Queen’s Roger Taylor in cinematic short for Journey’s End

A still from the Journey's End video
A still from the Journey's End video

Queen drummer Roger Taylor has released a cinematic short video based on his new track Journey’s End.

It’s his first solo work since 2013 album Fun On Earth, with Taylor singing and providing all instrumentation on the song.

Taylor says of Journey’s End: “It’s a ‘piece’ which is why there is a long solo in it. I’ve just let it take its own course. I just didn’t want to make it quick, edit it – I wanted it to be fairly contemplative, fairly dreamlike, a mood piece.”

He says he wrote the track around a “rather lovely chord sequence, slightly in the mode of some of the turn of the century composers. It has a quite whimsical, rather fatalistic atmosphere.

“It’s basically about thoughts of mortality. It is a sort of acceptance of the fact that this a journey, and that journey will come to an end.

“Even the bass sequence, which is almost random, is a plodding footstep kind of thing. A journey towards the tail end, the September of one’s years.”

The video was directed by BAFTA-winnning actor and filmmaker Stuart Brennan and was filmed close to Taylor’s home in Cornwall.

Taylor reports that the death of David Bowie cast a shadow over Journey’s End and adds: “Everybody’s leaving at some point, and as you get older you think about it more.

“I don’t think anyone in their 20s thinks about that kind of thing, but of course, inevitably, one is forced to confront the fact.

“As I think David Bowie said, ‘I embrace age.’ I am not sure he meant it, but then he did say, ‘The only drawback is the dying bit that is shit!’”

Journey’s End is available to download exclusively via iTunes.

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Scott Munro
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Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.