The GREAT PRETENDERThe Platters original version 1955
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEzfhclKO8Q 16 MILLION VIEWS
Charts: UK #5, USA #1
FREDDIE MERCURY The GREAT PRETENDER b/w Exercises In Free LoveReleased: February 23, 1987, UK (Parlophone), USA (Capitol)
Charts: UK #4, USA (DNC)
Ireland #2, New Zealand #5, Belgium #6, Finland #7, Netherlands #11, France #13, Sweden #14, Switzerland #15, Austria #26, West Germany #26, Australia #54
Rankings are for 87-93, with only the highest listed for each country.
VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLRjFWDGs1g 42 MILLION ViewsHey…..the mustache is gone!!!! And we get to see three lovelies as backing vocalists…..Freddie, Peter Straker…..and Roger!
The B-side…..vocal demo prelude leading up to ‘a night at the opera’……..
Exercises In Free Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8n52i_dWrg (1 Million total views on various sites)
Freddie Mercury: lead vocals and backing vocals
Mike Moran: synthesizers
Alan Jones: bass
Harold Fisher: drums
Produced by Freddie Mercury, David Richards, Mike Moran
Recorded at Ripe Studios, London, November 1986
Mixed at Townhouse Studios by David Richards
Written by Buck Ram
***********
The Great Pretender demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aptk22usx7g12” extended version minus video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbusNFSqDOY (some easy repetitive vocals at the beginning, but nothing much different from the 45)
With video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly-JZowFHDA 3.2 MILLION Views
***********
Freddie had developed a friendship with Mike Moran after working with him on Dave Clark's Time. Moran was recruited for Freddie's next couple of solo projects, including a cover song he always wanted to record. The track was recorded at Mike Moran's Ripe Studios.
If this wasn't Freddie coming out, I don't know what was. That video is him just totally letting loose, much like 'Living On My Own'. And it's as if Buck Ram wrote those lyrics almost four decades earlier just for him.
EXERCISES IN FREE LOVE Freddie had Mike Moran play classical piano while he sang overtop. When Freddie first met Montserrat Caballé in March 1987, he brought in this composition.
No lyrics, but Freddie is in excellent voice (Superb! Magnificient!). This was recorded during "The Great Pretender" sessions in anticipation of the meeting with Caballe. When he played it for her, it more or less kicked off the entire Barcelona project, and ended his planned solo album. This piece would eventually be given proper lyrics and become "Ensueno."
***********
I can just imagine the initial reaction to both in ’87, especially that over the top video. Would have been interesting. That said, I never saw it in the stores, or heard it on the airwaves. My first listen was in ‘93. The same with the video. Fun yet sad to watch then, as it is now.
As to ‘Exercises…’, hearing it for the first time in '93 was powerful and moving to the point of tears. It has almost that same effect today.
The GREAT PRETENDER '93 reissue In ’93, a very revised and remixed version, sounding very ‘Queen-ish’ with Brian May imitation guitar, was released as a single and as the title track on the North American version of his Greatest Hits. The song reached #29 in the UK.
Since I had never heard either version until then, I had no time based affection for the original. I totally enjoy both, but find this superior because it has that Queen sound (though many of the BVs have been removed...but to good effect). Since there was such an insistance by Jim Beach for 'new' and 'fresh' remixes, I wish they'd been given the Brian Malouf treatment. This is equal to the '93 remixes of 'Time' and 'In My Defence'.
VIDEO (from the ’92 Robert DeNiro film ‘Night And The City)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGUzO7J0TQUTotal sales for the re-release of ‘The Great Pretender’ in the UK also included the CD, which also had the remix.
1. The Great Pretender
2. Stop All The Fighting
3. Exercises In Free Love
4. The Great Pretender (remix)