‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen is the peak example of a crowd pleaser, played everywhere from school discos to care homes and still bound to have everyone in the room up dancing. Indeed, for many children, it’s the song that acts as the gateway and their introduction to Queen – and for everyone else, it’s a reminder that as much as they could master a poignant anthem, this was a band who were here to party.
But did you realise the true reason that the song is such a firm staple for filling dancefloors all over the world is because it is proven to induce you into a state of happiness, according to science? It’s true – you feel compelled to smile the second Freddie Mercury’s voice comes over the airwaves because a dopamine rush biologically hits you when it starts, making it one of the happiest songs to ever be created.
However, this is a highly ironic legacy for ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, given that when it was first released, it was largely a commercial flop and disliked by other members of the band, namely Brian May. For the most part, it wasn’t until 2004 and Shaun of the Dead, where the song was used, that it had a cultural resurgence, and has since been cemented as one of Queen’s greatest hits for the rest of time.
Yet the fact remained that at the tail end of the 1970s, when Mercury was writing songs for the album Jazz, the reality wasn’t quite as dopamine-inducing for those around him. Lavishing in excess, romance, drugs, alcohol, sex, affairs, and everything in between, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ really centred on the hedonism which fuelled his lifestyle at the time, and which some thought would come to a bitter conclusion.
This was a thought shared by guitarist Brian May, who initially hated the song as he viewed it as a celebration of everything that was seemingly destined to cause Mercury’s downfall. This sense of anxiety was perhaps reflected in its chart performance, doing reasonably well in the UK at the number nine spot, but barely making a dent in the US at all, only reaching number 89.
It was for this reason that for many years, including until after Mercury tragically did go to his grave, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ remained a mostly forgotten blip in the Queen back catalogue, until its real joyous power was realised decades later and a frenzy took hold. Even May, who had sworn he would never like it, became infected with the fever, saying he realised its ability to capture happiness after he’d heard it as a floor-filler at weddings and other such celebrations.
It is quite funny that one of the world’s most gleeful songs was born out of something that many saw as being so stark, but this was arguably all part of Mercury’s magic. Even when the chips were down, he could make it seem like he was having a ball and, in many ways, it’s perhaps this quality that gave him the tenacity to continue on until the eleventh hour. It was all part of the show.
