King Charles Knights Queen Guitarist Brian May

Brian May has received the honour of his lifetime: he’s been knighted by King Charles. 

The Queen guitarist was featured on The New Year's Honour List alongside 1,106 other people, including Line Of Duty actor Stephen Graham, with “a total of 305 British Empire Medals, 431 MBEs and 219 OBEs being awarded,” per Merco Press.

May, an exceptional musician, as well as an astrophysicist and actual genius, revealed his knighthood on Instagram with a picture and the caption, “No words”.

Sir Brian May received a knighthood for his services to music and charity. 

In 2010, he founded the organisation Save Me - after the 1980 Queen song of the same name - which campaigns against badger and fox hunting in the UK. Through his efforts, some of the rescued animals have been rehomed to May’s land in Windlesham, Surrey. Learn more about the Save Me trust here.

Arise Sir Brian May ⚔️🎸
Brian's investiture as a Knight of The Realm took place today at Buckingham Palace. The knighthood was presented to Brian by His Royal Highness, King Charles.

Many congratulations, Sir Brian!

📸©️ Alamy pic.twitter.com/nE3ZmfvPSZ

— Queen (@QueenWillRock) March 14, 2023

A few months ago, Queen released a previously lost song with Freddie Mercury's vocals. Face It Alone is the first new song featuring his voice in eight years.

Face It Alone was one of over 30 tracks the band recorded in 1988 - many other songs were never released - during the sessions for their 1989 album, The Miracle. The song comes as Queen revisit the album, which will be available as a "lavish 8-disc Queen The Miracle Collector's Edition box set format" on 18 November.  

The epic song was revisited when Queen's production and archiving team returned to the Miracle sessions for the box set reissue, according to the band's interview with BBC Radio 2, where Face It Alone premiered. 

"It was kind of hiding in plain sight," Brian May shared with Radio 2's Zoe Ball. "We looked at it many times and thought, oh no, we can't really rescue that. But in fact, we went in there again, and our wonderful engineering team went, okay, we can do this and this. It's like kind of stitching bits together. But it's beautiful. It's touching."