Need Your Loving Tonight

"Need Your Loving Tonight" is a song by the rock band Queen and written by bass guitarist John Deacon. It is the fourth track on the first side of their 1980 album The Game and the second song on the album by Deacon (the other being "Another One Bites the Dust"). It was released as a single in some countries in November 1980. Lyrics and music The lyrics to "Need Your Loving Tonight" take the point of view of someone who is upset about losing his lover. Queen historian Georg Purvis explains that the lyrics give a "false optimistic slant to the end of a relationship" by having the singer insist that the split was mutual. Musician Benoît Clerc claims that the lyrics overuse the phrases "I love her" and "I love you." According to Clerc, the music is "driven by a simple and repetitive rhythm" that Deacon plays on acoustic guitar, which he plays on this song in addition to his normal bass guitar. Freddie Mercury sings the lead vocal in what music professor Nick Braae describes as his "sincere voice," where he primarily uses his chest voice but avoids a gravelly tone and sings at a generally lower volume. The structure of the song is unusual. While the song generally follows a verse-refrain structure, the first verse contains a contrasting bridge-like section in the middle. Songs typically do not have a bridge that early, but several of Deacon's songs incorporate multiple bridges, "Spread Your Wings" being another example. Producer Reinhold Mack obtained a snare drum sound on the song that Clerc describes as both "muffled and punchy." Mack described how he obtained this sound, stating "You don't mic the snare drum from an angle down toward it and one at the bottom. I just use one on the side." According to Ultimate Classic Rock critic Eduardo Rivadavia, Deacon plays acoustic rhythm guitar to soften the sharp angles [of the song] into a buttery-smooth arrangement, simultaneously suggesting his Beatles influences and the period's power-pop inspiration. "Need Your Loving Tonight" was one of the first Queen songs on which a reverb effect was applied to lead singer Freddie Mercury's vocal.