Today is St George’s day and while there are no doubt many English songs I could play, my news feed this morning is full of all things Catalan, as St George is also the patron saint of Catalonia where he’s known as Sant Jordi. So today’s song is Barcelona, the wonderful collaboration between Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé from 1987. Freddie Mercury had been a fan of opera for many years and was very keen to collaborate with Caballé. He wrote Barcelona with Mike Moran for it to be performed at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Since Caballé’s schedule made it difficult for her to be involved in the initial recordings, Mercury sang his own part and then overdubbed the soprano parts in falsetto in the original demo recordings. I hope you enjoy my performance of this classic song.

First time on the site? Find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my April songs here.