Queen Quiz — Let Me Live

Dale Tatnell
Jun 18
2 min read

Cover Artwork for Queen's single “Let Me Live”

“Let Me Live” was released in the UK on the 17th of June 1996, and was the final single released from Queen's fifteenth studio album “Made In Heaven”

The song was originally entitled “Another Piece Of My Heart”, which originated from around 1976, when Rod Stewart had visited Queen during their recording sessions of the “A Day At The Races” album. It was revisited in 1983 and recordings made during Queen's recording sessions of “The Works” album. These recordings also featured Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck.

In 1993, when Queen began to piece the song together, giving that Freddie Mercury's recorded vocals were just 90 seconds, the song was moulded around him; most of the words were written by Roger Taylor. The song featured Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, and Brian May all singing lead vocals, with Mercury singing the first verse, Taylor singing the second verse and bridge, and May singing the last verse. During the choruses, all three sang with the addition of a background choir, giving it a gospel sound.

An early version, which had managed to be leaked onto some US promo cassette copies of the album, as well as early Mexican and Dutch CD releases, featured the backing vocalists singing additional lines over the intro chorus. Queen were faced with copyright issues as it was considered too similar to the 1968 recording of “Piece Of My Heart” that was released by Janis Joplin (a cover of the song originally released by Erma Franklin and written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns.)