The excerpt is taken from the song 'It's a Hard Life' off The Works (1984) album by Queen. Explain how Mercury portrayed his views regarding stereotypical Western virtues of love in terms of structure, harmony, tonality and rhythm.

This is a typical Queen-esque song, both harmonically and rhythmically. The form is a simple verse-chorus, and consists of three cycles, such as at Bar 7 and Bar 80. This song is bookended with Bb chords, with the outro repeating the intro hook six times, before alterations between Bb and Bb11. This simple structure may be used to represent Mercury's simple depiction of a heterosexual relationship, both with it being deemed normative and without problems. The use of repetition can be seen by the cliche chord look of I V6/3 used throughout, which is used in multiple Queen songs such as 'Somebody To Love' and 'Funny How Love Is'. This may be used to contribute to the notion of the protagonist being hurt within the relationship, and to the persona, Mercury's satirical attitude towards the stereotypical romaticisation of love. In the introduction, the chords at the beginning are suggesting G minor to be the opening key, but instead of resolving to the tonic (normative), it resolves to Bb Major. The use of free time and falsetto, with a narrow vocal range focusing on the chords Cm7 Eb6 and D7 reflects the portrayal of the protagonist as dramatic and distraught, representing his view on homosexuality and the lack of freedom to show love. The pre-chorus makes the obvious move from Eb major to opening the chorus on a Bb major chord, with a straightforward harmonic progression following, mainly stepping from Bb to Eb chords. Mercury's singing style when singing the words 'hard life' and the use of syncopated rhythms in 'to be true lovers together', and the triplet used with 'each other's hearts' represents quite a throwaway style, as if no emotions have been given to these words. This contributes to the notion of the persona mocking the protagonist, stating that life isn't really as hard as it seems to them. Within verse 2, at 1:32, the B11 chord may suggest the persona's flippant attitude towards this theory, making a mockery of society to further this notion. It must be noted that this song does not finish on a perfect cadence, but a Bb11. This contributes to the notion of the persona portraying that this song is not as much of a cliche that it is made out to be. Upon looking at the overall nature of this piece, through the use of structure, harmony, tonality and rhythm, it is clear that the underlying meaning of this piece is describing the persona's tongue-in-cheek attitude towards normative stereotypical Western values of love, critiquing the protagonists melodramatic approach towards love.