“Sleeping on the Sidewalk”, a blues excursion, was written and sung by May. It is the only song in their discography to be recorded (except for the vocals) in one take. Lyrically, it deals with an aspiring trumpet player’s career, delivered in a “rags-to-riches” fashion. May sings with an American accent and measures the aforementioned trumpet player’s success by “bucks” (as opposed to pounds). On a close inspection, Deacon can be heard playing the wrong notes in some bass parts, and May can also be heard laughing at the end of the song. It is also one of the few Queen songs that does not feature Mercury, however, he did perform the lead vocals in live performances.

“Although I messed around with the take a lot and chopped it and rearranged it, it was basically the first take, which we used, It has that kind of sloppy feel that I think works with the song, which we never would have dreamed with the previous albums. We always used to work on the backing tracks until they were a million percent perfect, and if they weren’t, we would splice together two which were. We’d go to great lengths, but for this album, we wanted to get that spontaneity back in.”
Brian May – BBC Radio One in 1983.