FREDDIE MERCURY – LOVER OF LIFE, SINGER OF SONGS

This month, a new CD, DVD, book, website and photo exhibition celebrates Freddie’s 60th birthday. Queen archivist Greg Brooks tells the story behind the new projects. Additional material by Phil Symes

It is a sobering thought that had Freddie Mercury survived the    fearsome onset of the HIV/Aids virus which overtook many of his generation, he would have been 60 years old on September 5th this year. Freddie Mercury and ‘old’ do not sit well together, and Freddie at 60 is hard to picture. Remembering all that wonderful footage of Queen in concert, or in the studio, in the many videos and documentaries, it is inconceivable that the larger than life Queen front man could ever be anything other than full of life and music and boundless energy. Can you imagine Freddie Mercury with grey hair and grey moustache? Freddie Mercury as an old man? No. Somehow it would never have happened.

Freddie himself knew he would never grow old, for he said so many times. He told journalist David Wigg that being 70 would be boring and that he would be dead and gone long before that.  “I don’t expect to make old bones, and what’s more I don’t really care,” he said. “I certainly don’t have any aspirations to live to 70. As far as I’m concerned I’ve lived a full life and if I’m dead tomorrow I don’t give a damn. I really have done it all. As far as I’m concerned I just want to pack in as much of life and fun as I can within the years that I have.” And that is precisely what he did.

One cannot help but ponder the tantalising prospect of ‘What if?’ Had Freddie lived, what would he have been doing this past fifteen years, since 1991? What might he have created, and with whom? More opera, or rock, further collaborations with Montserrat Caballé, or with Aretha Franklin maybe, or something mad and over the top with Liza Minnelli, or possibly a film of his life story, or a ballet or musical? Freddie hated repeating the same formula, so it’s certain that whatever he would have gone on to do, it would have been new and fresh and different, and with that capricious Freddie Mercury flavour to it.

By 1985, aged 39, Freddie believed the time was drawing near for him to give up running around on stage in skin-tight leotards, black leather, ballet shoes, Japanese kimonos, and the like. “I would look ridiculous and it’s not very becoming,” he explained. Already he was beginning to think about his future in terms of performing, and his image, and what Queen might be doing. Freddie said he felt his future would always be in music in some form and that it was, simply, the thing he was best at. “This is all I know, this is in me. What else would I do?” He made brief mention of writing a musical, of producing music rather more than recording it, and he hinted at writing material for others. On the subject of how he would like to be remembered, “I’d love to go while I’m still on top,” is how he put it, and that he surely did. Freddie died at the very height of his success and popularity, aged just 45, on November 24th 1991.

Back in 2006, Freddie’s would-be 60th birthday could not be overlooked, and so it was that the usual team of people set to work upon a CD, DVD, book, website and other related things.

As far as the Best Of CD and DVD compilations were concerned, accusations of re-hashing the same Freddie material all over again were bound to attach themselves to these products – it was inevitable. But EMI, Jim Beach (Queen’s manager) and the team who put together the various elements all now coming to fruition, viewed this as the perfect opportunity to bring Freddie’s solo work to the attention of a wider audience.

The 12-CD Solo boxed set of 2000 was clearly aimed at the serious Queen/Freddie fans, whereas the new CD and DVD is intended to reach new ears and eyes. The new product offers the best of Freddie’s solo output in a concise and sensible way – and let’s not overlook the obvious difference in cost between the 2000 box, and the new CD and DVD, and the fact that only those who purchased that extensive 12-disc anthology will have heard the rarities contained on CD 2, or indeed much of CD 1.

A lot of the music on this Best Of – beyond The Great Pretender, Love Kills, Barcelona, Living On My Own, Time and I Was Born To Love You - will be new to most people. Many will be hearing the likes of Made In Heaven, There Must Be More To Life Than This, Guide Me Home, How Can I Go On, Foolin’ Around, Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow, The Golden Boy, I Can Hear Music, Goin’ Back and the Mr Bad Guy title track for the very first time – and of course the wonderful session out-takes and rare mixes on CD 2.

Unlike the Freddie Mercury Album of 1993, re-titled The Great Pretender for American release, The Very Best of Freddie Mercury Solo  features the mostly the original mixes of the songs, as Freddie would have known them, rather than the remixes commissioned after his death.

