“Tear It Up,” in Freddie’s Hand (1984)

Two pages, handwritten by Freddie, of the lyrics to “Tear It Up” — the song that would appear on The Works in 1984. The words aren’t yet final; there are corrections throughout, in Freddie’s own hand, exactly the kind of working document that rarely survives an album’s production.

The song itself is credited to Brian May, but Freddie — finding Brian’s own handwriting hard to make out — rewrote the lyrics himself so he’d have something legible to work from in the studio. It’s a small, very human detail: even inside a band as famous as Queen, someone still had to be able to read the words off the page.

This piece is part of “Keep On Rockin’ — the 2019 Exhibition.” See the full exhibition here.