutes after watching a clip of the movie where Connor MacLeod’s wife, Heather, dies. You see Connor is immortal and he can’t die (unless he loses his head). The song is the backdrop to that scene in the final cut of the movie. Now in the film version, Freddy sings the whole song, but I am going off the album version where Brian actually sings the first verse and then Freddie takes over.

Musically, the song is a ballad, full of orchestration by Michael Kamen. The song is so haunting, the lyrics even more so and when you add the strings and the full orchestra it is a really moving song and can send chills up and down your spine. It does pick up a tempo as the song builds and the heavy drum beats come in. It keeps building until Freddie lays down that final massive vocal on the chorus. His theatrical talents bode well for getting the emotions across in the song. The song is so grand and so Queen.

Give the song a listen and let me know what you think. I hope you like it as much as I have enjoyed it all these years. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful and Happy Sunday.

“Who Wants To Live Forever”

There’s no time for us.
There’s no place for us.
What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us?

Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
There’s no chance for us.
It’s all decided for us.
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.

Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?

Who dares to love forever
When love must die?

But touch my tears with your lips,
Touch my world with your fingertips,

And we can have forever,
And we can love forever.
Forever is our today.

Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
Forever is our today.

Who waits forever anyway?

Written by Brian May

83 thoughts on “My Sunday Song – “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen”

      1. This is my top 10, btw:

        Innuendo
        Killer Queen
        Under Pressure
        The Show Must Go On
        Somebody To Love
        White Queen (As It Began)
        The March of the Black Queen
        Fat Bottomed Girls
        Fight From The Inside
        Another One Bites The Dust

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  3. Breaking Benjamin reintroduced this song back into my life when they covered it for a greatest hits package.

    It’s a top song. That chorus hook.

    I haven’t seen the Highlander movies since the early 90’s. I will need to revisit em.

    There are quite a few movies which I liked during that period that haven’t held up well so far. Lol.

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      1. A tear glistens in the eye
        Of one John T. Snow
        A heart as tender and mild
        As a young baby doe

        He’s a sensitive man
        As soft as Charmin
        But less fun to squeeze
        Unless you married him

        The Snow is fragile as a flake
        When the sounds unmistakably
        Drip sweetly in the ears
        A crooning ballad for Dreyfuss to hear

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    1. I still liked it, it just was not a well made movie and looks really bad now. But the music hasn’t faded at all.

      And you are welcome on the songs. Now get ready for the Queen review series starting in February!!

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        2. I knew that. Clancy Brown never sounds like Mr. Krabs in his movies except when he’s mocking his troops as a drill sergeant in Starship Troopers.

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        2. The aliens were so stupid they completely deleted that plot line from the Renegade Cut of the film. The only version available on DVD and Blu-ray I believe.

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                    1. Well you can still use it when you review Eraserhead. Any chance you do a Metal Machine Music review? I wanna see you tackle that one.

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                    8. Lou Reed clearly had zero fucks to give. Some say he wanted to shake off the fair weather fans he’d accumulated with Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal and Sally Can’t Dance. Needless to say that if that was his goal, he achieved.

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    2. Pshaw! It was good enough for a network to steal its idea wholesale in that show Forever from 2014. An immortal guy runs an antique shop in NY, he lives with a kid he rescued in WWII and he’s not the only one who’s immortal. Only in the show, he solves crimes in a standard crime drama way.

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        1. It only lasted one season, but as far as network crime dramas go it was one of the more interesting and charming ones. No masterpiece, but there are worse ways to kill 40 minutes.

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        2. But I won’t be watching it alone. I’m inviting Jon ever for drinks and pizza. Then we’re listening to Crazy Nights after we’re sufficiently sloshed.

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