Pain Is So Close to Pleasure

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"Pain Is So Close to Pleasure"
US single picture sleeve
Single by Queen
from the album A Kind of Magic
B-side"Don't Lose Your Head"
Released20 August 1986 (US)[1]
Recorded1985 – 1986
Genre
Length
  • 4:23 (album version)
  • 3:57 (single version)
  • 5:56 (12" extended version)
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
Queen singles chronology
"Friends Will Be Friends"
(1986)
"Pain Is So Close to Pleasure"
(1986)
"Who Wants to Live Forever"
(1986)

"Pain Is So Close to Pleasure" is a song by Queen, included on their 1986 album A Kind of Magic, written by Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, released in the USA and Canada, Germany and the Netherlands as the fourth and fifth single from that album respectively.

The single reached #56 at the German charts and #43 on the Dutch charts. "Pain Is So Close to Pleasure" has more than 58,000 hits on Lastfm.[2]

Background[edit]

The song began as a riff idea by Brian May, then Freddie Mercury and John Deacon turned it into a song, with Deacon playing rhythm guitar. The title also appears as a line in "One Year of Love".

The version which appears on the single is a remix, rearranging much of the backing track from the original elements. The 12" single features an extended version of this remix, rather than an extended version of the track as it appears on the album.

Chart performance[edit]

Country (1987) Peak
position
Germany 57
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[3] 26
Netherlands 43

Personnel[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Queen singles". Queen Vault.
  2. ^ "A Kind of Magic — Queen". 5 January 2023.
  3. ^ "Nederlandse Top 40 – Queen" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40. Retrieved 21 August 2020.

External links[edit]