‘Spread Your Wings’ and ‘We Will Rock You

1 February 1978 – Queen film ‘Spread Your Wings’ and ‘We Will Rock You’ on the newly purchased grounds of Roger Taylor’s home in Surrey, UK

It was a bitter, cold day

“I wasn’t even living there actually. The family that I bought it from was still living there at the time, but we decided to film- We couldn’t think of anywhere to film, and we actually did two songs ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Spread Your Wings’ in one freezing cold afternoon. It was absolutely freezing.” Roger Taylor

“This is the day we terminated the contract with John Reid. The contract was signed in the back of Fred’s Rolls Royce. Freddie insisted we had to do it in the Roller as a symbol. His new Roller and Roger’s new house.

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You could see the redness of our noses and fingers. Freddie’s got gloves on, he must have borrowed them from Ratty. Ratty would of course have frozen to death in order that his boss could survive. Only one playing in gloves.” (Brian May)

Poor Brian and John braved the cold, without gloves, trying to convincingly play their guitars

“Exceptions to the rule of ‘live’ performance or staged studio videos were for ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Spread Your Wings’. There were both shot together in the grounds of Roger’s newly acquired country estate. As the property was technically not yet his, and he didn’t have the keys, we were allowed to use the grounds by the vendors but not the house. Or even the toilets if I remember…

Thick snow covered the ground, and it was bleak and very cold, which did not please Fred. While the video set was being finalised and between takes, Fred warmed himself up with tots of brandy inside his Rolls-Royce parked conveniently in the driveway. He wanted some gloves to wear, but there were none available and no wardrobe person either. As a joke I offered him my ‘roadie truck-loading’ pair. These were standard issue for the stylish roadie at the time; American rodeo gloves in light beige soft leather, with a drawstring to tighten them at the wrists. These would be bought at 76 truck stops in the USA and then fastened on to a dog clip with bunches of keys and other paraphernalia that hung from the belt loop on your jeans. Mine were filthy dirty, had gaffer tape repaired fingers and written on both of them in thick black felt pen to avoid any confusion of ownership was ‘RATTY’. Fred gratefully accepted my offer and wore them on the video.”

– Peter Hince, ‘Queen Unseen’

“We shot a couple of videos on the grounds of a country house I had just bought in Surrey and we hadn’t completed the sale so we weren’t allowed into the house. We were like, ‘We might as well film it here.’ It was freezing cold and we did three takes.

“I remember it vividly because the track wasn’t meant to be a single, so the video was an afterthought. We had just done a video in the barn for ‘Spread Your Wings’ and we were like, Let’s do a little video for ‘We Will Rock You’. At the time, it upset me because I thought they underestimated him.” – Roger Taylor, Billboard

The ground was covered in snow and ice, and the band was noticeably uncomfortable and Freddie consumed more alcohol than he probably should have, he got sick in the rhododendrons

’Spread Your Wings’ with commentary https://youtu.be/WdVYzwgTkoM