The Iconic Queen Track That Freddie Mercury Wrote While Having a Bath

Some songs take time to take shape. Many songwriters and musicians will return to a song in progressing days, weeks, or even years later, tweaking it until it’s just right. But others come together quickly after inspiration strikes. And in the case of one classic Queen song, that inspiration hit frontman Freddie Mercury while he was taking a bath.

While Queen was in Germany recording their album The Game, Mercury was relaxing in the bath when “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” came to him. He wrote the song in less than 10 minutes. He explained the process in a 1981 interview with Melody Maker. Mercury noted that “‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ took me five or ten minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.”

“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” Was a Fast Hit for Queen

Shortly after finishing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” Mercury took the song to bandmates drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon. They opted to record it quickly without guitarist Brian May. Specifically, they worried he might complicate what was a fairly simple song. Ultimately, May liked the song and only added a solo. Some reports claim the song was recorded in just a half-hour. Others have said it was a longer session of several hours.

Mercury also spoke about the fact that “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” had quite a different sound than most other Queen songs. It was intended to sound like a song by Elvis Presley, who had died just two year prior.

“It’s not typical of my work, but that’s because nothing is typical of my work,” Mercury said in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson.

Perhaps the fact that “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” didn’t sound like typical Queen helped contribute to its success. After it was released in 1979, it went on to become the band’s first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. It topped the chart for four weeks and helped the band carry their success into the 80s. And it’s remembered today as one of their most beloved songs.