Love of My Life

When Freddie Mercury composed Love of My Life, he did so thinking of Mary Austin, his partner at the time. The song, a ballad found on Queen's album A Night at the Opera, was born on the piano and guitar. Later, Brian May adapted it for his twelve-string acoustic guitar, lowering the original key for live performances. In the studio recording, May contributed small guitar phrases and recreated harp effects, an instrument not typically part of the band's usual equipment, by joining several chord takes. The recording of A Night at the Opera, which included this piece alongside other hits like Bohemian Rhapsody, took place in 1975. The band spent a month rehearsing in a barn in Surrey and then three more weeks in a rented house near Kington, in Herefordshire, before entering Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire from August to September of that year.

The connection of Love of My Life with the audience became evident from 1977, when it was introduced into concerts. It became a highlight of the shows, so much so that Mercury would often stop singing to let the audience take over. This communion was especially strong in South America. The live version recorded during the 1981 tour, included on the album Live Killers, reached number one on the singles charts in Argentina and Brazil, staying there for a full year. After Mercury's passing, Brian May has continued to dedicate the song to his memory in his own performances. A notable exception was a concert in Sheffield, where he dedicated it to Mercury's mother, who was attending the event. On later tours, such as the Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour or the Cosmos Rocks Tour in 2008, May would invite the audience to sing most of the song. In 2015, during the Rock in Rio festival, Queen + Adam Lambert performed the piece by combining May's vocals with archival footage of Mercury in concert. The version from Live Killers, released as a single in 1979, was recorded live in Frankfurt on February 2, of that year, although the accompanying video combined footage from a concert in Tokyo in April 1979 and from Paris.