It is hard to look at the life and works of Freddie Mercury without seeing something extraordinary.
In his life, he was obsessed with "...fame and fortune and everything that goes with it.." ("We are the Champions") and lived a life which swung between intense privacy and public adoration. He was, in many ways, an eccentric, and his eccentricity, as happens in so many cases, hides his true genius from view.
In his works he showed this genius, not only in the music he wrote, or the lyrics he wove, but also in the way he presented the band Queen to the world, and the influence and role he held within that band. It is easy to dismiss him, as many critics do, as nothing more then a showman, a 'foppish dandy' who 'prances around the stage like a peacock' as this is the public eccentricity of Freddie - this is the way he connects to the fans and they connect to him via their acceptance and adoration of this.
It is often said that it is the fool who is the wisest person.
In Shakespeare especially we see this come to the fore: it is often the fool who knows truly what is happening and see clearly with the uncluttered wisdom of a child. The posturing, the prancing and preening all disguise the intense understanding of what he is doing, and weaves a spell whereby the audience is caught in the moment: drawn, as it were, into the song and the singer. Like the fool, Freddie dressed in his earlier days in bi-coloured outfits, wore makeup and danced. Each and every move, each item of apparel all designed with the single intent of taking the audience into his world of music and intensity. And like the fool, Freddie was no simple showman, but a person of intense wisdom and understanding of his soul, his body and his people.
As Freddie grew older, the persona of the fool disappeared as he no longer needed the tricks of this character to connect his music to his audience and he dominated them through sheer force of will and belief. Always one with a strong sense of self and of the steeled knowledge of his stardom ever supporting him, Freddie could extend this self, this ego, to enrapture thousands of people whenever he chose.
It is after this show, after this giving of his entire being, that he must retreat into himself and become the private, withdrawn, secretive person that he was off stage.
Some people draw from others; taking in their energy and making those others feel drained and listless when around them. Freddie was the reverse, he gave. You could imagine flows of Freddie's passion and music, his soul, emanating from him and encompassing his audience. After a concert, drained and yet ecstatic, he would need to withdraw from public contact, need to enmesh himself in his privacy to once more recharge for the next time.
An understanding of this ballet of opposites is essential to understand the genius of Freddie Mercury. As stated, it is too easy to dismiss him by concentrating on the character Freddie rather then the person Freddie. Is it his stage persona which is the real Freddie, or is it the private off-stage persona? In the case of many singers or actors it is the private persona and the character is merely played, it is a mask that is put on to enable a function to be performed. In the case of Freddie it is both facets which are the real Freddie Mercury and without an understanding and perhaps more importantly, and acceptance, of this then a true understanding of who he is and what he has done is impossible.
Freddie was the consummate showman. He knew what to do and how to do it almost by instinct. He knew what music would work and what wouldn't, he was a lyricist, a composer, a pianist, a vocalist a guitarist and, yes, a showman. From reports from himself and others he was a diva on occasions, and thought he knew better on many occasions. History records that, on the whole, he did.
Most of what we know of Freddie comes from his shows, his rare interviews, and interviews of others. His interviews show his discomfort talking about his music, and his downright refusal to speak of his private life. He knew, which many did not - and still do not - that there must be a break between his professional and private lives. If that did not occur then the pressure of his genius would destroy him. This is true of most people with the gift - or curse - of genius. Of course, Freddie, unlike many 'stars' could not see the relevance that his personal life has on the quality of his music, or on the albums, or on Queen or on their concerts. In many ways, although an understanding of the private Freddie is necessary to appreciate his genius, it is the public Freddie who is the representation of that genius and his private life should remain so.
We do not need an understanding of his past, his way of life, or his problems
to understand his songs. We do not need to know who this piece of music was
written about or what he is saying about himself in this other piece to appreciate
the music. All we need is to listen to the lyrics, to feel the music and to
bathe in the power of his voice and his genius and we understand and know all
we need to about Freddie Mercury and his Genius.
Freddie classed himself as a hopeless romantic. His songs are balladic in form on the whole (with notable exceptions). Yet both terms have become, like many others, watered down to a stage where they are nothing like their original meanings. The English language, of which Freddie was a master in his use of imagery and meaning, has been bastardised by successions of fools. Mass media has created mass ignorance and the beauty of the language has been replaced with a misused mismatched concoction of harsh syllables with no meaning. Terrific! (From, of course, the adjectival form of 'terrify'.) We use terms such as 'beautiful' to mean 'pretty'; 'tragedy' to mean 'tragic' or, even worse, 'sad'; 'hero' to mean anyone who is in the paper for no reason. Recently, in Australia, people who carried the Commonwealth Games Baton were 'heroes', as were two people trapped in a mine collapse, but interestingly, not the people who saved them. The Hero is covered elsewhere in these works, but the language and the dissolution of English is not and it is two words in particular that concern us here.
