Good Company

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Credits

Brian May - lead and backing vocals, guitars, ukulele, guitar jazz band
John Deacon - bass guitar
Roger Taylor - drums
  • Length: 3:26

Discography

Albums:

A Night At The Opera, 1975

Singles:

  • None

Queen Talks

Interviewer: Were the horn lines in 'Good Company' done on guitar?

"Yeah, that's four different kind of guitars. I was very keen in those days on recreating that sort of atmosphere. I mainly got the sound with small amplifiers. I used John Deacon's little amplifier and a volume pedal. For the trombone and trumpet sounds. I would record every note individually: Do it and then drop in. Incredibly painstaking! It took ages and ages. I listened to a lot of traditional jazz music when I was young, so I tried to get the phrasing as it would be if it were played by that instrument."

Brian May - 1982, On The Record


"Yes, it's all guitar all those instruments. That was a little fetish of mine. I used to listen to Traditional Jazz quite a lot, in particular, the twenties revival stuff which wasn’t actually Traditional Jazz but more arranged stuff like The Temperance Seven who were recreating something which was popular in the twenties, sort of dance tunes really. I was very impressed by the way those arrangements were done, you know, the nice smooth sound and those lovely changes between chords. Because they were much more rich in chords than most modern songs are. So many chord changes in a short time, lots of intermingling parts. So I wanted to do one of those things and the song just happened to come out while I was plunking away a the ukulele and the song itself was no trouble to write at all. But actually doing the arrangements for the wind section, as it was supposed to be. There’s a guitar trumpet and a guitar clarinet and a guitar trombone and a sort of extra thing, I don’t really know what it was supposed to be (chuckles) on the top. I spent a lot of time doing those and to get the effect of the instruments I was doing one note at a time, with a pedal and building them up. So you can imagine how long it took. We experimented with the mikes and various little tiny amplifiers to get just the right sound. So I actually made a study of the kind of thing that those instruments could play so it would sound like those and get the authentic flavour. It was a bit of fun but, it was a serious serious bit of work in that a lot of time went into it."

 Brian May - 1983, BBC Radio One

Chords & Tabs

  • chords

Lyrics

Take good care of what you've got
My father said to me
As he puffed his pipe and baby B
He dandled on his knee
Don't fool with fools who'll turn away
Keep all good company
Oohoo oohoo
Take care of those you call your own and keep good company

Soon I grew and happy too
My very good friends and me
We'd play all day with Sally J
The girl from number four
And very soon I begged her
Won't you keep me company?
Oohoo oohoo, oohoo oohoo
Come marry me for evermore
We'll be good company

Now marriage is an institution sure
My wife and I our needs and nothing more
All my friends by a year by and by disappeared
But we're safe enough behind our door

I flourished in my humble trade my reputation grew
The work devoured my waking hours but when my time was through
Reward of all my efforts
My own Limited Company
I hardly noticed Sally as we parted company
All through the years in the end it appears
There was never really anyone but me
Now I'm old I puff my pipe but no-one's there to see
I ponder on the lesson of my life's insanity
Take care of those you call your own
And keep good company
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