Farroukh Bolsara - Now I Understand

i have been obsessing with Freddie Mercury in the past few days owing to the horror of watching x-factor wannabes trying to sing the songs of the man.

the whole show was a sheer, utter, absolute NIGHTMARE. NO ONE, i repeat NO ONE should ever be allowed to sing the songs of that man much less a group of wannabes. it was UTTER SACRILEGE. the only time it was acceptable for someone else to sing freddie's songs was during the tribute concert to him - where rock and roll royalty came onstage and sang his songs. i repeat ROCK AND ROLL ROYALTY ONLY. not some desperate hopefuls who couldn't even hit 3 successive correct notes on pitch (ahem: Lloyd) or some pretentious screaming twat always trying to display his wisdom teeth as he screams out every note (ahem: Danyl). i was shuddering at the horror of him trying to sing 'we are the champions'....NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

X-factor wannabes singing Queen, can you spell T-R-A-V-E-S-T-Y...?

Freddie Mercury....Freddie Mercury.

i first saw him when i was watching footage of the liveaid concert in 1985. i was twelve or thirteen and i was a child who knew nothing. my hazy recollection of liveaid was that people were dying of famine in africa and all these rockstars were gathering together to sing and raise money for the dying ethiopians. the question in my head then was 'hey, did these rockstars hear about filipinos who were also dying from hunger?' but that was quickly eclipsed by my teenage crush on tony hadley who was in the liveaid single. and my crying over the footage shown of the african babies who were literally living skeletons and for once i thought 'filipinos are still lucky'.

liveaid 1985 - the footage i saw in bits and pieces because of the frequent blackouts. the philippines was on the verge of a revolution because in our midst, a tyrant was dying, his wife was hysterically trying to prop up the government while trying to choose which pair of shoes to wear that day, hyenas of all sorts and forms closing in, waiting to snatch the spoils that would be free for all once the tyrant breathed the third of the last of his sighs.

liveaid 1985 - i didn't even knew who bob geldof was! i was this stupid girl who was obsessed with reading books about hitler and the third reich at that time. my family was uber conservative who listened only to the likes of frank sinatra, matt monroe and the platters. the most liberal of them listened to good heavens: motown and the the beatles. i listened to spandau ballet (and never told anyone i liked them because of the connection to the third reich as the nazi officials were imprisoned in spandau prison - fucking GEEK GIRL). and duran duran. and wham. and boy george. and they were all at the liveaid concert except boy george i think?.

i did think though that 'we are the world' was lame compared to 'do they know it's christmas?'. the former was very american glossed over messianic saviour of the democratic world as the united states likes to present themselves. the latter was stark and raw 'where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears...well tonight thank god it's them instead of you...' either way, take your pick as both raised tons of money for good.

back to Freddie. i switched the channel on to mtv (i think?) and there it was. he came onto the stage wearing only a white tank top. and i was like 'what a strange man'. i wanted to see tony hadley and spandau in their suits for pete's sake!!!. no introductions, nothing, no opening remarks. just some waving to the crowd and then he starts playing the piano - the opening lines to 'bohemian rhapsody'. a song i hadn't even heard of but i was glued. the crowd just started to sing along with him. and then they moved onto 'Radio Ga-Ga' - now that was a song i knew. and i was 'wow so that's him mr. radio ga-ga'. and i sat there staring at the telly at this man in the white tank top wondering who he was, singing every note at perfect pitch and marvelling at the whole crowd who was transformed into this singular mass of worshipping, adoring, swaying, singing, clapping horde. tony hadley was suddenly eclipsed from my mind - i thought at that time: THIS IS A ROCK GOD and he is called....QUEEN? i was transfixed at that figure...then blackout...manila 1985

i fell back into the humdrum of my teenage life. the usual - terrorizing the teachers and nuns in my all-girls school because i bored to tears. then going back home to read certifiably strange books - i moved on from my third reich/anne frank obsession to 'sybil' and 'the minds of billy milligan' multiple personality phenomenon. then the horror of a super disease called AIDS arrived on the scene. everyone was writing about it like it heralded the start of the apocalypse, and that it was the scourge of god, and that people would start dropping dead from it like flies.

i was already in my third year at university when one day in the news i heard freddie mercury had died. who? they said he was the first casualty of aids and there was talk about his being bisexual, homosexual and asexual (NOT!)...then i read more about him..and realized 'oh no - this was AMAZING man in the tank top in liveaid!!!'