For CD 1 we chose simply the best of Freddie Mercury’s solo work, not just the singles, and offered them in a carefully considered sequence. Then, at EMI’s suggestion, we got to thinking about a bonus disc. Bonus discs re not everyone’s cup of tea, and likewise brand new remixes of Freddie staples are likely to be slated as soon as they are on the agenda. Word escaped to the internet world quickly on this, and sure enough the remixes were under attack before even being commissioned or heard. This is the nature of Queen and Freddie music, but actually some rather intriguing new mixes have emerged.

CD two is simply what it says on the tin. If Freddie’s solo material is new to you, and it will be to many thousands, then remixes of the lovely material on disc one will be a welcome alternative. To a lot of the fans, naturally they will instead be perceived (as I saw on some web sites) as superfluous remixes; hip and trendy DJ remixers fixing what isn’t broken. Everyone has an opinion. Many of the same people I’m referring to will have slated the 1993 Living On My Own remix, but nevertheless it went to number one in the UK, and like it or loathe it, Freddie would have loved that. How do we know that? It’s simple; when asked which Mr Bad Guy track was the most rewarding (in 1985), Freddie’s immediate retort to David Wigg was, “The one that sells the most.”

The Songs

While most people would think Freddie’s solo career began in 1985 with the Mr Bad Guy album, in fact it began much earlier, in 1973, with cover versions of the Beach Boys’ I Can Hear Music and Goffin-King’s Goin’ Back, released as a single under the pseudonym, Larry Lurex. The single disappeared without trace, so it’s not surprising few people are aware of this inauspicious start to Freddie’s solo career. Both are included on CD 1.

A number of tracks on disc 1 come from Mr Bad Guy, the album recorded in 1983/85 in Munich during a period when Freddie was heavily into the club scene in the city. Freddie’s love of the dance music he was surrounded by at the time shows through in tracks like I Was Born To Love You and Living On My Own - which, remixed in 1993, gave Freddie a posthumous No.1 hit, an Ivor Novello award, and, surprisingly, the only No.1 of his solo career.

One of the most musically fulfilling periods of Freddie’s life was his musical love affair with Spanish opera diva, Montserrat Caballé.  From this unlikely, but magical union, came the high drama of Guide Me Home and How Can I Go On and the track Barcelona, which Freddie wrote for Montserrat’s home city and which became the theme for the 1992 Olympics, the year following Freddie’s passing.

Although Freddie only ever released two solo albums, Mr Bad Guy and Barcelona, there are reports he had plans, and indeed had started work on a ‘covers’ album. This is widely considered to be the origin of one of his most popular singles, his version of The Platters’ classic The Great Pretender, released first by Freddie in 1987 (when it reached No.4) and subsequently reissued in 1993.

While CD1, with a few exceptions, features mostly versions as originally recorded, the second disc of the set is a feast of rarities and new and unheard remixes. Over half of the tracks featured are 2006 mixes.

In recognition of Freddie’s passion for new musical adventures and his love of the club music scene, a number of his best loved tracks were handed over to some of today’s most highly regarded up and coming international remixers. Pixel82, The Glimmers, George Demure, Sunshine People, Rank 1, Star Rider, No More Brothers and The Egg, were all given an open brief to take Freddie’s original creation and rework it in their own unique and unpredictable style.

On a more retrospective level, a vocal and piano version of Your Kind Of Lover and Freddie’s startling acappella delivery of Let’s Turn It On, were selected to give an insight into Freddie at work in the studio and underline the fact that as well as a unique writer, he was also one of the finest vocalists ever. As Brian May says: “Freddie sang with a joy and spontaneity that came from plucking his own inspiration from the air, or his own heart. It is hard to find a parallel anywhere for this man who combined composing with such outstanding performance.”

CD 1 ends with a moving recital of Freddie and Mike Moran’s Guide Me Home performed by Swiss jazz pianist and Blue Note artist Thierry Lang, a native of Freddie’s final home city of Montreux, and specially arranged and recorded by Lang as his own  tribute to Freddie.

THE DVD

Freddie Mercury Lover of Life, Singer of  Songs (2 DVD Set) The first disc, Lover of Life features Freddie Mercury – The Untold Story, a documentary by the DoRo film-making team of Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher, who worked with Queen and Freddie over more than a decade. It tracks the life of the young Farrokh Bulsara from The Hospital Government Zanzibar where he was born on a Thursday, September 5, 1946 and where his childhood friend John Baptist da Silva is still lobbying the islanders to recognize him, through schooldays in India, the working class suburbs of 60’s Bohemian London, and over the twenty plus years which followed; years of extraordinary and fabulous success.

