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Why I Love Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was gay, very gay. That’s not what this post is about, but I thought we might as well recognize that fact right out of the gate. We may end up circling around to it later on.
I love Queen. A few of their songs rank among my favorites; “One Vision” and “Another One Bites The Dust” are up there in the top 50, and “Somebody to Love” has a nice penthouse view from the top 20 alongside Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor and David Crowder Band’s “Only You.” I loved the song “Bohemian Rhapsody” when I first heard it, and got annoyed when Wayne’s World ruined it. But Freddie Mercury was Queen, and when he died so did the band, no matter how much Brian May and Adam Lambert would have you believe otherwise.
I remember finding out about his death in sophomore gym class. I never pondered the fact he died from AIDS and I didn’t know anyone who did; he was profoundly talented and I simply saw it as a loss. I enjoyed Freddie Mercury’s talent and didn’t think much about his lifestyle. I felt the same way about Derrick Thomas.
Derrick Thomas was arguably the most talented player in Kansas City Chiefs history. He died in a car accident at the height of his career in 2000. To this day the stands at Arrowhead Stadium are filled with #58 jerseys on game day, and one adorns my chest on most Fridays during the season. He was a Hall of Fame linebacker, and I loved him for what he did on the field. I never knew he fathered seven children with five women. I’m not sure it would have changed my fan perception of him, so long as he continued strip-sacking Broncos.
Another man I love who had a hard time honoring his family — as well as the law — was Johnny Cash. In the 1960s, Johnny Cash was famously addicted to the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll lifestyle. He could rightly be characterized as the motto’s poster boy. He got the infidelity figured out eventually and, by all accounts, was faithful to his second wife and even dedicated himself to Christ, but by then his best work was far behind him. My favorite Cash songs — “Boy Named Sue,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Walk the Line” — are what my wife and I fondly refer to as irreverent country music.
Is this a problem? Should I take into account an artist’s personal life before embracing their art? I certainly hope that’s not the case because there is a shortage of perfect people in this world. You might be hard pressed to enjoy any form of entertainment if ideological and moral purity is the standard because we all fall short.
Now, disclosure time.
I am a Christ follower, which is to say I am a Bible-believing Christian. I spend a significant portion of my time ministering with Biblical principles toward the ultimate goal of leading as many people as possible to freedom in Jesus Christ. Freedom in Christ often conflicts with the lifestyle choices we embrace. When we choose things that God warns us against, we will experience heartache, emptiness, and eventually the dissolution of the things we most care about. It was true for Derrick Thomas, and for Johnny Cash, and this leads us back to Freddie Mercury.
Freddie Mercury led a dangerous, sexually promiscuous homosexual lifestyle that cost him his life. But I didn’t care about his sexual orientation any more than Johnny Cash’s or David Crowder’s. I enjoy his music for the same reason I enjoy theirs: Because it’s good.
Queen has made a resurgence lately due to Rami Malik’s award-winning portrayal of Mercury in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. This year the Academy Awards featured the film in its Best Picture category. I’ve not seen it, but I did watch an Oscar performance by former Queen band members alongside Adam Lambert of a few Queen songs. Adam Lambert is a good singer, but his voice and his stage presence is nothing like Mercury’s and even he admits struggling singing them. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him honor Mercury’s legacy with humility. But of all the talent available for lead vocals in their current engagements, why did former Queen members wait so long and finally choose him? There is a very obvious reason: Adam Lambert is — like Freddy Mercury — famously and flamboyantly gay.
At the end of the Academy Award performance, a jumbotron image of Freddie Mercury hung above the stage in tribute. It seemed to me a fitting spectacle for a room full of individuals who collectively are much more concerned with ideology than art — the same people who rejected Kevin Hart as their host and practically disowned Kanye West for his choice of hat. I saw a room full of people with priorities opposite mine, clapping for Freddie Mercury for his lifestyle and not for how he sang.
Published in Entertainment
Submitted for your consideration: the two are inextricably intertwined, at least in this case.
Marc Martel of Downhere, who I always thought had a very Freddie-like voice, toured for awhile as part of a Queen tribute band formed by Queen’s drummer, Roger Taylor. Apparently he also contributed vocals for the movie.
Moses was excluded from the promised land for disobedience. His brother Aaron, their priest, let himself be intimidated or corralled into fashioning an image of a false god. King David slept with a soldier’s wife and had him killed. Paul harshly persecuted Christians before he became one. Peter pretended not to know his teacher, friend, and Lord to avoid persecution.
One cannot be Christian without accepting that the Lord brings goodness from broken instruments and grace from the wake of evils.
