"We Will Rock You" opens the Queen LP "News Of The World." After two minutes and one second of its anthemic foot stomps and hand claps, it segues seamlessly into "We Are The Champions." Both had pretentions to be sports anthems. The two were released as a double "A" sided single. "We Are The Champions" is the side that climbed the pop charts, hitting #4 in the U.S. and #2 in the U.K. "We Will Rock You" is the side that stayed in our hearts and continues to live on as a sports arena anthem.
Both perennially make the list of all-time earworms. It is only fitting that they go into the Earworm Hall of Fame in the order we hear them on "News Of The World."
Brian May wrote "We Will Rock You." It's fair to say he was more in tune with sports stadium rock. Freddie Mercury wrote "We Are The Champions" as a sports song, but it isn't really. It's a theatre song. The title may say "sports," but lyrics about taking bows and curtain calls scream "Broadway," or since Queen are Londoners, "West End." That's why the best cover of this song was done by someone whose very existence screams "Theatre!" with a capital-T: Liza Minnelli:
Liza performed the song as the show closer to the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert. She is the one who truly grasped that this is a theater song and, as such, is an appropriate honor to, maybe, the most theatrical rocker of all time. (The "maybe" is tip o' the hat to Alice Cooper -- Vincent Furnier -- who brought together hard rock and show tunes, combined with an entertaining stage show, creating one of the greatest personalities in recorded music. But that's an analysis we'll save for a future induction.)
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