Queen launch unheard song featuring Freddie Mercury, Face It Alone

Queen group portrait — (Image credit: Simon Fowler. © Queen Productions Ltd)

Queen have released a lyric video for Face It Alone, a track recorded during sessions for the band's 1989 album The Miracle. It's the first previously unheard song featuring Freddie Mercury's voice to emerge since the release of the Queen Forever compilation album in 2014.

Face It Alone comes from the upcoming eight-disc box set edition of The Miracle, which is scheduled to arrive on November 18, a date that will also see the release of a 7" single of Face It Alone.

The existence of Face It Alone was originally revealed by Taylor and Brian May during an interview with The BBC earlier this year.

"We’d kind of forgotten about this track,” said Roger Taylor. “But there it was, this little gem. It’s wonderful, a real discovery. It’s a very passionate piece."

"It was kind of hiding in plain sight," added May. "We looked at it many times and thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t really rescue that’. But in fact, we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team went, ‘OK, we can do this and this’. It’s like stitching bits together. But it’s beautiful. It’s touching.”

Sessions for The Miracle resulted in more than 30 songs, 10 of which made the final cut. Others later appeared as b-sides or as solo tracks, while some finally saw the light of day on the Innuendo and Made in Heaven albums.

“We had all these bits and pieces of tracks, and some of them were half-finished, some of them were just an idea, and some of them were nearly finished, and it sort of happened on its own really," says May. "There are some tracks which you always want to get out and work on, and so they get finished, and there are some tracks which you think, ‘Oh that’s great, but I don’t really know what to do with it at this moment’, so they naturally get left by the wayside."

Those tracks will make their public debut on the box set, with When Love Breaks Up, You Know You Belong To Me, I Guess We’re Falling Out, Dog With a Bone and Water joining Face It Alone on the collection's Miracle Sessions disc. Full details below.

The Miracle Collector's Edition box set is available to pre-order now.

Queen: The Miracle Collector’s Edition contents

Vinyl LP: The Miracle
Original LP cut with revised track listing and gatefold sleeve.

CD1: The Miracle
The album as originally released on CD, remastered by Bob Ludwig in 2011 from the original first-generation master mixes.

CD2: The Miracle Sessions
Featuring original takes, demos and early versions, and six previously unheard tracks, two of which feature vocals by Brian May, plus spoken exchanges between the four band members at work in the studio.

CD3: Alternative Miracle
The proposed follow-up to the album, Alternative Miracle, a compilation of extra tracks from The Miracle plus b-sides, extended versions and single versions. Originally cancelled due to a heavy release schedule.

CD4: Miracu-Mentals
Instrumentals and backing tracks..

CD5: The Miracle Radio Interviews
The band discuss the creative process behind the album.

Blu-ray/ DVD: The Miracle Videos

Includes the promotional music videos fort the five singles released from the album, plus bonus content.

The Miracle Interviews/The Making of the Miracle Videos/The Making of the Miracle Album Cover
Interviews with Roger, Brian and John (his final interview), plus behind the scenes footage from the I Want It All, Scandal, The Miracle and Breakthru videos, and an interview Queen’s graphic designer Richard Gray about the album cover.

The box set also includes a 76-page hardback book featuring previously unseen photographs, handwritten fan-club letters from the band, press reviews, and liner notes featuring recollections from Freddie, John, Roger and Brian.

Queen - The Miracle box set packshot — (Image credit: EMI)

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.