Brian May: "A good thing just happened to me. Something which will enable me to give something back. (Good for my Karma!! !!!) Ever since we used to play "See What A Fool I've Been" in the early days of Queen, I knew that I had borrowed the idea for the song from a performance I had seen on TV - of a visiting Blues company, which I remembered included Big Bill Broonzy, and Muddy Waters, Matt Murphy, and others. I only heard the song once, and there were no recorders to hand in those days (at least not where I lived !) What I remembered was just a chord sequence and a couple of lines - I worked it up into a song, actually for "Smile" before Queen, and it was a way for me to pursue an idea of using huge dynamics in a bluesy song to make it cut across heavy... if you know what I mean ...it was one of the ingredients of the Dreams of Queen in the early days .... When it came around to doing the label for the song (we used a very rough take of it for an early B-side) I could only put for the composer credit: "Traditional - arr. May" because I didn't know who had done the song which had inspired me. I always said I would eventually find out who the missing author was and credit him.

Well, it was much harder than I had thought. I looked in all the places I could think of, and many people have tried to find the song since then, but without success. I was beginning to think I dreamed the whole thing. We're talking about 30 years ago or more. But this week I received a letter from Patrick Lemieux in Toronto, who had been corresponding with Greg Brooks, our archivist, with the news that he had found a track which matched up. It was a long search - the song had not appeared on any regular compilation, and Patrick had only found a clue when searching through lyrics on the Internet. The song was recorded only on one limited edition collection of the songs of Big Bill Broonzy and - SONNY TERRY and BROWNIE McGHEE. Under the title of "That's How I Feel" there it was. I finally received the copy Mr. Lumieux found for me this week .. and it IS the boy!!!! Big thanks to him! It's a thrill. The song is actually very moving, has a train of thought very impassioned and real, and sounds as fresh as the day it was put down. I got the timing a bit wrong really in my own rendition, but the format is pretty close. Now I can take steps to get in touch and give them the credit and the writing royalties too. I hope they are still around to enjoy them! I will keep yo'all posted!"

Credit: BrianMay.com