From Queenpedia.com

Those who believed Queen would never survive the onslaught of punk were left with egg on their face in October of 1979, when the band released their biggest hit since We Are The Champions. Written in a bubble bath whilst on tour in Germany, Freddie's rockabilly pastiche Crazy Little Thing Called Love became the first single from the band's ninth album, The Game, and was soon at number 2 in the UK singles charts. In America, the song became their biggest hit yet, reaching number 1 by January 1980 with sales well into the millions.

The video was directed by Dennis De Vallance, who in spite of earlier somewhat misjudged attempts at making Queen's music videos, honed a concept with Freddie that resulted in an all time classic. A break from the traditional performance based piece, the video saw the first appearance of dancers in a Queen promo. As Brian stated in retrospect: "A bit of a departure for Queen, to have girls dancing - and boys dancing, which I don't think we were that comfortable with really."

Like the song itself, the video is an intentional pastiche of the beginnings of rock 'n' roll, with Freddie as the greased biker who gets the girl. He cavorts about the stage with scantily clad male and female dancers, while the band play on at the back of the set. A last minute addition to the piece came in the form of eight pairs of clapping hands sticking up through holes in the catwalk during the relevant section of the song. There were no extras available, so members of Queen's personal staff filled in, taking a bottle of whiskey under the stage with them to while away the tedium of multiple takes, with obvious results. It is perhaps a miracle that De Vallance managed to capture the claps in perfect time.

What is perhaps most clear about the video is that Freddie was truly enjoying himself. As he once claimed, "In terms of videos, I like to have fun in them. I think if you do that then it comes across. I can't just sit in a chair and knit a blouse!"

Brian's followers should also take note - on this song, Brian played a Telecaster that belonged to Roger, but in the video it was a brand new Telecaster which he went on to use whenever he played the song on stage.

This iconic video has been released on several occasions, most notably on the Greatest Flix VHS in 1981, as a video single with Bohemian Rhapsody in the late eighties, and on the 'Greatest Video Hits 1' DVD in 2002.

Credits

Version	Name	Artist	Recorded	Format	Length	Director	Filming Location
Standard Version	Crazy Little Thing Called Love	Queen	22nd September 1979	Video	2.48	Dennis De Vallance	Unknown

Availability

• Standard Version - Greatest Flix VHS, Queen Collection - 15 Of The Best VHS, Gold Rushes VHS, Box Of Flix VHS, Classic Queen VHS, Greatest Hits VHS, Greatest Video Hits 1 DVD