"The Show Must Go On" is a song by British rock band Queen, featured as the twelfth and final track on their 1991 album, Innuendo and is the final single to be released before the death of frontman Freddie Mercury. It is credited to Queen, but was primarily written by guitarist Brian May. The song chronicles Mercury's efforts continuing to perform despite approaching the end of his life, although his diagnosis with HIV/AIDS had not yet been made public in spite of ongoing media speculation that he was seriously ill. When the band recorded the song in 1990, Mercury's condition had deteriorated to the point that May had concerns as to whether he was physically capable of singing it. May recalls; "I said, 'Fred, I don't know if this is going to be possible to sing.' And he went, 'I'll fucking do it, darling' — vodka down — and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal".