QUEEN – “Bohemian Rhapsody”/”These Are The Days Of Our Lives”
A double-sided tombstone – you get to choose how you want to remember Freddie Mercury. His finest – most famous, anyway – six minutes, or a new song that felt in context like a farewell note? Or perhaps neither of them really work? “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the obvious choice for a reissue, but it would have become the band’s memorial anyhow – it didn’t need to be specifically squeezed into a suit for the funeral. Though maybe Mercury would have approved – if you’re lured into taking the opening section seriously, as a dread kitsch premonition, the rest of the record becomes even more awkward, absurd, and marvellous.
“Those Were The Days Of Our Lives” is an apparently simpler proposition: this man, who the newspapers always called “intensely private”, lets us in on what he’s thinking as the end of his life approaches. Well, maybe: the song’s as artfully presented as “Bohemian Rhapsody” in its way, everything from those padding drums to the ruminatory solo pointing towards intimacy. If Bo Rhap is comic opera, this is a single-spotlight monologue. “Nothing really matters to me” versus “I still love you” – why trust one any more than the other?
As a song? It’s a sentimental cousin of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring”, with the devastating payoff moved from text to subtext. And it’s just about strong enough to wriggle free of all its emotional cues and breathe, thanks mostly to Mercury’s avuncular delivery, which makes me miss him more than most of the words.
A couple of months after this was number one, I went and saw Waynes World, which ripped the shroud from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the most useful and emphatic way possible. I saw it with my wife, though at the time she wasn’t my wife, she was a girl I’d met at a disco, and the first conversation I remember having with her was about “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It was number one, the DJ played it, and I said I didn’t think you could dance to this, and she said no, she didn’t think you could either.
So there’s one line that gets me in “These Were The Days Of Our Lives”. It’s the bit about sitting back and enjoying life through the kids – because it’s half true. But also it’s a sentiment you’d only expect in pop if it came laced with contempt, yet Mercury sings it with fondness and regret. Queen could be thrilling, ridiculous, heavy, florid – all sorts of things. They could also be unusually generous.
6
You can’t disentangle it from circumstance, but I really like ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’, the soft tones, the swoops of the verse. Couple it with the video and Freddie looking so frail, it’s devastating. Ever the shrewd showman, he’s playing out his last months for all they’re worth – I don’t mean that cynically; he’d want a neat, touching document, and it’s not as if he’d need to milk his situation for financial gain. It just feels like a goodbye, and as dignified as he could be.
Don’t know the other song.
No comment – category C.
According to last week’s BBC doc Roger Taylor wrote These Are The Days, but it fitted perfectly, almost frighteningly so, as Mercury’s official farewell. I still find it moving, especially as I can relate more to its air of middle aged regret these days.
One thing I love about this whole project is yr even-handed, affectionate treatment of Queen who so often get treated as a mad gin-soaked auntie. Though obviously they kind of are a mad gin-soaked auntie.
This was my first term at Sussex, and I have 2 really strong memories of overheard music from then. In the first couple of weeks I remember walking across he campus and it seemed like every bedroom had a different track from Screamadelica at full whack (this was a couple of weeks before their Escape gig which was the single busiest train I ever got from Falmer to Brighton). The other one is the day Freddie died, which I discovered by hearing BoRap 27 times – at different points in the song – walking past a couple of halls. I can’t think of another star whose death brought the same affection from such a wide cross-section of 18 year olds.
Not really a load of point talking about Bohemian Rhapsody to an extent – it’s already got it’s own entry and there is more than enough worthwhile material there I would have thought.
TATDOOL is an interesting one. I really enjoyed the recent two part Queen documentary shown on the BBC. By this point in their career, Queen had decided to share song writing credits equally between all four members – presumably to quieten down some of the issues that they’d had in the early 80s around creative control of the group (issues that are most apparent from the reaction of the two public members of the group to the Hot Space album and some of Freddie’s comments around the time of his Mr Bad Guy album). It was interesting, to me at least, that the originator of this song was Roger Taylor, presumably talking about his own children who would have been on the cusp of adolescence at this point (i.e. before they got to be sulky teenagers!). It should be remembered that the song itself is not necessarily about death. It’s actually about parenthood and getting older and realising that partying is not the be all and end all – both ends of which it would seem Roger Taylor had extensive first hand experience.
Nevertheless, Tom is right, to an extent, that the emotional value that might be have been placed on this was all subtext – brought staggeringly home with the behind the scenes footage of the final video shoot shown in the recent documentary. The video itself, shot in soft focus black and white to try and hide just how ill Mercury was, does a hell of a job, as the full colour footage literally made me exclaim “bloody hell” to the screen. I’ve not been close to anyone who has died of AIDS, so it did a certain job of educating me – credit to the band that they kept working right up until the point when Freddie had definitely had enough.
