So much for the workings of the average mind. We see Mercury facing down racist abuse while working as a baggage handler at Heathrow and from an audience member at an early gig. But its depiction of his sexuality is more troubling. It drives a musical wedge between the band and their frontman, whose ideas for songs and styles are increasingly founded on his experiences in gay clubs and viewed as antithetical to the spirit of the band.
Anyone with a passing interest in the band knows this is nonsense. It goes without saying that in virtually every other account of his life, Mercury does not come across as a man who needed a great deal of luring where sex and drugs were concerned. You find yourself wondering if its title might not have been aimed at his censorious bandmates. But it may also have been linked to the kind of audience Queen attracted.
Look at the legendary televised Christmas Eve concert from For an encore, Mercury comes on stage in a kimono, which he gradually strips off while singing Hey Big Spender. They get a buzz. Why do you think people like David Bowie and Elvis Presley have been so successful? Because they give their audiences champagne for breakfast? David Bowie came in to see us one day in the recording studios we owned at the time, in Montreux, where we were working, and we began to dabble on something together.
It happened very spontaneously and very quickly indeed. We were both overjoyed by the result. In fact, one of my early inspirations came from Cabaret.
The way she delivers her songs — the sheer energy. Liza Minnelli just oozes with sheer talent. She has energy and stamina, which she gets across on stage, and the way she delivers herself to the public is a good influence. There is a lot to learn from her. When I heard that Lennon was dead, I was shocked and dumbfounded. Queen even called their album Jazz though it featured no jazz tracks and he enjoyed the singing of Ella Fitzgerald.
I wish I could sing half as well as she does. Each word she sings is so full of meaning and expression. I could listen to it forever. But when it came to both his sexuality and his ethnicity, Mercury favoured privacy over direct proclamations until the end of his life. Around 24 hours later, he died. Privately, Mercury had been diagnosed as HIV positive four years earlier, and Butcher suggests, speculatively, that his friendship with the late Diana, Princess of Wales while living with HIV and Aids could have been a contributing factor in her decision to promote better awareness of the disease.
Nearly 28 years after his death, the real Freddie Mercury remains cherished. In an era when homophobia and racism were far more prevalent than they are today, Freddie Mercury was the queer, South Asian frontman of the band who released one of rock's most iconic singles, Bohemian Rhapsody, and the best-selling album in UK chart history, Queen's Greatest Hits.
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