Queen - "I Want it All"

(Debuted May 13, 1989, Peaked #50, 10 Weeks on the Chart)

"I Want it All" was the last chart hit for Queen before the death of Freddie Mercury. It was also the first new hit the band released after my own "discovery" of their back catalog. While I was definitely aware of the group during its 1980 hit singles, I didn't really care for them until later in the decade, when a friend's older sister handed me a stack of her old records that included A Night at the Opera. I picked up on several of their 1970s hits and even had a pantomime for the bridge of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that was both symphonically inspired and comically bad. It cracked my friends up whenever I did it...and really, that was all that mattered at the time.

During the late spring of 1989, the AOR radio station that I tended to listen to started playing "I Want it All," which was great to hear because Queen had been absent for so long. As an anthemic-sounding song, I'm surprised it stopped climbing the chart at #50. However, the band never toured to support their LP The Miracle and never performed it live with Mercury.

"I Want it All" was written in 1987 by guitarist Brian May, who shares the lead vocals with Mercury. Evidently, the main lines of the chorus ("I want it all, and I want it now!") is a favorite statement by May's wife Anita Dopson.