I love Queen, they have released so many classic songs and so many that really move me. Not just classics like Who Wants to Live Forever, but little known ones, like Love of My Life. I don't know why I had that running through my head a few weeks ago, but it's really sad and sweet and can make me cry just as much as who wants to live forever.
And Freddie wasn't just magic with Queen, some of his solos and duets are fabulous too. Barcelona must be one of the greatest songs ever written.
It was so strange to see him interviewed, because Freddie was always so shy and usually looked terribly uncomfortable. Put him on a stage though, and he turned into a different person, a pure entertainer, strutting himself.
At the Olympics closing ceremony, they played a little bit of the wembly 86 concert where he's getting the audience to riff and sing runs with him. 20 years after his death, he had the whole Olympic stadium singing alone again. How many people leave that kind of legacy?
Another thing i love about Freddie and Queen is that they didn't just sing about love, but had songs like Friends will be friends, your my best friend, fat bottomed girls, we are the champions, mr bad guy, the show must go on, there must be more to life that this, who wants to live forever, we will rock you, dont stop me now, i want to break free, going slightly mad, the days of our lives, in my defence, it's a hard life... The list is much longer but these are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. They truly have a song for every occasion and mood. Even if you just killed someone, there's always Bohemian Rhapsody! ;)
I remember some time in abouit 1990, my sister and I watched the Wembly '86 concert on VHS and made a pact to go and see Queen the next time they toured. About 2 days later it was announced that he was dying of HIV.
I will never forget going into school one day, shocked by having heard of his death on the Radio that morning, only to have my Religious Education teacher, Mrs Grey, tell us how he deserved to die for his promiscuous lifestyle and that AIDS was God's punishment. I was about 14.
I don't expect she had ever watched anyone waste away from AIDS, and I don't expect her gay uncle died of the disease soon before Freddie, as mine had, but I was simply so stunned by her cruelty that I couldn't say anything.
Her rant was nothing like the teachings of Christ that we had been learning about. How could a Christian wish that as punishment for anyone? And is god really so callous that he doesn't mind getting a few haemophiliacs and straight people in the process of eradicating "the gays"? Why to her, was gay sex so awful, so sinful, that it is deserving not only of death, but a slow, torturous death?
The lack of Christianity among some Christians still astonishes me today. but this was my first brush with that kind of self righteous, judgemental Christian.
My dead, gay uncle was an aid worker who spent most of his adult life working out in the Sudan, helping to install irrigation systems to stave off the ever present threat of drought. Other than sit in judgement, I wonder what Mrs Grey actually did to better other peoples lives?
Wow, that went way off topic but the point of this blog is that Freddie rules, and music lost a huge talent the day he died. Still today, Queen are my number one band, 2nd place goes to Muse, 3rd to My Chemical Romance. I don't expect anyone will ever knock Freddie off the top though.
No comments:
Post a Comment