10 Rock Songs With Weird Instruments

When you think of Queen's music, the first word that typically comes to mind is grandiose. Throughout the band's discography, they had built up a reputation for having a sound that was incredibly broad, with layers of guitars and harmonies stacked against each other. That doesn't mean they had forgotten how to have fun when recording though.

Freddie Mercury's dancehall feature "Seaside Rendezvous" was already a nostalgic pastiche of the 1920's, but Mercury wanted to go even further. Unable to hire a full ensemble, Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor added a brass and woodwind section by making brass-like sounds with their mouths. The band had entertained the idea of adding an actual ensemble to play over the band's initial guides, but there was something so endearing to the band's attempts at classical music that they actually ended up going with the original mouth-brass.

In addition to the playful evocations of jazz music, Taylor also added a tap-dancing section by tapping thimbles on the mixing desk in the control room. With all the innovative sections of A Night at the Opera, "Seaside Rendezvous" was a welcome change of pace that showed the audience that Queen were a band that weren't necessarily taking themselves too seriously.