A ballad is considered to be a song which is slow and usually about love. Rock ballads are the slower pieces, often 'romantic' in mien, that Eurovision singers and Heavy Metal bands put out every so often just to attract the crowd. Yet originally a ballad was something more, something which told a story, and something which
touch the emotions of the listeners, to incite them to a means of action. It was popular among Romance poets especially. If we look at a definition of ballad (from the Brooklyn College of New York site:)
Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza. Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza is four lines; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet. Ballads often open abruptly, present brief descriptions, and use concise dialogue.
The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation impersonal. The literary ballad deliberately imitates the form and spirit of a folk ballad. The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with "The Wreck of the Hesperus," Coleridge with the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (which is longer and more elaborate than the folk balad) and Keats with "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (which more closely resembles the folk ballad).
They, as stated, tell of love, death, the supernatural or a combination. They also tell of an incident in a battle, or a moment in a life - a window, if you wish, to the life of another.
As words have changed their meaning and been watered down, so too have the meanings of those words been watered down, or moulded into something which fits with a modern world. A plasticine world, malleable and changeable, with feelings altered to fit the needs of society, and diluted emotions all that are allowed. Love is a powerful word - it is linked to Death and the Supernatural in the definition above. Eros, the Greek god of Love, according to Hesiod was originally the primal demiurge, the one who existed in the Primal Darkness (Chaos) with Gaia (Earth) and produced Erebos (Darkness) and Nyx (Night) and from them came Aether ('upper atmosphere') and Hemera (Day). Eros is called "The most grim of gods" (Greek Lyric I Alcaeus, Frag 327 (from Plutarch, Dialogue on Love)) and "tyrant of gods and men" (Euripides). In this we can see that, originally at least, Love was a power linked closely to creation and existing before Death and even light or Darkness. This is also carried into Judaeo-Chrisitan religion with the Creator God. A love poem, at this time, was more often belabouring the cruelty of love rather then glorifying its 'Hallmark niceness' or 'romance'.
Romance, to be a romantic. Is there any reason to suppose that Freddie, with his varied and powerful background, would not know and understand the true meaning of this term? In its modern sanitized version, romance is flowers, chocolates and sighing over 'No, you hang up first' style conversations. Yet this is as far removed from true romance as a star going supernova is from a fire cracker. The Romantic Period produced such great poets as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Keats, Wordsworth and earlier William Blake and authors such as Emily Bronte, and composers such as Richard Wagner: all who knew what Romance meant, what it was to be Romantic. Heathcliff, in Bronte's book Wuthering Heights is a romantic hero, yet he does not stand around moping with wilting flowers in his hands: he is about all-consuming, destructive passion. The music of Wagner, ignoring its later connotations, strikes the soul, as does the works of Coleridge and others. For the romantic era is the time of the power of the emotions, of the soul if you will. It was a reaction against Industrialisation and the dehumanizing effect of factories and modern society. A romantic hero is one of passion, of power, of feelings which rip through their being, consuming themselves and others in their way. Tolstoy in his book Anna Karenin shows us Anna as a romantic heroine: one whose passions and need to fulfill them destroys her and her life. Romantic Love, then, is not as card producers and TV shows or movies would have us believe it is a destructive, all-encompassing tidal wave of emotion which takes the body and soul and carries it with it to leave it destroyed on whatever shore it finds. It is about emotions that are torn from the living being and laid naked and bare to the elements. It is the reason that people could, indeed, 'die for love'. It is the power and anger that fills a parent when they find their child hurt or slain by others. It is the fiery breath of life that is the true 'supernatural' element of the world, the passion that makes greatness. It is what Freddie was.
Freddie did not write silly little love ballads along the lines of 'Hello, is it me you're looking for...' or 'Love, Love me do....' (both of which are fine songs, by the way, just not romantic). His songs are created from his being, drawn out and exposed to the light and we can look into them and see our own feelings laid bare. No one can listen to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries without feeling something (although years of Ads and Movies have tended to water them down), no one can read Xanadu (Kublai Khan) by Coleridge or the the Songs of Innocence and Experience by Blake and not think and visualise and know what the poet and creator was doing. No one can listen to the songs of Freddie and not be caught up in the soul of music, glory and fear which surrounded him. It is a lonely life to be alive in a world of the dead, but that is what it is to be a genius and to be a true Romantic. In his laughing off questions about himself, avoiding interviews and concentrating on being who he was we know and understand that he is hiding so that what he has given can be replaced, can be repaired. For the tragedy of the Romantic Hero is that they give and give of their very life essence and tear their being apart and if it is not fulfilled, will always end.
