"Flash" is a song by British

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

. Written by guitarist

Brian May Sir Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, animal welfare activist and astrophysics, astrophysicist. He achieved global fame as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of the rock band Queen ...

, "Flash" is the theme song of the 1980 film ''

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established ''Buck Rogers'' ...

''. There are two versions of the song. The album version ("Flash's Theme") is in fact the start to the film, with all the dialogue from the first scene. The single version contains dialogue cut from various parts of the film, most memorably,

Brian Blessed Brian Blessed ( ; born 9 October 1936) is an English actor. He is known for his distinctive bushy beard, booming voice, and exuberant personality and performances. He portrayed PC "Fancy" Smith in ''Z-Cars''; Augustus in the 1976 BBC television ...

's character exclaiming "Gordon's alive?!" This version was also included on the ''

Greatest Hits A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be creat ...

'' compilation from 1981. The song's lead vocals are shared by May and

Freddie Mercury Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter who achieved global fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen (band), Queen. Regarded as one of the gre ...

, with Roger Taylor adding high harmonies. May plays most of the instruments, except for the

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

and drums. He used an

Imperial Bösendorfer The Bösendorfer Model 290 Imperial, or Imperial Bösendorfer (also colloquially known as the 290) is the largest model and flagship piano manufactured by Bösendorfer, at around long, wide, and weighing . It has an eight-octave range from C0 t ...

piano (with 97 keys instead of 88, having an extra

octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

on the low range), an

Oberheim Oberheim is an American synthesizer manufacturer founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim. Beginning in 1975, Oberheim developed some of the first commercially available polyphonic synthesizers and was a prominent synthesizer and drum machine manufacture ...

OB-X synthesizer (as seen in the song's music video), and his homemade

Red Special The Red Special is the electric guitar designed and built by Queen's guitarist Brian May and his father, Harold, when Brian was a teenager in the early 1960s. The Red Special is sometimes referred to as the Fireplace or the Old Lady by May and ...

electric guitar. The song reached number 10 on the UK Singles Chart and number three in Germany. On the U.S. charts, "Flash's Theme aka Flash" reached number 42 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It peaked at number 39 on the ''Cash Box'' Top 100. ''

Record World ''Record World'' magazine was one of three major weekly music industry trade magazines in the United States, with ''Billboard'' and '' Cashbox''. It was founded in 1946 as ''Music Vendor''. In 1964, it was changed to ''Record World'' under the ...

'' described the single version as a "supersonic cut with a chorus hook guaranteed to rescue tired holiday ears."

Music video

The music video was filmed at

Advision Studios Advision Studios was a recording studio in Fitzrovia, central London, England. Origins Founded in the 1960s by Guy Whetstone and Stephen Appleby, Advision originally provided voiceovers and jingles for television advertisements. The studio wa ...

, London, in November 1980 and directed by

Don Norman Donald Arthur Norman (born December 25, 1935) is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially '' The Design o ...

and shows the band performing the song to a screen showing clips from the film. An alternative version broadcast during the

Concert for Kampuchea ''The Concert for Kampuchea (subtitled "Rock for Kampuchea")'' is a musical film from the best of the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. The film was directed by Keith McMillan and was 4 nights of concerts in Hammersmith Odeon to raise mone ...

in 1981 with different clips included on the ''Flash Gordon'' 2011

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

edition.

Personnel

– lead and backing vocals *

– lead and backing vocals, guitars, piano, synthesizer * Roger Taylor – drums, backing vocals,

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

John Deacon John Richard Deacon (born 19 August 1951) is an English retired musician who was the bass guitarist for the rock band Queen. He wrote several songs for the group, including Top 10 hits " You're My Best Friend", "Another One Bites the Dust" a ...

– bass guitar

Charts

Sales and certifications

Vanguard remix

German producers Vanguard released a cover of "Flash", credited to "Queen + Vanguard", on 10 February 2003. The single peaked at number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, number two on the

UK Dance Chart The Dance Singles Chart and the Dance Albums Chart are music charts compiled in the United Kingdom by the Official Charts Company from sales of songs in the electronic dance music, dance music genre (e.g. house music, house, trance music, trance, ...

, and number 17 in Germany.

Charts

Live recording

*''

Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl ''Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl'' is a DVD/live album by the British rock band Queen released on 25 October 2004 in Europe and on 9 November 2004 in the US. It was recorded live at the Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire, England, on 5 Ju ...

'' *''

Queen Rock Montreal ''Queen Rock Montreal'' is a live album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 29 October 2007 as a double CD, Blu-ray, DVD, and triple vinyl in the UK and the following day in the US. It was recorded in Montreal, Quebec, at the ...

In other media

The song is played during an

ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. A ...

routine in the 2007 film ''

Blades of Glory ''Blades of Glory'' is a 2007 American sports comedy film directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon, written by Jeff Cox, Craig Cox, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. It stars Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as a mismatched pair of banned figure s ...

''. The song is played in ''

The Flash The Flash is the name of several superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, the original Flash first appeared in ''Flash Comics'' #1 (cover date, cover-dated Jan ...

'' episode " Into the Void" where Cisco Ramon plays it when Barry Allen / The Flash enters a black hole to save Chester P. Runk, mentioning that he has been saving the song "for the right moment". In 2016, a re-recording of the song was used to advertise

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

Multi Surface Concentrated Cleaner in the UK. It has since been used to promote other Flash products. In 2022, the song appeared in a

Toyota Corolla Cross The is a Compact crossover SUV produced by the Japanese automaker Toyota since 2020. Adopting the Corolla nameplate, it is positioned as a more practical and larger alternative to the C-HR and is built on the same TNGA-C (GA-C) platform as ...

commercial in Australia but it used "Cross" instead of "Flash".

References

External links

*
Lyrics at Queen official website
(original version, reprise, single version) {{DEFAULTSORT:Flash (Song) Film theme songs Queen (band) songs 1980 singles 1981 singles Works based on Flash Gordon Male vocal duets Songs about comics Songs about fictional male characters Songs about outer space Songs written by Brian May Song recordings produced by Reinhold Mack EMI Records singles Elektra Records singles Hollywood Records singles Virgin Records singles 1980 songs Music based on science fiction works UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles