So the story behind this song, is heart breaking and heart warming at the same time. Brian May, the guitarist for Queen, wrote this song for the 1991 Queen album Innuendo. The song was written about how even though Freddie Mercury was slowly dying from AIDS, he was still doing shows, writing, and making music with the band. When they were recording the song, they were worried the Freddie would not have had the strength to do the vocals, because it was getting much worse, and was bed ridden, but he recorded it, and killed it. There will be no one like Freddie Mercury. I don’t care what anyone says, Queen was and still is the best band ever to exist.
The Show Must Go On by Queen
“I’ll fucking do it, darling” he said and killed it in a single take that’s something you need to remember. This is a song that was a single continuous take for his vocals. No misses. No re-records. Not on this, not for Freddie.
I knew everything else, but I had no idea it was done in one take and that kills me. He was so badass.
I love that I see Tumblr having this immense respect for Freddie Mercury. I just get really emotional about it. Like, he was Parsi and originally from Zanzibar, apparently bisexual though I don’t think he ever claimed a label(?), artistic, grand, brave, he loved cats, he was a constant fucking delight, he is everything Tumblr loves, and I love seeing Tumblr grasp that.
I’ll be 38 next month and was raised on Queen not knowing any of this about him, and I still loved him and loved his voice. And I wish I had known all of this as I was discovering their work and falling in love with it because I feel like it would have made a huge difference to me.
So, yes, basically, let’s make Freddie Mercury one of Tumblr’s Patron Saints. Let’s keep spreading the music to younger people and leading them to the love of someone who is surely one of the greatest singers ever to live. And who, if he had lived, would no doubt have loved us back.
Like, if you listen to this, and you know anything about vocal performance, you can tell he’s having trouble with breath support, because he’s literally dying and all that. And he still nails every note. The music video for the song is clips from Queen’s earlier music videos, because he was too sick to actually perform any choreography.
So basically, we should appreciate the fuck out of this song.
1) This is honestly one of my favorite Queen songs and has been for years for all of the above reasons
2) He truly was and remains a Constant Fucking Delight, and I love seeing people realize exactly how wonderful, important and generally amazing he was and how blessed this planet was to have him for not-nearly-long-enough
3) If anybody deserves to be a fucking saint of anything, it’s Freddie Mercury.