When listening to the songs of Freddie, or reading the lyrics of his works, we can't look at the surface level and see them as the sanitized plastic creations of a dying society, but must look beyond them and see the way that they open the soul to accept more and more of what is Freddie and in that listening or reading, we know that the real Freddie is still living among those who are awake enough to heed his call. Look at what the words really mean, what is a 'Master Stroke' (the final perfect stroke of the master of the trade which makes it stand above and beyond that of others), even just grabbing some words at random (Man Made Paradise):
Want you to help me thru deep waters when
My ship is in a storm
Want you to give me all the power like a king
On his throne
But you don't care, you don't care
History repeats itself, I seem to be all by
Myself again.
Come into my life, it's a man made paradise
We see what appears to be a simple love song, yet the lyrics are full of power images ('deep waters', 'storm', 'all the power', 'king on this throne') and of the ultimate unfulfillment ('you don't care', 'History repeats itself') and the plea to come into his life - a man-made creation, he is searching for perfection: a goal of the Romantics, not of modern la-di-da.
Freddie is a man who is too open to the world, a man who had to hide behind his lyrics and his glam world of Rock music. A passionate player who knew the meaning and value of words and could communicate to the souls of the listeners, bypassing the usual blocks and checks of society to create a oneness with him and a love for him that transcends.
One area of Freddie's music that is often overlooked is that of his dramatic stagecraft. Freddie shared the peculiar form of genius with only a few other rockers of his time - perhaps only Mick Jagger of the Roling Stones comes even close to Freddie's command of the stage. Much has been said of him 'gesturing' 'preeing like a peacock' (having kept peafowl I can tell you that a) they don't preen and b) they are really loud and annoying - both totally unlike Freddie). He would stride up and down the stage, swinging his half-microphone stand, gesticulating, wearing outlandish clothes, leap, cavort, dance and sing.
Yet this should be looked at in terms of what it produced in the context of a show. Makeup for a stage performance is entirely different to makeup for a night on the town (and I used to do stage makeup, lighting, and costume design - believe me on this): everything has to be bigger, bolder and designed to be seen from a long way away. This is just on a stage with a few hundred or a thousand viewers. Costumes have to be unreal to be real. One of the greatest quotes about the movie making business was (to paraphrase) 'We can't make it real because reality looks fake. We have to make it MORE than real, Greater then normal in order for it to look real.'
Our cowboys have to be bigger then reality, our villains have to be nastier, our heroes have to be more heroic, and our stars have to shine brighter. Freddie was an instinctive performer, a character actor and a designer with an eye for makeup, for lighting and for stage presence. It was his particular genius, a genius shared in some ways by Chaplin, Lon Chaney and John Hurt, that he could go out there dressed in whatever and perform and be believed. There was a rock-hard certainty that it was Freddie on the stage and that everything was fine because of it.
The difference between the excellent performance of Mick Jagger and the genius of Freddie Mercury was one of scale. Mick could hold the attention of the audience on the stage in the hall or audotorium. Freddie could hold the audience in a stadium. Each and every person would respond and believe: even those who were not Queen fans.
It takes a staging genius to take centre stage in a huge stadium, on a massive stage with thousands of lights, smoke and three brilliant musicians, and still be seen to be singing one-to-one with each and every member of the audience. Rather then being swallowed by the stage production, Freddie was lifted by it. Only someone with an intense knowledge of what he was doing, what was going on, and who he was could be able to carry this off with such aplomb. We see Roger and Brian and John and recognise them as part of the show, but we Feel Freddie's presence and know him as the focus of the show. Queen were not, as he always said, 'his' band, yet they were without a doubt what made him shine.
Even when sitting at the piano and playing, the nuances and timbre of his voice would enwrap the listener and carry them on his journey. His clothing and makeup during the early part of their career were flamboyant and designed to capture and hold the attention of the audience. The human eye sees movement far easier then it does stillness and the more movement with fluted sleeves and contrasting colours, the more impact is gained. As time passed, the costuming and makeup changed and lessened as he learnt the magic of stage movement and positioning to once more capture the eye. So with this conjoining of movement with music he created, not a foolish popinjay prancing about the stage, but an extremely well orchestrated dramatic performance designed to capture and hold the attention of each and every member of his audience. Freddie never did anything without planning and this is an example of that natural planning genius showing in the way he presented himself on stage. It could only be then, and was, a short step from orchestrated dramatic music to Opera.