Queen have released a new track, Face It Alone, marking the first time the band has shared a new song with vocals from Freddie Mercury in over eight years.
According to the band’s interview with BBC Radio 2 — who premiered the track overnight — Face It Alone was originally intended for Queen’s 1989 album The Miracle, but was later forgotten and believed lost. The release of the single comes ahead of reissue The Miracle, an updated version of the original, which is slated for release on November 18.
Speaking of the recovery of the once-forgotten track, Queen guitarist, Brian May said Face It Alone “was kind of hiding in plain sight…we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team… stitch[ed] bits together. But it’s beautiful. It’s touching.” At the time of its original recording, the band was grappling with Mercury’s HIV-positive diagnosis, a topic explored throughout the singer’s first verse.
“When something so near and dear to life / Explodes inside / You feel your soul is set on fire,” Mercury sings on the track. The Miracle was Queen’s penultimate album with Mercury as a band member, and came ahead of the frontman’s passing nine months after the release of Innuendo in 1991. Forming the lead single for The Miracle reissue, Face It Alone joins a tracklist that also includes six unpublished songs and a few never-before-heard recordings.
Listen to Queen’s new Freddie Mercury-featuring single Face It Alone below, and head here for more info on the song’s origins and discovery in June.
