25 August 1984, Queen film their video ‘Hammer To Fall’ Forest National, Brussels, Belgium

David Mallett was the director

The band kicked off ‘The Works’ Tour the previous evening 24 August @ Forest National and the audience members from the concert were invited back to participate in the video. The band filmed their entire gig so selected portions could be used.

Freddie invited the audience back for additional filming. Here is all that Freddie had to say before the song:

“This next song we’re gonna use in our next video. So everybody just go mad and maybe later you’ll see one of you guys inside the video one day. Oh, just go crazy, take your clothes off. It’s called Hammer To Fall.” After the song, he simply says, “Good night, you guys!” as that was the last song of the set.

The Dutch fan club invited only about twenty of its members to attend the video shoot the next day. They were instructed by a roadie to sit quietly on a chair and not to move or approach the band members. After a few hours, Brian came over and had a chat with them, checking to see if they were enjoying themselves and if they were hungry. He then promptly ordered them some take-out!

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I hate trying to analyse my songs to the full. You should never ask me that. My lyrics are basically for people’s interpretations. I will say as much as I can about certain songs I write, but in the end I don’t like to pull a song apart because I don’t even analyse them myself – I just sing them.

I write them and record them and it’s up to the listener to take it the way he or she feels, otherwise I ruin a kind of mystique that might portray that track.

I hate doing that. People say, “What does that lyric mean ?” I don’t like to explain what I was thinking when I wrote the song. “Does it means this, does it mean that ?” is all anybody wants to know. F*** them darlings ! I will say no more than what any decent poet would tell if you dared ask him to analyse his work. If you see it, then it’s there. You interprest it how you want to. There’ no great big message. I try to conjure up something and get into a song, and then I hope that people will try to make up their own minds about it – which is a good thing.

That’s exactly what I feel like when I listen to anybody’s album. I like people to put their own interpretation on my songs. Really they are just little fairy stories.”

Freddie Mercury

I look at Freddie and see the expression on his face, and can only imagine what he was thinking watching Montsy, the woman he admired and respected as the greatest opera singer in the world, sing his songs. It had to be surreal and undeniably the happiest moment in his life. I believe if Freddie would have had more time, he and Montsy would have become the greatest duet the world of opera has ever known. Maybe a bit different from what people were accustomed to, but brilliant all the same. Everything he did was elevated to another level and this would have surely been another triumph that Freddie would have given us and that we could hold onto, ‘Forever and One Day.’