.03 - Is This the Real Life?...
“I seem to eat people up and destroy them. There must be a destructive element in me because I try very hard to build up relationships, but somehow I drive people away … I just feel I’m not a very good partner for anybody and I just think that’s what my love is.”
“I couldn’t fall in love with a man the way I could with a girl.”
“I'm a very emotional person, a person of real extremes, and that’s often destructive both to myself and others.”
Quotes taken from:
http://mercury-and-queen.gmxhome.de/loveofmylife.htm
It is not enough, when looking at the man who is Freddie Mercury, to dismiss him simply as a singer, or song writer or, as so many do, a bi- or homosexual.
Whereas it is true that he is all of these, it is also far more true that he is a person with all the likes & dislikes, fears, hatreds and loves of any other human.
What we find in Freddie when looking at his quotes, his interviews and his music is a man torn between a desire and lust for fame and glory and an intensely private individual who tried to keep his personal life entirely separate from his professional one. To a large extent he succeeded in this and was able to be a private individual for much of his professional life: so much so that we actually know very little about this man outside his public appearances, gossip and occasional betrayal by friends.
Should a man in the public eye, such as Freddie, be allowed to have a private life? Should he be 'permitted' not to be the idolised hero of so many people?
Why do 'fans' and others deny him this right, the basic right of any professional, manual worker, or unemployed person anywhere else? Just because he had a gift and shared it with the world should make people greatful for what he gave, not make them want to hound and dig into his privacy. At then end of his life, Freddie was a prisoner in his own home: made so by the same press who had attacked him or ignored him throughout his musical career, eagerly waiting for that moment of scandal when they could blast across the universe not that a great musical genius had died, but that he had died from AIDS. Not that a man had died, but that this object, this thing had died.
Freddie lived as he had to: a dichotomy of existence, forced to be hidden through necessity, yet forced into the limelight by desire. The 'excesses' of his life can be forgiven due to this: it is impossible to live in so diametrically opposite a way and not need some break from it all, somewhere he could be himself and not give a fuck about anything else. The tales of wild parties and of gross excesses are simply this: a way for this man to escape the stress of his necessary opposites.
We can, as outsiders, descry this behaviour - we can attack him on it, point out that it shows that he is 'morally degraded' or whatever other term we use. We can say the same thing about other cultures and societies: but only if we apply our own social mores and prejudices on these people. Very few people indeed, perhaps none, can really know what Freddie went through in his life: his upbringing was probably unique, as is his particular talent and unswerving belief in himself. He is a product of five separate cultures: 1950's Zanzibaris, Zoroastrian/Pharsee, Indian, English Private School and London during the 60's. Each of these cultures is incredibly different from most societies today, and each would play a part in the creation of Freddie. For a person living in the United Statesian dominated trash culture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries to attack a person with such an unusual and diverse mix of backgrounds is not only morally wrong, it is intellectually absurd.
Let us, then add to this his lifestyle - that of frenzied public performances and private intimate times, add, if you must, his sexual preferences and passions (large whether with females or males) and his stage adoption of the cultural symbols of each time period he passes through. This 'stage adoption' doesn't pass through to his personal life and tastes (at least, after the early 70's).
What we find with Freddie Mercury is an individual with an incredible mix of cultural and social identities more then enough to create a sense of not truly belonging in anyone, let alone in a public figure; of being divorced from much of these influences as most of them no longer existed from the 70's on. Freddie is an eccentric genius, divorced in time and space from the culture that most of us wear as a blanket or suit of armour and left naked in a society that does not and cannot even comprehend, let alone understand, who or what he truly is.
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Throughout the twenty years of his life that Freddie spent with Queen his on-stage persona, or Character Role, developed with his musical ability and his life.
Although he is often accused of 'pandering' to the homosexual market with his dress during the late 70's and early 80's many people fail to realise that this mode of dress was reasonably commonplace at the time. The great Disco era was based on what was initially a homosexual music form and the underground styles of music and lifestyle emerged into mainstream around this time. Freddie adopted these, as did many others and, with his usual extremism took them to their fullest extent. Watch his dress on-state (his character role) and his dress off-stage (in interviews or candid photos) and there is little or no difference between him and the other members of Queen or any other person at the time. Except, perhaps, for a predilection for Hawaiian shirts, but he can be forgiven this. This dress sense can be seen to be simply an extension of his dress in the early 70's which had the stated aim to be a costume, to be something that delivers entertainment to the audience: to be noticed. Freddie's costumes were flamboyant, were striking, were (sometimes) weird yet always achieved their goal of being noticed. His whole persona on stage was 'Notice me', 'listen to me' for 'I am Freddie Mercury and I am a Star!'
