Hearing Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” when it first came out in 1980 was a disorienting experience. Plenty of rock bands—from The Rolling Stones to Bad Company to KISS—had hits in the late ‘70’s that incorporated a disco beat. But it was still strange to hear a Queen song that could be played in the clubs. Not only was “Another One Bites the Dust” funkier than a typical Queen tune, but it was missing Brian May’s trademark guitar tones.
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If the change in soundscape didn’t grab your attention, the lyrics certainly did. “Another One Bites the Dust” is violent and intense. And Freddie Mercury’s vocal performance matches the fervor of its message. It’s impossible to listen to the song and not envision the stories being told. But one image it’s not likely to evoke is…cowboys. Yet a cowboy theme was what was originally going to drive the meaning behind Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.”
How “Another One Bites the Dust” Wound Up Not Being a Cowboy Song
“Another One Bites the Dust” is one of two songs from The Game that were written by bassist John Deacon (the other being “Need Your Loving Tonight”). Deacon wrote the song around the funky bass line, which bears a strong similarity to the one in Chic’s “Good Times.” He initially envisioned “Another One Bites the Dust” as being an even bigger departure from Queen’s typical sound. He wrote some goofy lyrics about cowboys that would have been a good fit for the music.
Deacon played guitar, piano, and percussion in addition to bass on the track. When Mercury’s vocals, Brian May’s guitar effects, and Roger Taylor’s drum loop were added, he realized he needed something harder than his cowboy lyrics. Other than Mercury’s shouting of the phrase “shoot out!,” the final version of “Another One Bites the Dust” has no trace of Deacon’s original cowboy theme.
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The first verse sets the song’s vicious tone, describing the moments leading up to a mob hit.
Steve walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain’t no sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go
Mercury takes the intensity of his vocals up ever so slightly, as he describes the attack.
Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, yeah
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With the chorus refrain, And another one gone, and another one gone, another one bites the dust, Deacon primes us that this killing won’t be an isolated event. So in the second and third verses, we get two more shoot-’em-up scenarios. The second verse is from the perspective of a jilted lover who looks to exact revenge.
How do you think I’m gonna get along
Without you when you’re gone?
You took me for everything that I had
And kicked me out on my own
The third verse also takes on a revenge theme, though it’s less clear what Deacon’s unhinged character is avenging. It tosses out a number of abusive situations—You can beat him, you can cheat him, you can treat him bad / And then leave him when he’s down. At this point, the listener knows what’s coming. Regardless of what the perceived offense is, we know another one is about to “bite the dust.”
“Another One Bites the Dust”’s Mystery Lyric
Deacon’s mob-life scenarios are easy to follow. However, one line of the song continues to baffle listeners all these decades later. Shortly after the second verse, Mercury shouts a few lyrics. It starts with Hey! Awww, take it! Bite the dust! As for what comes next, your guess is as good as anyone’s.
If you’re having trouble discerning Mercury’s four-syllable utterance, you’re not alone. In the versions of the song lyrics published by Apple Music and Genius Lyrics, the line is skipped over, as if it doesn’t even exist. The line is even less intelligible than the supposedly back-masked lyric, “It’s fun to smoke marijuana” (the validity of which the band, through a spokesperson, has denied).
The Impact of “Another One Bites the Dust”
“Another One Bites the Dust” was Queen’s second No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, following the chart-topping success of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” seven months earlier. The single has sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S. and over 7 million copies worldwide. Coinciding with the popularity of the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, “Another One Bites the Dust” charted in several countries in late 2018 and early 2019, and during that time, it placed at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. The Game is Queen’s only No. 1 album. It spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200. It has been certified Quadruple Platinum.
“Weird Al” Yankovic parodied the song with “Another One Rides the Bus” on his 1983 self-titled debut album. It peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. Wyclef Jean covered “Another One Bites the Dust” in 1998, remixing Queen’s original, adding his own lyrics, and featuring verses from Pras and Free. This version appeared on the soundtrack for the film Small Soldiers, as well as on Pras’ Ghetto Supastar album and Queen’s Greatest Hits III. The single peaked at No. 69 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.
“Another One Bites the Dust” made an even more critical impact than the one it left on the charts. The song has been used in CPR training, due to its steady pace of 110 beats per minute. The recommended standard rate of compression is between 100 and 120 bpm.
Would “Another One Bites the Dust” have achieved the same level of ubiquity had it been a more laid-back track about cowboys? We’ll never know. But we do know that its unlikely synthesis of a Chic-inspired bass line and the harder rock edges of Queen created something that music fans couldn’t resist when they first heard it. And we still can’t resist it today.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