I heard a Judas Priest song the other day that left me nostalgic. It never bothered me that Rob Halford was gay, though like many I found it funny. But the name of the band and often the lyrics reflect a very sad fashion in music of recent decades which goes so far as to glorify evil, usually without truly believing in it. Some, like Ozzy Osborne, played at evil while wearing a cross or alternated between celebrating and escaping evil on the same album. Many of my favorite bands were like that.
We should seek the good in corrupt works and corrupt people. Simultaneously, we should defend ourselves against insidious evils that, like a poison, can be only a small part of the whole and yet entirely counteract the whole’s benefits. It can be challenging to discern which is the appropriate response in each circumstance.
It’s not necessarily wrong to be attracted to the social aspects of music — who the musicians are, rather than their works. People are similarly concerned when they discover reasons to like or dislike the persons behind works they use from non-artistic industries. Fascination with creators and leaders is common. But it’s sad when one is involuntarily incorporated into a cause like a tool.
There was a series of conversations around the TGA residence yesterday. It started with Mrs TGA’s cough that she’s had for a couple of weeks – likely due to allergies. When she called her mother to wish her a Happy Mothers Day, her mom started raving about elderberry drops, how my Father-IL and Brother-IL had both been suffering the same but had consumed some of said elderberry drops and it cleared them up.
As is my habit, words bring to mind songs, so I immediately grabbed my phone and looked up “Elderberry Wine” from Elton John’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album. Mrs TGA got angry with me because she started laughing which then caused her to cough more.
We then got into an interesting conversation. Sir EJ was a pioneer in the Rock World’s flamboyance and has been famously “bi” for decades. But gay and bi are lauded by the entertainment industry, so not only is his music (rightfully) celebrated, but so is his lifestyle. The dichotomy to me, however, is the recent knots the progressives have been tying themselves into over Michael Jackson. I don’t think anyone who is honest with themself thinks MJ was innocent of molesting those boys. But what, really, is the difference between MJ’s ad EJ’s transgressions? Is it mere chronology? From a Biblical perspective I view much of the behavior of the rich and famous to be sin. So I shake my head when I hear ostensibly Christian parents wringing their hands over whether their children should be exposed to Michael Jackson’s music while simultaneously celebrating the music from Lion King.
For many years I’ve felt that the ability to produce and perform music and other artistic forms of expression are gifts from God. Some choose to use those gifts to glorify Him, many do not. I still appreciate the gifts, however.
How so? Do you mean they made it funny or fun when it was supposed to be serious?
If not for Wayne’s World, I might never have heard the song.
I had heard Bohemian Rhapsody a hundred times before then and loved the song. I agree that the scene was fun and didn’t consider it ruining the song at all.
Also, my other knit was with Johnny Cash’s songs – they were brilliant throughout to me. His songs with June Carter Cash were superb and Hurt is so moving.
My best friend in Elementary School introduced me to Queen when Night at the Opera came out. He thought it was cool that one song had the words “ass” and “damn” in it. Listening to Queen was his form of rebellion. In retrospect, that was rather quaint.
It just got too much airplay, and I got annoyed hearing it out of the windows of cars in high school by people who knew only the latest MTV hit. It will always be a great song, but now it’s inseparably linked to Mike Meyers, and I usually skip it. I hate that.
I have frequently wondered if today’s “Offended by Everything” culture would be so triggered by “Fat Bottomed Girls,” that they’d label Queen “alt-right.”
I do not believe that Michael Jackson molested anyone.
Art vs The Artist. Everyone will have their own point of view. I am not a fan of Richard Wagner’s view on a number of things, but I can still listen.
Johnny Cash covering a song by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was the greatest musical shock of my life. Cheers to Cash for so boldly acknowledging a good thing regardless of its source.
I also love his cover of “Solitary Man” by Neil Diamond. That one I first heard in an episode of Stargate: Atlantis, strangely enough.
Some examples of songs I enjoy but probably shouldn’t are “Swamp Devil” by Circus of Power and pretty much anything by Corrosion of Conformity. I rarely allow myself to revisit the latter. I abandoned Danzig entirely.
I’ve never doubted for an instant that he did.
You probably couldn’t assume she would recognize a quote from Life of Brian, eh? “Not my berry bushes!”
Got her to watch it a few weeks ago as a matter of fact! But she wasn’t impressed. “Not nearly as funny as The Holy Grail”
Agreed. I so badly wish my kids could experience some of Holy Grail, there is just soooooo much inappropriate. I even shy from even recommending it to my eighteen-year-old.
I don’t know about my transgressions, but MJ had a better jump shot (just ask Craig Ehlo.)
