Brian May Recalls The ‘Big Dispute’ With Freddie Mercury About Publishing ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’

Making a studio album is a complicated process, especially for band members with different ideas, which can lead to many arguments. Choosing which songs to include in the record is another matter since bands usually have lots of pending material in their pocket. In a new interview with Variety, Queen’s Brian May revealed one of his disputes with Freddie Mercury over one of their songs.

In recent times, Brian May has been quite busy revisiting his old solo albums and the Queen works. The reissued version of the band’s 1989 album ‘The Miracle’ has just arrived. While it offers an insight into the inner dialogues of the band during the recordings, it also features the previously unreleased track ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You,’ which Queen decided not to include in the first place with a last-minute change.

“It was part of the running order until we got into a big dispute about publishing,” Brian May said when asked why they had given up releasing the song. “See, I had originally written it with other people away from the band. You can write a book about it, as I wrote it for a solo album; Freddie loved it.”

Speaking of their big argument over the track, May added, “And when I brought it to the band, they all loved it too. But, suddenly, particularly Freddie, he didn’t want to receive one-sixteenth of the publishing. Which I can understand, so we reached a stalemate and shelved the song. In the box, we have restored its vinyl to the way it would have been.”

The guitarist continued, “It is, however, only now where I realize what might have been going on inside his head. At that point in time, we didn’t know that he was being threatened. Probably, he did. It could be associated with Freddie talking about too much love killing him. Songs assume different meanings to different people at different times.”

After Mercury’s death, Brian May recorded a solo version of ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You,’ and included the track in his solo album ‘Back to the Light.’ Yet later, the song’s original recording with Freddie on vocals appeared on the band’s ‘Made in Heaven’ album. May has now realized that maybe Mercury didn’t want to include this song in ‘The Miracle’ because it was just triggering for him due to his battle with AIDS at the time.