Who Wants to Live Forever is a song by Queen. It was written by Brian May for the band's 1986 album A Kind of Magic. It was also released as a single with Killer Queen on the B-side. It is best known for being the seventh and final single from A Kind Of Magic and is one of the band's famous songs ever made.
The song gained worldwide notoriety for its use in the 1986 action-adventure film Highlander, which has gone on to become a cult classic.
Since its release, the song has been covered by many artists. Seal performed a live version of the song at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. In 2014, Rolling Stone readers voted it their fifth favourite song by Queen, and in 2018 it was listed at number 15 in "The top 20 Queen songs of all time" by Smooth Radio.
History[]
Composition[]
Synths parts are played on a Yamaha DX-7 by May, and the orchestra was arranged and conducted by Michael Kamen. Deacon did not participate, and Taylor played some drum-machine parts and contributed backing vocals. Percussion was taken over by the orchestra as well as bass (double bass in this case), in spite of Taylor and Deacon miming those parts respectively in the video. It serves as somewhat of a "love theme" of Highlander, as it adds to the subplot of the movie (in the film, Mercury sings the first verse as well, unlike the album version, which has May singing first).
Music Video[]
Production still from the Who Wants To Live Forever music video.
The video was directed by David Mallet and filmed in a (now demolished) warehouse at Tobacco Wharf at London's East End on 16 September 1986. It featured the National Philharmonic Orchestra with forty choirboys and several hundreds of candles which remain lit throughout filming as well as Mercury wearing a tuxedo suit. The video also features bass guitarist John Deacon playing a white double bass, despite not performing on the original recording.
An alternate version with clips from the film Highlander (which the song appears in) appears on the video single with A Kind of Magic in October 1986 and later as a hidden music video on the Queen Greatest Video Hits II DVD in November 2003.
Legacy[]
- Seal performed a live version of this song at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. He said the song made him cry when he first heard it.
- The song serves as the opening track for Diana, Princess of Wales: Tribute, a double CD released on 2 December 1997 in memory of Princess Diana three months after her death.
- Closing the Isle of Wight Festival in England on 12 June 2016, Queen + Adam Lambert performed the song as a tribute to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida earlier that day.
- The song serves as the closing track of Episode 3 of Russell T Davies' AIDS drama It's a Sin (TV series) (set in 1986)
- In a 2005 poll conducted by digital television station Music Choice on what song Britons would most like played at their funeral, the song was voted the fifth most popular.
Chart Performance[]
| Chart (1986-1992) | Peak
position |
|---|---|
| Netherlands (Dutch Top 40) | 7 |
| UK Singles (OCC) | 24 |
Year-end charts[]
| Chart (2019) | Position |
|---|---|
| Portugal (AFP) | 1661 |
Sales and certifications[]
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Italy (FIMI)
sales since 2009 |
Gold | 35,000 |
| United Kingdom (BPI)
sales since 2011 |
Gold | 400,000 |
| Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. | ||
Gallery[]
Main article: Who Wants To Live Forever/Gallery
Trivia[]
- It is certified as the final single from A Kind Of Magic
- It is the last song to have EMI as the record label, due to being the final single from A Kind Of Magic.