The song itself is pleasant but, on its own merits, hardly shattering. The solo is one of Brian May’s more tasteful efforts and, I think, demonstrates the difference between a decent guitarist and the session guy that manages to kill the momentum in 1991′s earlier Everything I Do. May starts slow and brings the solo to a crescendo that, as a result, makes the last chorus more celebratory than wistful – only for it to be undercut by the final whispered “I still love you” – reminding us all, one final time, just what the subtext of all this is.
A beautiful and sensitive song. And a fitting tribute.
This is the last genuinely Queen number one ; the last couple of singles with Freddie’s vocals not quite getting there in 95. “A Winter’s Tale” is Freddie’s real farewell but alas didn’t have much of a tune to go with its poignant lyrics.
People have said that Queen’s quality control wasn’t that great but when you listen to Roger Taylor’s solo stuff – “Nazis” being the prime example – you realise that it probably worked quite well.
Should Brian and Rog still be trading under the Queen banner ? I don’t know. On the one hand you think they’re both smart and rich enough to do somethig else. On the other they didn’t kill Freddie, the songs belong to them just as much and if not them some awful tribute band would be cashing in.
Queen are certainly loved by mad gin-soaked aunties. And mums. They aren’t loved in any circles I move in (bar this one), nobody I knew was gutted when Freddie died, and I still struggle with their right wing panto. Sorry.
WAIT TILL I WRITE MY BOOK!
Panto, fair enough, but right wing? Freddie almost certainly voted Tory and so until recently did Brian May but I don’t see how any of that comes into their music; they’re hardly Skrewdriver.
10: I want to know when Brian May, Freddie Mercury et al would have found the time to vote Tory – do you reckon they organised their postal vote diligently before going on tour and, subsequently, when working abroad as tax exiles or what have you?
I’m not disputing the crux of what you’re saying but the thought of international rock stars getting their butlers to proxy vote for them or some such is quite amusing.
jim5et – Certainly a notable death in June 2009 brought similar affection from my wide cross-section of 20 year olds. I guess that’s the following decade’s equivalent to Mercury’s.
The first song I’ve already talked about in its first Popular entry, how it blew me away in 2000 in my first year of secondary school. Days Of Our Lives? I’m not the right age to appreciate it yet, the talk of how great things were “when we were young” – it’s a similar reason why I don’t quite ‘get’ Being Boring yet. Those days haven’t ‘all gone’ yet, but ask me again in a decade or two. Both this and PSB’s are still beautiful and always worth a listen, I just don’t share that emotional sentiment yet.
So yes, RIP Freddie, you deserved a posthumous #1 and this is a fitting tribute. But it kept off what would have been two of the best number 1s ever in January 1992 – ‘Everybody In The Place’ by The Prodigy, and ‘Justified & Ancient’ by The KLF (and Tammy Wynette) both stalled at #2 behind this. What a monumental start to the year they would have been!!
Doesn’t the right wing thing come from the refusal to apologise for Sun City and playing in South American dictatorships ?
I would acquit them but it seems being apolitical is tantamount to being “right wing” among our present day commissars.
They were maybe naive to play Sun City but that doesn’t make them apologists for fascism.
13: They address the Sun City thing in the second part of the documentary. Funnily enough, it presents the Queen side of the story rather than both sides but for what it’s worth they claim that they insisted on non-segregated audiences (when asked how white the audiences were, Taylor concedes, mostly white), that they made an effort to visit non-white areas of the country and financially supported a school for the handicapped for victims of apartheid from the time of the visit onwards.
I would say it was a pretty silly thing for them to do – and Taylor seems to agree, stating he wished he’d “never heard of the bloody place”. Does it make them right wing? Dunno. Were the members of the band right wing? Again, dunno really. As Marcello points out, Brian May seems to be anti-Tory now, though I think this is a one issue thing (treatment of animals). He might well be right wing in all other senses but I haven’t a clue whether he is or not.
“our present day commissars” — you are a comical fellow sometimes, mike
He stood in monotone, soft focus, pancake make-up hiding the blotchiness of his skin, looking like Bogarde in “Death In Venice”…but his eyes still sparkled. They’re the last to go. When all of your being screams in pain, and the thin, gaunt figure you see in the mirror echoes an avatar created by your “good friend” a good few years back, you know that chilling hand is already reaching for your shoulder, then it’s time to make way, to say your goodbyes and thank everybody for a wonderful time. The life and soul of the party was leaving.
And when the door closed shut and the taxi whisked him off, we returned to remember his moment of triumph, toast his memory and flip over to listen to that instant, that moment when he said he loved us and meant it.
Only, you never got the sense from anyone that this was someone “gone to soon”. Rock & Roll deaths are events that spawn death cults and legend-creation. Freddie was different. The stigma associated with AIDS and HIV robbed us of the opportunity to lionise Mercury, as we had with Lennon or Elvis. And here was a performer that could easily outshine legends onstage. Yes, we were all sad. Yes, we all missed that vitality and joie de vivre, that was absent from all subsequent Queen output. A Freddie-shaped hole. This was perhaps the saddest posthumous hit this (Popular) side of “You Know You’re Right”.
