“Keep Yourself Alive” by Queen

Queen introduced themselves with "Keep Yourself Alive", the song that kicks off their self-titled 1973 debut and their very first single, with "Son and Daughter" on the flip. Brian May wrote it back in 1970, working it out on acoustic guitars at rehearsals at Imperial College and in a garden on Ferry Road, when the band was still just Freddie Mercury, May and Roger Taylor, with no permanent bassist.

By the time it was cut, John Deacon was on bass, and John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker were producing alongside the band. May meant the words as a wry, tongue-in-cheek joke; then Mercury sang them and the meaning flipped entirely. Hardly anyone noticed at first: it failed to chart in Britain or America, and got a second shot in the US in July 1975. Rolling Stone rated it 31st on its 2008 list of the greatest guitar songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.