Queen, although often thought of as starting in 'glam rock' went further then this. They weren't just about the flamboyant, glamorous, feminine styles and makeup that many glam rock groups were. They were about excess and have never denied it, but the excess was for the audience, to put on a full show with all the glitz and glamour of a Las Vegas show today. Freddie's stated aim was not just to give them the music, but to give them the experience, the visuals to support the music to make an entire entertainment package.
This was the character of Freddie: he was, on stage, an entertainment package. He was vibrant, flamboyant, 'posturing' and 'strutting' if you will, but encompassing the whole stage and, through that, the entire audience. His movement and mannerisms made him encompass everyone so that when you watch him, you know he is including you, you know he is seeing you and is singing to you. Freddie is not a 'stand at the microphone and sing' sort of person who loses the audience like the speaker who looks down at his notes. Nor is he the face-microphone, choreographed dance MTV singer whose set moves are no more exciting and embracing then someone nervously moving from foot-to-foot when speaking. He moves to his own rhythms, he moves to his own needs to deliver his music and to allow his soul to reach out to the audience.
Without the posturing, without the movement and the costume, he becomes another
singer in another band: albeit with a powerful and wide-ranging (apparently
light tenor) voice. Each facet on their own does little, if anything, but when
placed together, and held by a person who is strong enough to meld them into
an entirety, the stage presence takes on a life of its own: the character becomes
the person.
Unlike many, Freddie was able to make this person/character separate and distinct
from his home life and in that, he became a strong, powerful performer. In order
to do this, of course, he had to ensure that his home life was not in the public
eye as they would expect him to behave in the way that his character did. Indeed,
in the moments when his private life was in the public eye, such as during his
parties, his character did appear and the costuming, and posturing, and excesses
of the stage-bound Freddie emerged.
Queen used the titles of two Marx movies for their albums ('A Night at the Opera' and 'A Day at the Races') and Freddie's character can be seen as a modern day Harpo. The character Harpo was an excessive fun-loving mute one moment the 'bad guy' the next the angel (or cherub at least). The real Harpo Marx or Adolph Marx tended to be more serious and a private individual with little in common with his stage persona. When Freddie switched off his character, he was a shy person, uncomfortable in the spotlight as can be seen by his interviews off stage and out of costume. In some ways, he became the 'mute' Harpo off stage, not liking to talk to strangers, and not liking the spotlight to be directed on him without his shielding character protecting him.
The mask that Freddie wore, this onstage character, was one that the Press especially but also his other critics, were never able to understand, let alone accept. For some reason, Freddie was the only person who was not allowed to wear this mask. Everyone else on the planet has them - a public mask, a work mask, a home mask: often to the loss of the original self. Yet Freddie was only allowed his public mask, only allowed the excessive stage persona. As it was on stage, so their theory went (and still goes) so it must be off stage. Such simple acts as love, birthdays or holidays were denied him as the media hyped them and portrayed them as excessive debaucheries: something alien to the true Freddie behind the character.
A Frankenstein to his monster, Freddie was eventually destroyed by the myth he had created, fated to endure a lingering demise, yet still giving, still presenting this character face to the world and keeping, as he always had, his private pain to himself.
In this he should be admired, not reviled, he should be thanked, not abused;
and his memory should be one of strength and nobility that was his true life
behind the façade of the Mercury creation.
One aspect of a 'divided life', especially if that person is, in one form or other, a genius, and which is often ignored by those who do not live it; is the necessary blurring of fantasy and reality. Whereas the average person can get up in the morning, know who they are; go to work, fit in; come home, be a part of a family; and go to sleep for the following day, this type of person cannot.
They live a life of constant change, of constant challenge and a need to be whomsoever others perceive them to be, without actually ever knowing who they themselves are. Freddie wore masks, hidden, but nontheless existant, to try to protect himself from the expectations of the crowsds of adoring fans. He built walls of privacy and concoctions of fantasy to hide what was essentially the Raw Freddie from the appetites of the fans and the fan's tool (or perhaps fan's fool): the papers.
This was not done through any malice, or hatred of the people who, in their own way, worshipped or loved him, but because he needed to know who he was as divorced from Freddie Mercury: he needed to keep in mind who Farookh Bulsara was.
There is no doubt that Freddie loved his audiences and truly came alive with them. This was becasue he knew who Freddie Mercury was: he did understand the carefully created and cultured stage persona who was all-powerful, a King among Queens and Lord of his Realm. This fantasy Freddie on stage, was the epitome of presence: powerful and dominating. Yet off stage, he was shy, quiet and demure. When robbed of his trappings, he was someone who did not know who he was or where he was. How much of him was really him, and how much was the stage presence? Which one was real?
If he would go out, he would be recognised and known, but without his stage and his sceptre, without his regal bearing he was, in his own mind, not the person they wanted to see. This trap of fame made him, at times, doubt his existence as himself.
