The Miracle (song)

"The Miracle"
Single by Queen
from the album The Miracle
Released 27 November 1989
Format
Genre Rock
Length 5:02
Label
Writer(s) Queen
Producer(s)
Queen singles chronology
"Scandal"
(1989)		 "The Miracle"
(1989)		 "Innuendo"
(1991)

"The Miracle" is the fifth and final single from Queen's 1989 studio album of the same name. It was composed by the entire band, though Freddie Mercury and John Deacon were the main writers.[1] It was released as a single in late November 1989, some six months after the album. It was the last of the singles from that album to be released, and the first 5th single released from any of Queen's albums from EMI.

The sleeve artwork for the single uses the album's artwork inverted with a hologram-like fashion. The B-side of the single is a live version of the song "Stone Cold Crazy", which can be found along with "My Melancholy Blues" from the album News Of The World.

The idea for the song came from Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, who wrote the basic chord structure for the song. All four contributed to the lyrics and musical ideas, and the song was still credited to the entire band because they had agreed to do so during the album recording, regardless of who had been the actual writer. While both Mercury and May regarded this as one of their favourites, Taylor said in the audio commentary of Greatest Video Hits II that although it was not a favourite of his, he respected it as "an incredibly complex track".

The song describes several of "God's creations, great and small", such as great buildings like the Taj Mahal and the Tower of Babel, all described as "miracles" in the song, yet the one miracle "we're all waiting for" is "peace on Earth and an end to war." The song also references such well-known figures as Captain Cook, Cain and Abel, and Jimi Hendrix.

Music video

The music video for the song features four young boys that are thought to be - Paul Howard as Brian May, James Currie as John Deacon, Adam Gladdish as Roger Taylor, and a then-unknown Ross McCall as Freddie Mercury – performing as Queen on stage. Throughout the video, McCall appears as four different incarnations of Mercury: '70s era (long hair and harlequin leotard), early '80s (thick mustache, leather jacket and trousers), the mid-80s Live Aid outfit, and The Magic Tour '86 (the iconic yellow leather jacket, white trousers and Adidas shoes). Queen themselves appear only near the end of the video. According to Roger Taylor, Mercury joked about sending the boys out on tour instead of them because of how well they did in the video. According to a story in a 2011 issue of rock magazine NME, Paul Howard who was playing the part of Brian May is currently Facility's manager at LegoLand in Windsor UK.

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1989) Peak
position
Dutch Singles Chart[2] 16
German Singles Chart[3] 78
Irish Singles Chart[4] 23
UK Singles Chart[5] 21

References

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