1 February 1984 – Queen was awarded Silver for ‘Radio Ga Ga’ UK sales. Roger Taylor penned this song about television overtaking radio’s popularity.
“Roger had an idea of very good melodic content, and to be honest, it was called ‘Radio Ca Ca’ before, and initially it was to deal with the radio being too old or whatever, and I just said, ‘I think you should change the lyrical content’, and in fact, we went totally the other way, so, I mean, ‘Radio Ga Ga’ – I mean, it’s good, and so, ‘Radio Ca Ca’… we were actually trying to say that video is trying to take over, what’s the radio going to be?”
Freddie Mercury – Interview, 1984
“I’m an instinctive musician. I can play keyboards, guitar and drums, and I can write songs. I have a facility for writing music, but I don’t want to know anything particularly technical – like what the chords are called. Even in ‘Radio Ga Ga,’ there are some very difficult chords. I don’t know what they’re called, but it doesn’t matter. I’m a much better guitarist than I am a keyboard player, but now I find melodically it’s much easier to write on keyboard. ‘Radio Ga Ga’ was a completely keyboard-written song. I defy anyone to write that on the guitar because you wouldn’t find the chords, they wouldn’t come naturally to any guitar player I know.”
Roger Taylor – 1984