It is harder for the intelligent person to accept dual existence then it is for the simpler person. The simple person has no qualms about accepting the possibility that there are two of themselves: it is the way it is and they are happy doing so while it lasts. Then there are those who don't think about it, who just accept that they are who they are: there is no difference and they glory and revel in the fame and fortune. Yet the truly intelligent must always question, must always doubt as it is this facet that makes them intelligent. It is not the knowledge, nor is it the understanding, but the doubt that always assails those of Freddie's mein.
Freddie had no illusions as to who was responsible for his fame and fortune: "...I thank you all...". He also, as a musical genius, suffered from that problem that only a genius can know: that of knowing and feeling too much. Leaving his stage persona in the spotlight as it were, we look to the private, quiet, insecure Freddie. The man who had to surround himself with Personal Assistants to help him to live unable to face life alone, but unable to have a family, the man who never learnt to drive, who didn't know how to shop: a man who could not fit into society as society was where the fantasy Freddie Mercury dominated and ruled.
In his reality behind all the trappings, there was him and only him: alone.
This loneliness is shown again and again in his music and in his words. "... so lonely, living on my own...." The loneliness is one of knowing that people expect you to be who you are not: they expect the musical Mercury to be the living Mercury. In much the same way as a Comedian is expected to be funny, Mercury is meant, as is his namesake, to be a god.
Freddie was bright enough and sensible enough to know that this was not and could not be true.
Over the years there became a blurring of the two personas and his resistance to the stage Mercury faded until they were similar in many ways. The fantasy moved into the reality as media exposure intensified, yet at the same time, the intensity of the reality moved into the fantasy replacing the outrageousness and Freddie changed in both aspects.
Freddie's way of coping with this dichotomy was to become a compulsive person: to adopt and use a mode of life to excess until it no longer suited him and then switch it off. So he turned to drugs, or alcohol, collecting or sex. Each one of these excesses was used for as long as it was needed and then cast off without care or concern. One day he is using cocaine then, when no longer needed, it is gone as if it never existed. So too his other modes of excess. As a bifurcated genius, and one who was unsure as to his own place in life without his fame and fortune - remembering that this was all his future was to be - he was a destructive personality, something he freely admitted in some of his few interviews, not to mention in many of his songs such as 'My Love Dangerous', 'Mr Bad Guy' and so on.
We know from his music and lyrics that he was an intensely loving person, yet one who could never fully love, never fully realise the security and sanctity of love whether because of his fame or because of his basic shyness or insecurity. His love affairs were legendary - both in what is assumed and what is imagined as no one can really know - it is only in later texts and comments, written after his death, that we learn of these and must accept the word of their veracity. He made several comments, both on his promiscurity and on his loneliness which lead to the inevitable conclusion that the brief affair and the simple act of sexual closeness were used to hide the desire and need for a relationship. His time with Mary, the longest relationship in his life, was the only stability that he had in his adult life, and that lasted 6-7 years of being together. Yet it was the love of Mary which lasted him throughout the rest of his life: no matter which lifestyle or excess he was currently holding.
His quotes and statements make it clear that he lived a life of excess yet craved stability, he lived a life of promiscurity with both men and women, yet longed for someone - by all accounts a woman - to settle down with. Yet by this time, he was surrounded by women clamouring for him for his fame and not for himself. Perhaps like Clark Kent to Superman, Freddie (private) was in the shadow of Freddie (public) and wanted someone who didn't know or didn't care and to be certain that this would happen. Like all in this situation, he found someone who didn't know the public Freddie and, perhaps more importantly, didn't care about them.
Freddie had to live a life of Fantasy to fulfill the needs of his fans and those around him, yet the fantasy blurred and spilled into the reality, making him unable to accept or understand who or what he was: this caused him no end of pain, no end of moving and trying not to feel or to create the very stability that he craved. The fuel and product of genius is suffering and Freddie felt this, although perhaps never really understood it. He treated his life, as do many in this situation, with a disdain of the future, of a flippancy of social norms and requirements. He had his safe haven, he had his immediate needs filled by his excesses, he had his fame and glory and yet seemed to never have time for himself.
Perhaps, in his time with his cats, he recognised kindred spirits: an animal that, although domestic, is never tame and with them he could feel peace. His sexual orientations, whichever way they were at whichever time, were purely for that purpose: to fulfil an instant need, not to create a long-term relationship. He had that with Mary and never lost it. What he lost was the ability to be himself, to be the non-fantasy figure. From the 70's to the 80's media scrutiny intensified dramatically and privacy and calm became things of the past. His excesses in all their forms were a reaction to the fantasy life of his stage persona: a way of coping with who he was not, not the cause of his real life. A distinction missed by many.
In many ways the world demanded the fantasy of Freddie Mercury and were not satisfied with the reality and, in that demand, he found that there was no longer any room for him.
To Be continued....
