The Top 10 Hit Freddie Mercury Wrote In Mere Minutes

Sometimes an idea can come to you so fully formed that it feels as though you didn't write it at all, but simply plucked it from the air. That must have been how Queen frontman Freddie Mercury felt back in 1979, when with hardly any effort whatsoever he came up with the fundamentals for one of his band's biggest hits: "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love."

According to the singer himself, he was relaxing in the tub in his hotel suite in Munich while Queen were recording in Germany, when the idea for the song popped into his head. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and for Mercury, who composed the song primarily on guitar — an instrument he wasn't particularly adept at — this meant working within his own limitations.

As Mercury told Melody Maker, "'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' took me five or ten minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can't play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It's a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn't work through too many chords, and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think" (via Queen Archives).

Today, thanks to the evergreen classic "Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen are a band uniquely associated with rock at its most theatrical and complex. But when it comes to the biggest hits of their career, it could equally be said that they tended to take things back to basics.

Despite Freddie Mercury's love of classical music and opera, he was also, of course, a huge fan of classic rock 'n' roll and rockabilly. And with "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love," Mercury drew on his early musical inspirations to deliver a crowd-pleasing hit.

Mercury's reliance on simple chords allowed him to create a song with the feel of 1950s hits by idols, most notably Elvis Presley, and as a versatile, often ironic lyricist, he was able to create a somewhat pastiche set of lyrics to match. After decisions in the studio that also framed the song as a tribute to early rock 'n' roll — guitarist Brian May switched from his regular Red Special guitar to a Fender Esquire to achieve a retro sound – "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love" quickly came together, emerging as a timeless rock 'n' roll throwback.

Queen released "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as a single in the U.S. in December 1979, despite initial skepticism from the band's record label, Elektra, which only agreed to release it to the American market after radio stations began playing imported copies from the U.K. The track soon achieved a large listenership around the world, but especially in the States, where its affectionate tribute to Elvis Presley — who had died just two years before the single's release — was well received by rock 'n' roll fans. 

The single hit No. 2 in Queen's home country, but gradually climbed the charts in the U.S. and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1980, staying there for four weeks. It was Queen's first No. 1 in the country, and set the stage for "Another One Bites the Dust," which also topped the charts in 1980.