Today’s song is “Fat Bottomed Girls, and what an iconic song from the all-time-revered Queen! Written by guitarist Brian May with Freddie Mercury in mind, this song is raunchy, punchy, and unfiltered. The impetus for the song was to illustrate how a young man comes to appreciate “women of substantial girth.” Queen originally published an album cover with a nude woman riding a bicycle; after many record stores refused to stock it, the band edited the photo for “appropriateness.”

One of the central features of good music composition across all genres is quoting oneself. Queen released “Fat Bottomed Girls” alongside “Bicycle Race,” and both songs refer to each other’s content to link them together in both meaning and music. Such a device substantiates the band’s consummate attention to detail and the impact of their music in nuanced and subtle ways.

In Popular Culture

As is also typical of great music, artists in other genres have used this song to illustrate and emphasize the content of their media. Some prominent examples include Morgan Spurlock’s notorious documentary about America’s sick addiction to fast-food restaurants, Super Size Me, and other TV shows such as Nip Tuck and My Name is Earl.

Fun Facts

• “Fat Bottomed Girls” was one of the only songs for which Queen used an alternative tuning system!
• Brian May used his creativity to write the song as a kind of pansexual one, knowing that Mercury was gay and on the surface had to sing typical heterosexual lyrics.
• The song reached double Platinum in the US.
• The song is a feminist tribute to women of all body types.

Lyrics: 

Are you gonna take me home tonight?

Oh, down beside that red firelight?

Are you gonna let it all hang out?

Fat bottomed girls

You make the rockin’ world go ’round

Hey, I was just a skinny lad

Never knew no good from bad

But I knew life before

I left my nursery, huh

Left alone with big fat Fanny

She was such a naughty nanny

Hey, big woman

You made a bad boy out of me

Hey, hey, woo!

I’ve been singing with my band

Cross the water, cross the land

I’ve seen every blue eyed

Floozy on the way, hey

But their beauty and their style

Went kinda smooth after a while

Take me to them dirty ladies every time

Come on

Oh, won’t you take me home tonight

Oh, down beside your red firelight?

Oh, and you give it all you got

Fat bottomed girls

You make the rockin’ world go ’round

Fat bottomed girls

You make the rockin’ world go ’round

Hey, listen here

Now, I got mortgages on homes

I got stiffness in my bones

Ain’t no beauty queens

In this locality, I tell you

Oh, but I still get my pleasure

Still got my greatest treasure

Hey, big woman, you gonna make

A big man of me, now get this