Songfacts®:

• Queen drummer Roger Taylor wrote this song, which is about a 17-year-old girl who can bring on cardiac arrest in many men. The opening line, "Well you're just 17," is a nod to the Beatles hit "I Saw Her Standing There," which opens, "Well she was just 17."
• With a snarling vocal and frantic tempo, this song is a tribute of sorts to punk rock, which was having its day in 1977. The Sex Pistols were recording their first album next door to Queen when they recorded this song.
• The song was intended for Queen's third album, released in 1974, called Sheer Heart Attack, but it didn't appear until three years later on their sixth album, News of the World. Roger Taylor told Mojo he considers this ahead of its time:
  
  "I started the song when we were doing the Sheer Heart Attack album, but didn't get round to finishing it. By the time I did, punk had come along. But the song came before punk."
• The Foo Fighters covered the song on December 13, 1997 during their gig at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London. Roger Taylor heard and loved their version. He told Mojo "Sheer Heart Attack" sounds like a Foo Fighters song.