I’ve said something about how I felt about Mercury’s death a couple of entries back (when it happened) and I’m not going to repeat myself now.
I first heard Queen at the Mountford Hall, Liverpool University, when they were not yet widely known. I was blown away, especially by Mercury’s stagecraft. Whatever political stances are reflected in their repertoire are no more relevant to me, a fly-blown trot, and my enjoyment of their work than those of Evelyn Waugh, or T S Eliot. Or, for that matter, Mick Jagger.
I’m afraid I personally don’t give a stuff if they are/were Tories or not, aside from the curiosity (if they were) of someone in the industry not being naturally alligned to the Left, either in truth or for show. Queen were certainly not apologists for fascism for playing Sun City and other places, though, as Marcello says.
But I do agree entirely with Mike’s (“I would acquit them but it seems being apolitical is tantamount to being “right wing” among our present day commissars”). I’m assuming he’s referring to that bastion of impartiality, the BBC.
Yes, Queen voted Tory. Queen were apologists for fascism. That’s exactly what I said. No, I said ‘right wing panto’ – they played Sun City, they didn’t apologise for their naive mistake.
I see you still overrate absolute truth.
# 19 Not specifically. Basically anyone who would take Howard Kirk as a role model rather than a villain. No doubt there are plenty of them at the BBC as elsewhere !
Not many records can have been made in such circumstances – the singer dying, and only he and a select entourage know about it, but as soon as people see the video they’re going to realise that something is seriously wrong with him. So it’s inevitably going to be seen as a leave-taking, if not immediately then soon and forever afterwards (that’s not meant to sound like Bogart, sorry!). And what a beautiful one – sensitively put together, with a wonderfully appropriate and tasteful guitar solo, lovely understated percussion and so many pretty flourishes (that line “the days were endless, we were crazy, we were young” delivered with a little leap of energy, you can almost hear Liza Minnelli singing it).
Even in Queen’s early days, nearly two decades before he wrote this, differences in perspective between generations were a common lyrical theme in Roger Taylor’s songs. “The Loser in the End” from “Queen II” addresses “mothers everywhere” with the words “you’ll get forgotten on the way/if you don’t let them have their fun/Forget regrets and just remember/it’s not so long since you were young”. In “Drowse” from “A Day at the Races”, which looks back to a childhood where you’re asked “to waste all your good times/in thoughts of your middle-aged years”, he concludes “there’s all the more reason for living or dying/when you’re young and your troubles are all very small”. “Tenement Funster” and “I’m In Love With My Car” are both keenly aware of the narrator’s youth facilitating the lifestyle he’s enjoying. Even in “Radio Ga Ga” there’s the wistful comparison between his generation’s consumption of radio, his parents’ and his children’s. You get glimpses of his Truro upbringing and the sense that he’d have been pretty well-adjusted even without the wealth the band brought him. Drummers with a catalogue of songs this good, anyone?
#23 Don Henley?
It’s fascinating that this originated from Roger Taylor. On first hearing, it was beautiful and moving, and seemed like a poignant and sincere farewell note from Freddie Mercury. I think it remains so, and it has evaded airplay, which helps. What surprised me the very first time I heard it, in some or other TV broadcast noting Freddie Mercury’s death, was that its poignancy and sincerity were amplified by the use of such an unusual phrase “Those Were The Days Of Our Lives.” This is a phrase which does not belong in the vernacular. In common use, the phrase is elliptical: “Those were the days…” Whether any further qualification may help is moot; no-one ever says “Those Were The Days Of Our Lives”.
But it’s obvious what was meant here. It was not an attempt to contrast the current period of time with a former one (though the use of “these” and “those” suggests it). There isn’t any disrespect when he sings “Those Were The Days”. Instead, it is a gentle reminder that “You Only Live Once” – and by writing / singing so much of the song (but not all of it) in first person plural, clearly someone else is involved and being implored to make the most of their short time on earth. “Fine. Youy may have had happy times and it’s ok to say “Those Were The Days…”, but I urge you to enjoy the present. “These Are The Days…”, please.”
Maybe some folk at this point (or well before it) think “yeah – duh”. But still, I think there’s more to it than that. At the time, there was a sense that Mercury’s enunciation and lyrics were inseparable; both slightly odd and largely loveable – one a consequence of the other.
As a farewell from the “intensely private” Freddie, one might have wanted the final outpouring to be the most frank and revealing yet – for us to feel the human touch from Planet Popstar, for us to hear him express himself in the way that all of us do. We didn’t, but we got the next best thing, a stylised and dignified statement of what he’d always been like, and we knew what he meant.
This is why Roger Taylor’s involvement is so fascinating: was his writing so brilliant that he managed to punctuate it with the kind of oddities and mannerisms that suited Freddie Mercury so well they seemed like his own? Or did Freddie Mercury take over writing the song at a certain point? Not having seen the recent documentary (yet), these questions are not rhetorical, and I’d love to know the answers. But when I do, it won’t diminish my regard for an incredibly apt valedictory speech.