Forums > Queen - General Discussion > Early Mercury?

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I came back to Queen recently with the first 3 reissues. Used to be a fan club member back in the 80s and at the time owned everything they did until losing interest after The Miracle but have periodically returned to my cassette copies of the first 3 albums. Queen 2 and Sheer Heart Attack had been my favourites but in the last 2 months with the reissues the first album has replaced them and discovering Mad The Swine (which I absolutely love) made me wonder what the earliest known Mercury songs are? Mad the Swine comes across as being very atypical of the first album excepting 'Jesus' which I love as well and the alternative version of which on the 2nd disc is fantastically good. Both songs pointed back to hippy theatrical stuff like Hair and underline Mercury's Christian which made me wonder what Mercury's earliest stuff could be like.

I'm thinking of songs that may have been mentioned and not released such as songs he may have written before Queen etc. It seems odd to me that musicians like Paul Simon & the Beatles have very early / pre-fame songs recorded but it does not seem to be the case with Mercury. I'm not necessarily coming at this from the point of view of recorded evidence (although that would be great) but whether it is known what juvenile stuff he wrote before Queen. Any evidence out there? The wikipedia entry on Mercury mentions some early bands. Maybe there isn't stuff out there and he really hit the ground running with the first album?

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Cool thanks.