About The Song
“Don’t Stop Me Now” is a song by the British rock band Queen featured on their 1978 album Jazz that was released as a single in 1979. Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, it was recorded in August 1978 at Super Bear Studios in Berre-les-Alpes (Alpes-Maritimes), France, and is the twelfth track on the album.
Freddie Mercury wrote this song – both words and music – in Montreux, Switzerland. It finds him feeling unstoppable: he’s “floating around in ecstasy,” “like a tiger defying the laws of gravity,” and “traveling at the speed of light.”
After Mercury died of AIDS-related causes in 1991, it became clear that his hedonism during this period caught up with him. Brian May told Mojo that he struggled with the lyrics because it was about a detrimental time in Mercury’s life, when he was “taking lots of drugs and having s.e.x with lots of men.”
Brian May shared his thoughts on this song when he spoke with Absolute Radio in 2011: “I thought it was a lot of fun, but I did have an undercurrent feeling of, ‘aren’t we talking about danger here,’ because we were worried about Freddie at this point. That feeling lingers, but it’s become almost the most successful Queen track as regards to what people play in their car or at their weddings. It’s become a massive, massive track and an anthem to people who want to be hedonistic. It was kind of a stroke of genius from Freddie.”
The song also appears on the band’s 1981 compilation album Greatest Hits. In June 2011, as part of Queen’s 40th anniversary celebrations, an old take of the song containing more guitar parts was included on the bonus EP of the re-released and remastered Jazz album.
The single reached number 9 in the UK charts but only number 86 in the US; as the album was a top-10 hit, the song got some airplay on U.S. album-oriented rock stations despite its low chart ranking as a single.
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