Songfacts®:

• Written and sung by Queen drummer Roger Taylor, "Tenement Funster" is an anthem about a long-haired youth who wants nothing more than to crank the stereo and stick two fingers up at convention.
• Taylor struts through verses boasting about his "funky purple shoes" and late-night vinyl sessions. He's not just playing a part; this was personal.
  
  "I was living the dream, well, trying to," he told Mojo magazine with a laugh. "I'd played the game and gone to university and everything, but that was just a cunning plan to get to London and join a band. Somewhere along the way I unashamedly took up that rockstar/playboy mantle. Some might say it was cliched. Fine! I was very happy with it all."
• Musically, "Tenement Funster" is more complex than its three-minute runtime lets on. There's a whole forest of guitars in there; five rhythm parts in total - two acoustic, three electric - with Roger Taylor's vocals stacked and swaggering on top. Freddie Mercury adds piano but graciously steps back from the mic, leaving Taylor to play the charming rebel without interruption.
• What's especially Queen-like here is the song's refusal to settle down. Each of its three verses has a different melody, even though the chords underneath hardly change. The phrasing is oddly shaped too, stretching and shortening like someone learning to drive stick. It's a structural cousin of Taylor's earlier "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll," and features his trademark acoustic arpeggios, a style he'd return to in "Rock It."
• The final chord doesn't quite end; it spills straight into "Flick of the Wrist," then "Lily Of The Valley." Though the medley connects musically, each of its songs tells a distinct tale. "Tenement Funster" stands as the rebel yell of the trio, with the purple shoe-clad Roger Taylor blasting the stereo and daring the neighbors to complain.