"Sheer Heart Attack" by Queen

As the title might indicate, this song could very well cause a heart attack if an old person heard it a full blast. It is a song written in the early years of punk rock and was intended to show groups like the Sex Pistols that Queen could do the same thing.

The song begins with a guitar slide, vocal pick up la-ti on three and four and bursts into action. The song begins with three four bar phrases as the verse with the first two bars of each staying on the I chord with vocal and the second two bars mostly staying on the V chord with no vocal but some lead guitar. The rhythm guitar, bass guitar, and bass drum have driving eighth notes with usual two and four snare at a tempo of probably quarter note 150

After this begins the chorus which has three separate parts. The first part is eight bars stays entirely on the V chord which really makes the listener anticipate the main chorus. The vocal has also quickened to every other measure. The second part, however, is similar to two of the first four bar phrases but has the singer singing through the last bar finally into the main chorus. The main chorus is defined by the fact it is the first time the bass guitar and rhythm guitar have quit doing the constant eighth notes. Rather, they provide the rhythmical accompaniment by doing a 1 (234) (12) 3 (4) 1 (2) & (3) 4 (1) & (2) 3 4 behind the vocalist for the very long "sheer" and then the "heart attack" is part of two bars of the eighth note material again. This repeats two more times. Then the background music changes again, with the drums joining the vocal for a syncopated (two eighth notes, one eighth rest, etc.) "in-ar" ticulate which provides good rhythmic representation of the word.

The verse section and the chorus is repeated again with slightly more involvement from the lead guitar.

Then the instrumental solo comes which has the accompaniment on 1 & 2 & (3) 4 with the 4 on the V chord and the rest on the I chord. But this isn't any traditional solo. Fitting in with the title of "sheer heart attack" the solo is the guitarist playing ridiculously high notes without any regard for rhythm or melody. It's quite annoying unless you're headbanging to the driving accompaniment. After this, the guitar does some swooshing like effect which leads to a drum solo which becomes phased (think 80's electronic drum)

This transitions back into the second part of the chorus, which leads into the third part of the chorus. But at the end of the non-eighth note part (and before the syncopation) the music suddenly ends. It's a weird feeling to hear this driving wall of sound and have it end without any coda or elongated tonic chord. But once again, it fits in with the lyrics of the song.