i realized there was this song which i loved 'love of my life' which i continue to love but learned very late on that Freddie Mercury sang it. when i first heard it, i was so young but i was captured by how sad it was, how heartfelt. somewhere in the back of my mind i was wishing someday i would find someone who would sing that to me if i walked away from him. i read somewhere he wrote it for mary austin - the one and only woman in his life. they met when he wasn't even famous yet, when Queen was starting out as a band and they were still arguing over what to call themselves. they were together for 6 years until he started an affair with one of the male executives at his recording company. they fell apart but freddie was adamant that mary was his one and only love. later on, he said to the world 'my partners always asked why they couldn't replace mary. and no one can. i couldn't ever fall in love with a man, the way i have with mary'.


i listened to 'bohemian rhapsody' and couldn't get it at all - i still couldn't to this day. until wikipedia happened and i read the critical analyses behind it.

even the elvis sounding 'crazy thing called love' was Freddie Mercury! and 'somebody to love' that the penguins sang (by the time the movie came out i knew whose song this was)....all this time, i had been loving songs without ever realizing they were queen's.

read through the history and analysis of their songs and you will certifiably be amazed. the man with a four octave voice who sang in perfect pitch all the time. their songs are considered the most melodiously complex - like riding a singing roller coaster from low to high with Freddie's voice easily rollercoasting along.

in the original recording of 'somebody to love' the 100 voice gospel choir you think you hear is nothing but freddie, jim, roger and brian singing different voices on different tracks. and this was before the time of digital recording. they used good old tapes then.

same thing with bohemian rhapsody. it took them 3 weeks, continuously singing all the parts and voices for 10-12 hours a day. the tapes were spliced and re-spliced that dubbing and layering all the tracks virtually erased the oxide off them and they had to resort to literally taping the tracks together manually to piece it all together. and yes - all those voices in the recording are only 4 people singing and playing all the music and instruments: brian may, john deacon, roger taylor and the genius driving force who conceptualized, wrote and masterminded the whole thing: Freddie Mercury.

nobody ever thought of and no one since ever thought of writing songs like these. you would have to have the originality, the genius, the musical mastery, the voice, a recognition of personal invincibility and the sheer force of will all rolled into one. you would have to be of persian origin, be born in tanzania and baptized farroukh bolsara, grow up in india and eventually migrate to the UK at age 17. and then, one day you would have to change your name to 'Freddie Mercury' and just happen to have buddies from art school called brian may, roger taylor and john deacon - master musicians in their own right.

critics bashed them at first and they coined a term for the music of Queen and their performances: Pomp Rock. they took what was Over the Top and well....made it even MORE over the top. lady gaga and madonna pale in comparison to the spectacle of Queen's concerts and Freddie's stage presence. and certainly, musically, NO one ever has come close to the magnum opus of 'bohemian rhapsody'.

liveaid 1985. journalists wrote about it as the gathering of rock and roll royalty at that time. all the stars agreed to do it because it was for a good cause and because it appealed to their feeling god-like: it was a massive competition amongst all the singers and bands at the same time. the only chance perhaps to once and for all show up everyone in the rock and roll world and prove who was The Best Band in the world.

they all had only 20 minutes to strut their stuff. no playback was allowed - the bands had to play LIVE. bob dylan, elton john, bono, david bowie, sting, george michael..they were all there. and then at 6:44 GMT Queen took to the stage. Freddie Mercury was on fire. when he took to the stage, the 80,000 strong crowd at wembley turned into one adoring, worshipping, singing, swaying horde in the palm of his hand that none of the other kings were able to do.

the day the kings of rock and roll gathered together was the day that The Queen showed them who was god.

bob dylan and elton john quickly conceded that liveaid 1985 was Freddie's night. Queen's twenty minutes onstage during liveaid 1985 has then since been voted 'Best Rock Gig in the World'.

i may have learned to love him too late and i was born too late to ever have had the chance to watch him and his band perform live. thank god for youtube, wikipedia and box set dvds. thank god for bob geldof for that moment in music history.

Thank God for showing the world that god is a Queen..and he is called Freddie Mercury.

PS - mary austin inherited half of his estate when he died in 1991. she also inherited all publishing rights to his songs. she continues to live to this day in Freddie's house in west kensington.

this woman, on the other hand is living in london and praying one day, she will find the Freddie to her mary. (PPS - as much as i love Freddie Mercury and all my queen friends, God please let my Freddie be straight).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtqADo-D3mQ