A film line, then a bass figure while Taylor was in Los Angeles
Roger Taylor wrote A Kind of Magic from a line in Highlander, and Freddie Mercury rebuilt it while Taylor was in Los Angeles. In the film, Christopher Lambert’s Connor MacLeod says “It’s a kind of magic.” Taylor built a song on that sentence. Other lines from the picture stayed in the lyric: one prize, one goal, and the rule that there can be only one. The version that plays over the end credits is his, darker, closer to the movie. The single is not that version.
Mercury picked the track up during the week Taylor was away. He turned the arrangement around and put a bouncing bass figure under it, so the song moved like a dance record instead of a film cue. Queen and David Richards produced the album across sessions from September 1985 to April 1986, at Musicland in Munich, Mountain in Montreux and Townhouse in London. The rewrite belongs to that stretch of work, the week Taylor was in Los Angeles. Taylor came back, heard it, and said he liked it.
EMI released the single in Britain on 17 March 1986. It peaked at number 3. The British B-side was A Dozen Red Roses for My Darling. Capitol put it out in the United States on 4 June, and it reached number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album A Kind of Magic followed on 2 June and entered the British album chart at number 1. Russell Mulcahy, who had directed Highlander, directed the video. The Magic tour that summer was the last with all four of them.
I realised he was going away to L.A. for a week, so I got hold of it and I changed it round completely. When he came back I said, “What do you think?” And he said, “Oh, I like it.”
(Freddie Mercury, quoted in Classic Rock)
There are two recordings with the same title. Taylor’s end-credit version stays darker, closer to the film. Mercury’s single is the dance arrangement, with the bouncing bass under it. John Deacon is the bassist on the album. That bass figure is what the rewrite hangs on. Mercury’s point, in the quote he gave about that week, was the change itself: he took Taylor’s song while Taylor was in Los Angeles and came back with a different record.
By the time the Magic tour reached Wembley in July 1986, the single had already been a British top-three hit for months. Both versions of A Kind of Magic are real: Taylor’s end-credit cue, and Mercury’s single, rewritten while Taylor was in Los Angeles for seven days. The darker version stayed with the movie. The single released in March is the one with the bass figure.
Yuki | 10 October 2026
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the production notes here made me replay A Kind of Magic twice. Nice catch.
Emma | 11 October 2026
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Cool. Now I want the deep cuts around A Kind of Magic too. I am biased and fine with it.
Jacques | 11 October 2026
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Read this, then put A Kind of Magic on loud. That was the move.
Théo | 12 October 2026
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Not overrated. If anything people forgot how tight A Kind of Magic is.
Kofi | 13 October 2026
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Radio killed A Kind of Magic for me for years. Came back last month. Instant regret for waiting.
Aria | 14 October 2026
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Not my usual lane but A Kind of Magic got me. Fair enough. More of this please.
Tom Riff | 14 October 2026
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Ok but who else puts A Kind of Magic on at 1am and feels seen? Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable.
Marie-Claire | 16 October 2026
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My dad played Queen in the car. A Kind of Magic is basically my childhood commute.