Nightcore (Queen) - Sheer Heart Attack (1974): 01. Brighton Rock

Sheer Heart Attack is the third studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 8 November 1974 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States. Digressing from the progressive themes featured on their first two albums, the album featured more pop-centric and conventional rock tracks and marked a step towards the "classic" Queen sound. It was produced by the band and Roy Thomas Baker, and launched Queen to mainstream popularity in the UK and throughout the world.

"Brighton Rock"

"Brighton Rock" was written by Brian May during the Queen II sessions, but was not recorded at that time, as the group felt it would not fit with the rest of the album. Lyrically, it tells the story of two young lovers named Jenny and Jimmy, who meet in Brighton on a public holiday. Mods travelling to Brighton on bank holidays was a popular narrative at the time, as in The Who's Quadrophenia. Jenny cannot linger because she is afraid her mother will find out "how I spent my holiday", but afterwards "writes a letter every day"; Jimmy, who was eager on the day, responds that he is afraid of discovery by "my lady".

The song includes a three-minute unaccompanied guitar solo interlude, which makes extensive use of delay to build up guitar harmony and contrapuntal melodic lines. It grew out of May's experimentation with an Echoplex unit while he attempted to recreate his guitar orchestrations for live performances of "Son and Daughter". He had made modifications to the original unit so he could change the delay times, and ran each echo through a separate amplifier to avoid interference.

The studio version of the solo only contains one "main" guitar and one "echoed" guitar for a short section, but, live, May would usually split his guitar signal into one "main" and two "echoed" guitars, with each going to a separate bank of amplifiers. In concert, the solo has been performed as part of "Brighton Rock", in a medley with another song, or as a standalone piece. For example, May performed some of it at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Considered one of May's finest solos, Guitar World ranked it No. 41 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.

There was renewed interest in the song after it was used during the climactic final action scene of the 2017 film Baby Driver.