Queen, Body Language | Controversial Songs

In the second edition of Controversial Songs (2025), we explore the controversy behind the “Body Language” by the iconic rock band, Queen. 

Bring on the controversy! Controversial Songs is a column that provides background information and insight into songs that raised eyebrows, stirred the pot, or were banned. The more censorship censor$hit, the better! The records that grace Controversial Songs are old and new alike, with all genres of music welcome.  In the second edition of Controversial Songs (2024), we explore the controversy behind the “Body Language” by Queen.

“Give me, body / Give me your body.” Queen delivered an ‘S’ meets ‘E,’ and then, they ‘X’ song with “Body Language”.  It’s attributed to the legendary prog rock band, but this song has Freddie Mercury written all over it.  Mercury did pen the fourth track from the band’s 1982 album, Hot Space.  Queen and Reinhold Mack produced it. Take one listen to “Body Language,” and it sounds starkly different from the band’s earlier output.  That is the general sentiment of Hot Space.  Honestly, the departure in sound is part of the controversy.

I find “Body Language” to be an intriguing four-and-a-half-minute song. The guitar by Brian May is spare as keys and synths rule the roost. The drums are electronic. The iconic bass line isn’t a bass guitar but rather a bass synth.  Stylistically, “Body Language” leans more post-disco, dance-rock, and synth-pop.  The lyrics are simple to the nth degree.  Phrases Mercury sings include “Don’t talk” (repeated thrice), “Sexy body / Sexy, sexy body / I want your body,” and “Baby, you’re hot.” The chorus keeps it uncomplicated too: “Body language / Body language / Body language.”  The simplistic lyrics sufficiently evoke sex, but there is one moment, the bridge, where Mercury is even more attuned to sex:

“You got red lips

Snakes in your eyes

Long legs

Great thighs

You’ve got the cutest ass I’ve ever seen

Knock me down for a six anytime.”

May and Roger Taylor have commented many times that this song was far different from others. Also, it felt too gay for them.  “He wanted our music to sound like you had just walked into a gay club. And I didn’t!” Taylor asserted in the documentary, Days of Our Lives, per Songfacts.  Even beyond Mercury bringing his bandmates into the LGBTQ+ world against their will, the ‘actual’ controversy behind “Body Language” was the music video.  MTV banned it because it was considered incredibly risqué at the time – too sexual.  Today, the video is quite tame – not nearly as spicy as the videos many artists release to shock.  “Body Language” was a change of pace and departure for Queen. Not the top of their catalog, it is infectious, nonetheless.  It also reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. Can you say, “Give me your body!”

Queen // Hot Space // Hollywood // 1982

Queen, Body Language: Controversial Songs No. 2 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Hollywood; Andrea Mosti from Pexels; AcatXlo, OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay; christian buehner on Unsplash]