28 September 1984 – Freddie Mercury’s solo track ‘Foolin’ Around’ is released on the soundtrack for Nick Nolte’s film, ‘Teachers’
“I wanted a track that had a sexual element, a sexual vibe. Not in terms of lyrical content, but in terms of rhythmic content.” – Freddie Mercury, 1985
Freddie completed the track ‘Foolin’ Around’ by the time summer of 1984 came along, so when asked to contribute a song for the forthcoming film ‘Teachers’, he offered the producers this particular song.
With a dominant, triumphant synthesizer motif, ‘Foolin’ Around’ is another fine track from ‘Mr. Bad Guy’, and neatly blends dance with rock – exactly what ‘Hot Space’ should have sounded like.
With the pulsating bass beat of Stephan Wissnet and random stabs of guitar from Paul Vincent, the song is otherwise bathed in synthesizers and drum programming, yet still sounds fresh and vital beyond its 1985 release date on the album.
As on ‘I Want To Break Free,’ Fred Mandel provided a suitable synthesizer solo, with accompaniment from Vincent on Brian May-sounding guitar orchestrations, which later drew ire from Queen’s guitarist, who questioned the point in hiring a soundalike when a quality song could have become a Queen song.
Interestingly, the song was proposed to be a single, with a 12” extended version prepared; while it did feature in the 1984 Nick Nolte film ‘Teachers’ (an earlier version appeared on the soundtrack album, with only subtle differences), the idea for single release was scrapped along the way.
An instrumental mix was also prepared, and both of these versions were later released on ‘The Solo Collection’, but the most interesting find from the archives was an earlier version, recorded on 31 May 1984 at Musicland Studios. While some lines were later altered, it featured a completely new introductory verse as well as real drums (a drum-machine appears only on the album version), and is certainly essential listening.
More mundanely, the song was remixed in 1992 by Steve Brown, with arrangements and instrumentation by Andrew Flashman and Andrew King. This version appeared on ‘The Great Pretender’ in the US and ‘The Freddie Mercury Album’ in the UK, and makes the song even more danceable than in its original incarnation.
Source: ‘Queen – The Complete Works’ by Georg Purvis
👉 https://youtu.be/ljssEY85ZA8
The gorgeous photo is from the ‘Mr. Bad Guy’ session
