Queen to drop unreleased song featuring Freddie Mercury's vocals later this year

The seminal rock group announced that "Face it Alone" will be released in September

By Hattie Lindert | June 7, 2022 | 3:24pm

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Queen to drop unreleased song featuring Freddie Mercury's vocals later this year

Freddie Mercury Photo: Keystone/Hulton Archive

Decades after his death, iconic mustachioed rocker Freddie Mercury is still guaranteed to blow your mind, anytime. And a new Queen song featuring the late frontman’s vocals, titled “Face it Alone,” is reportedly slated for a September release.

Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor confirmed to BBC that the new track comes from the recording sessions for Queen’s 13th album The Miracle, which was released back in 1989.

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“It was kind of hiding in plain sight,” May said of the rediscovered track. “We looked at it many times and thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t really rescue that.’ But in fact, we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team went, ‘Okay, we can do this and this.’ It’s like kind of stitching bits together… But it’s beautiful. It’s touching.”

Taylor said the band had “kind of forgotten about” the “wonderful” tune, and said encountering Mercury’s words felt like a “real discovery.” He called the recording a “little gem from Freddie.”

“I think it’s going to be out in September,” Taylor teased.

Mercury, who died in 1991 at the age of 45 of bronchopneumonia resulting from AIDS, has reached reverential status as both a charismatic frontman and queer icon in the years since his death. In 2018, his life story was chronicled in Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic in which Rami Malek portrayed him.

Queen hasn’t released new original music since its 1995 album Made in Heaven, but both Taylor and May seemed confident in the striking quality of the lost recording that will soon see the light of day. After recording The Miracle, Mercury lived a more secluded lifestyle as his health began to deteriorate, making the album’s studio sessions some of the last the energetic visionary would partake in with the band.

“It’s a very passionate piece,” Taylor said.