I too like the music of Queen immensely – it’s so much harder to write a good pop song than most of us realize, and they (he?) wrote so many so good.
I was ambivalent about the movie; I kept laughing at myself because, whatever the action that was going on, if they started a song I was getting annoyed if they interrupted it for some more plot. Dammit, finish the song! I kept saying. Through the whole movie.
And as for Bohemian Rhapsody, I have never grown tired of it. It is a ridiculously phenominal piece of music. It would be like growing tired of Siegfried’s Funeral March. Never.
Hmm.
Well, actually I can not blame her. For most of my life I wou;d have said that The Holy grail was the funniest movie ever made, with Young Frankenstein second.
But over the years I have realized that for structure, philosopy, acting, and sheer laughs, The Life of Brian is a serious contender for that No. 1 spot. Sooooo many legendary bits: “line on the left, one cross each”, “are you a virgin?”, “Romans go home”, “packet of gravel”, “Jehova, Jehova”, “I want to be called Loretta”, “what is “myrrh” anyway?”, “Blessed are the cheese makers”, and of course “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”.
There are lots of funny bits in movies, but few where it is physiologically impossible not to laugh when viewed:
I love Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra. More or less horrible human beings. Great artists – if you just listen to their art. On the other hand, there are plenty of Jews who love grand opera, but can’t listen to Wagner. It’s not their fault that their gag reflex has kicked in. They’ve been robbed of great art. There is no “should” here. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to conflate art and artist. But, in a selfish sense, you are better off if you can separate and enjoy art created by evil people. You shouldn’t ignore the evil of the creator (OK, you can if you want) but there are lots of evil men and there isn’t much great art. Enjoy.
Queen produced great music – they were a talented bunch. If we judge everyone by their flaws or sins, we can pretty much erase all the great music, movies, books, paintings well just about any expression of the human spirit in art – since we are all flawed. It seems we have entered a period of extraordinary judgement and criticism in the name of social justice and political correctness – and that’s a sad day.
Where the left once raised the alarm about the religious right coming for your rock-n-roll, ironically, it’s the left that has turned into pious scolds who would happily censor certain artists for wrong-think.
Conservatives have long had practice separating art and artist — otherwise we’d have no music or movies or art of any kind. The left has never had to develop that skill, and it shows.
By people who tell us not to judge and accuse us of being judgmental.
The Left have always been scolds. They were the force behind Prohibition, though no one is taught that in public school.
They have a habit of projecting every bad thing about themselves onto the Right. It works to put us on the defensive and to keep them from having to ever be self-critical. It’s a useful strategy, though few sheep would know it.
Just explain to them it’s science.Scientifically proven they make the rockin’ world go round.
God bless you, Vince. Just so. We Christians should take every opportunity to recognize the imago Dei in others — especially when it virtually slaps you in the face, like Freddie’s talent did. I’ve read a little about him (as a result of the movie, which I haven’t seen) and believe there were other aspects of his life reflective of God’s goodness. But, his sex life wasn’t one of them, and it’s disheartening that the Left’s obsession with identity reduces everyone to what goes on in their underwear. Which is more than a little ironic, because when I was an atheist, I remember sneering at religious conservatives (pro-life), “Get out of our underwear!” Come to find out, it’s another case of projection! Look whose living in everyone’s underwear??!
Maybe we should have a conversation about books Christians won’t let their children read — Harry Potter?
I watched a special about Queen and their process of restarting touring with Adam Lambert. He isn’t Freddie, and he doesn’t pretend to be. But he does a great job of performing Freddie’s songs, and the band looked far and wide to find someone with the range and talent to do them justice. They broke up for years after Mercury’s death, and didn’t think they would ever perform again until Lambert came along.
So I don’t agree that they just wanted another gay guy to fill the gay guy’s place. Seems a bit of a harsh judgement. Lambert really is quite a good singer.
If you really love Queen, give them a chance with their new singer. It is always hard to accept a change like that, but I think Brian May said in that special, it was Lambert, or no Queen. Freddie Mercury is gone, and it is better to honor his memory by performing his songs then to just let it die with him.
I think this proves my point.
And I’m calling a big bravo Sierra on the whole “searching far and wide” for a singer narrative. They could have found a thousand people with more talent and zero sex appeal; they wanted a substitute Freddie.
Journey pulled the same card when they decided to tour again but Steve Perry declined. They didn’t want a great singer, they wanted a Steve Perry clone. It was badly done then, and the former Queen members are doing it badly again.
Of course they have to say what they’re saying. It doesn’t make it true.
Have you even listened to any performances with Lambert? You seem pretty convinced the man can’t sing, and that simply isn’t so…
Should’a been this guy: