ECHOES OF THE PAST: THE FOLK TRADITION OF COVER SONGS AND THE MOON & THE MIND’S RENDITION OF “KILLER QUEEN”
Part Six: Shipwrecked Glam & A Delayed Father’s Day Tribute
Part Six of Echoes of the Past arrives fashionably late, derailed not by apathy but by the cruel cocktail of summer depression and a production pipeline that eats time for breakfast. If there’s a running theme across this project, it’s that nostalgia refuses to obey deadlines. Some songs just take longer to tell.
In this case, it’s “Killer Queen.” Not just a cover, but a pivot. A moment in the Blankets recording sessions where something clicked. And for producer Josh Ramon, it also became an unexpectedly personal exchange with the man who shaped his musical instincts early on: his dad.
“Queen always makes me think of him,” Ramon says. “The first reason is Wayne’s World. Watching that movie together—the Bohemian Rhapsody scene—I saw how much he loved it. The characters, the music, the absurdity. I saw that and thought, yeah, that’s the kind of person I want to be.”
The second reason came later. Early in the production process, Ramon sent out a few rough mixes to his inner circle—fellow musicians, close friends, and his dad. Most of the instrumentals were scratch tracks. Vocals were in place, but the rest was still scaffolding. "About 80% of it was placeholders," he admits.
“My dad’s usually supportive. Maybe even a little overly enthusiastic sometimes. But when he heard that early version of ‘Killer Queen,’ he just said, ‘Who would even think to try to cover Queen… that’s bold.’ Which is a nice way of saying, maybe don’t.”
The refrain stuck. Every mention of the track seemed to bring the same wary look. Until the final version landed in his inbox. Then came the callback: “Holy shit… you did it.”
Queen’s original “Killer Queen” was released in 1974 on Sheer Heart Attack—the band’s breakout single outside the UK. Freddie Mercury wrote it as a glam-laced portrait of a high-class sex worker, complete with champagne, caviar, and a concealed weapon. The lyrics are as stylishly cryptic as the delivery is precise. Mercury later said, “Classy people can be whores as well.”
“It’s one of those songs that’s basically perfect,” Ramon says. “Which makes covering it kind of stupid. So naturally, we wanted to try.”
The initial plan? Strip it down. “My first instinct was acoustic. Maybe even no drums. The original has these super quick snare rolls, and MIDI just doesn’t handle that well. You get the machine gun effect.”
That plan changed when Noah Ritchie turned in his guitar tracks. “Production turned a corner when I had to elevate every other aspect of this track to match the quality of Noah’s guitar,” Ramon explains. “I knew I needed to rework the percussion. The hand drum part that shows up in the chorus and outro—honestly, that came from an experiment. I took a MIDI pattern from the lead guitar line and dropped it into a hand drum patch just to see what happened if those melodic hits became rhythmic. I played it back and thought, wait a second… is that awesome?”
From there, the production found its footing. The leads brought swagger. The drums developed a subtle garage-punk snap. And for the first time, Ramon says, the track felt less like a Queen song with their name on it, and more like something new.
Still, progress came with a side of dread. “I go through this with every long project. You start out confident, then as the timeline stretches, you start second-guessing everything. Like, maybe I’m just taking a really long time to fail. But everyone on this track brought their A-game—Ayla, Noah—it raised the bar. It raised me.”
When the time came to compile the accompanying playlist—a now-customary tradition for Echoes from the Past—Ramon expected an easy ride. He was wrong.
“I thought there’d be dozens of covers. But I searched Apple Music and found, like, three. It was the first time I really wondered if my dad had a point.” After digging, he found ten solid versions. A few highlights:
Tourette’s Lautrec – San Diego synth-punk chaos at its most functional. Rough, punchy, and totally unwilling to play it safe. Probably Ramon’s favorite of the bunch.
Susanna Hoffs & Matthew Sweet – A hazy, layered duet that mirrors what Ayla had envisioned doing with a guest vocalist. Soulful, melodic, and just the right amount of playful.
Liel Bar-Z – A dreamy, modern pop take that seems engineered for TikTok virality. High reverb, soft edges, and hypnotic delivery.
Travis – The closest to the original. But the attention to tone—especially those buttery lead guitars—deserves praise. Warm, analog, no notes.
The Moon & The Mind’s “Killer Queen” may not convert every skeptic, but it did what it needed to. “It was the first time I thought, this might actually become an album,” Ramon says. “Not just a playlist stitched together with intention, but an actual record. And having my dad go from ‘don’t do it’ to ‘holy shit, you pulled it off’? That’s a hell of a thing.”
REFERENCES
Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Killer Queen. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 23, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Queen
Songfacts. (n.d.). Freddie Mercury on "Killer Queen". Retrieved June 23, 2025, from https://www.songfacts.com/facts/queen/killer-queen