The Works (Queen album) 19 November 1984, and promotional copies were indeed pressed ("QUEEN 5") and sent out (b/w "Keep Passing the Open Windows"), but the band opted for a Christmas single ("Thank God It's Christmas"). The fifth track on "The Works", "Machines (Or 'Back to Humans')", came about as an idea by Taylor, and May collaborated with him and finished it. Producer Reinhold Mack programmed the synth-"demolition" using a Fairlight CMI II Sampler, and the song is sung as a duet between a double-tracked Mercury (singing in harmony with himself), and a robotic Taylor (using a Roland VP330 Vocoder). The instrumental remix of
Christmas controversies demanding alcohol and food into one centered on the happiness of children. He notes that there was a deliberate effort to prevent children from becoming greedy in response. Christmas was not proclaimed a holiday by the United States Congress until 1870. In the early 20th century, Christian writers such as C. S. Lewis noted what he saw as a distinct split between the religious and commercialized observance of Christmas, the latter of which he deplored. In "Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus", Lewis gives a satire of the observance of two simultaneous holidays in "Niatirb" ("Britain" spelled backwards)