You're My Best Friend

"You're My Best Friend" is a song penned by John Deacon and performed by British rock band Queen. It was originally included on the A Night at the Opera album in 1975, and later released as a single, with Brian May's '39 as its B-side. The song also appeared on the Greatest Hits (1981) album.

Deacon wrote the song for his wife, Veronica, to whom he remains married to this day. In this song, he plays a Wurlitzer electric piano in addition to bass guitar. The characteristic 'bark' of the Wurlitzer's bass notes plays a prominent role in the song. During live performances, the band used a grand piano rather than an electric, and it would be played by Freddie Mercury, while Deacon played the bass guitar.

For the music video, it shows the band in a huge ballroom surrounded by over one thousand candles, including a huge chandelier hung above them on the ceiling. The video was filmed in the summer of 1976. (May later mentioned that the video was shot in the middle of a very unpleasant heatwave and the ballroom in which they were filming did not have air conditioning.) Also, Deacon is seen playing a grand piano, even though he plays a regular electric on the recording.

The band answered Tom Browne on 24 December 1977 in a live BBC Radio One interview, regarding Deacon's control of the piano for the recording.

John Deacon: "Well, Freddie didn’t like the electric piano, so I took it home and I started to learn on the electric piano and basically that’s the song that came out you know when I was learning to play piano. It was written on that instrument and it sounds best on that. You know, often on the instrument that you wrote the song on."

Freddie Mercury: I refused to play the damn thing (the Wurlitzer). It’s tiny and horrible and I don’t like them. Why play those things when you’ve got a lovely superb grand piano? No, I think, basically what he is trying to say is it was the desired effect.