Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut album featured a hidden message inspired by frontman Alex Kapranos' love of late QUEEN singer Freddie Mercury.

The Scottish group recorded the words, 'Call your mother. She worries about you', which could only be heard if fans played the track MICHAEL backwards.

He says the idea came from his efforts to find hidden backwards messages in Queen songs.

He says, "I remember ruining my mother's copy of Queen's GREATEST HITS, trying to play it backwards.

"Me and my mate were sure Freddie Mercury said, 'I'd like to smoke marijuana.'"

The group tried to record that very phrase backwards while making their first album - with strange results.

Bass player BOB HARDY recalls, "When we played it forward, it did kind of sound like, 'Another one bites the dust.'"