Queen have unveiled a previously unheard song they made with late frontman Freddie Mercury before he died.
The British rock band recorded Face It Alone in 1988 as they worked on their album The Miracle, but it never saw the light of day.
This summer the band’s Roger Taylor and Brian May revealed they had found the “little gem” and on Thursday (13 October) it was played on BBC Radio 2, with fans calling it “haunting” and saying it had them in tears.
Read more: Brian May preparing to ‘rejoin humanity’ after testing negative following COVID battle
The song is a ballad and features Mercury – who is thought to have discovered he was HIV positive by the time he made it – singing the lines “In the end / You have to face it all alone.”
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Queen announced in June that they had found the “passionate” track featuring Mercury, who died in 1991 at the age of 45 from a complication of AIDS.
Speaking on Zoe Ball’s radio show, Taylor, 73, said: “We did find a little gem from Freddie that we’d kind of forgotten about. And it’s wonderful. Actually, it was a real discovery.”
May, 75, said the song had been “kind of hiding in plain sight”.
“We looked at it many times and thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t really rescue that’,” said the guitarist.
“But in fact, we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team went, ‘OK, we can do this and this’. It’s like stitching bits together. But it’s beautiful. It’s touching.”
Music fans were thrilled to get to hear the track.
“What a gift!” one person posted on Twitter, while another said: “This is just what I needed today.”
Others said it gave them “goosebumps” and had them in “tears of joy”.
“I don’t have the words,” said one.
“This is truly epic and you and team are epic for restoring and releasing this. If it doesn’t move you to tears then nothing will.
“Phenomenal, thank you so much.”
“Very moving and a bit haunting / ethereal,” said someone else.
Read more: Brian May says he was ‘stitched up’ over Brit Awards quotes
Since 2011, former American Idol contestant Adam Lambert has performed lead vocal duties for the band.
Watch: Remembering Freddie Mercury