Here are those who shared an extremely close relationship with Freddie: his mother and father Jer and Bomi Bulsara, sister Kashmira; Mary Austin, his long time girlfriend Mary Austin, who continues to live at Garden Lodge, his last home; designer Diana Mosely, who first met him on his Born To Love You video and became designer of his private wardrobe and public costumes; Peter Freestone, personal assistant for more than 10 years; Jim Hutton, his partner at the time of his death.

Outside of this close circle there were the friends, photographers, record producers, and record bosses; and back in Zanzibar and India, the relatives, school friends, even his first child sweetheart, Gita R Goshi, on whom he had a crush during his school day years at St. Peter’s in Panjghani, India. 

Mary Austin, the person perhaps closest to Freddie throughout his life, talks lovingly about the man who she was all but in name ‘married’ to: “It was a relief when he told me he was gay. How could I deny him the right to be at one with himself? It was a love that you accept and understand because you want the person inside to grow, and fascinating to see this person finally at ease and at one with himself; it was an almost euphoric feeling.”

Jer Bulsara, Freddie’s ‘mummy’ and sister Kashmira tell how it was inevitable that Mercury would want to leave Zanzibar: “For a boy like him there wasn’t much for him to do, instead he was always looking at magazines which came from overseas and wanting to know what it would be like to be there”. Jer talks about Freddie’s first journey away from the family, sent just before he reached his 9th birthday to St. Peter’s, a residential boarding school in India, where he formed his first band The Hectics, and a school report which rounds up his achievements as: “Accomplished boxer, good singer, outstanding pianist, unbeatable table tennis player, thoroughly mediocre cross country runner.”

Spanish Opera legend Montserrat Caballé, 'the voice that sang with Freddie Mercury the song for my city', recalls how nervous he was at their first meeting: “I felt the cold on his hand, I thought he’s nervous too, so that’s good, because when people are nervous it means both are expecting something from one another.” Montserrat also recalls the night spent around Freddie’s piano when they first got to know one another. “It was a very special night, a wonderful night I will never forget. It was such a wonderful time that we didn’t realise that time passed so quickly. It was 6 o’clock in the morning when I left and there were lots of people in the street, surprised that I had spent the night in Freddie’s home!”

Freddie’s final days are movingly told by his     family, boyfriend Jim Hutton, assistant Peter Freestone, and Mary Austin, who says: “Freddie had given himself a limit. I think personally that when he couldn’t record anymore, when he didn’t have the energy to do it, it would be the time, because his life had been his work and his joy, and without it he wouldn’t have been strong enough to face what he had to face.”  

Extras: The Making of – The Untold Story, a 20 minute behind the scenes documentary featuring extended interviews and deleted scenes.

DVD Two: Singer Of Songs. The Solo Videos Director David Mallet: “Freddie was always involved – with Queen or with his own single records - in the concept of the video. He was involved in every single aspect of it, and that’s the way I liked it, because we had such a good time working it out.

“Any video that you made with Freddie, was always a dichotomy between laughing so hard that you just felt you couldn’t stand up – because he was one of the funniest men I’ve ever met – and moments of utter despair, when everything was going wrong and he was unhappy and miserable.

“Working with Freddie enriched everybody around him. It probably sounds a bit phoney to say this, but it is so true. Everybody came away enriched in some way. If you just laughed your guts out for 24 hours, that’s enrichment.

“Freddie was one of the really great originals of the second half of the twentieth century. There was nobody like Freddie. There was no one even a bit like Freddie. There was just nobody like him at all.”

The Solo Videos DVD contains all of Freddie’s solo video performances, specially remixed for 5.1 surround sound audio. It offers the opportunity to revisit such classic moments as the majesty of Freddie and Montserrat Caballé and fountains and fireworks in Barcelona; Freddie and 300 Amazonian women in I Was Born To Love You; men in women’s clothing in Living On My Own; and Freddie recreating some of his personal favourite video characters in The Great Pretender. Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter once observed that there were some alarming lapses of taste from the Queen camp over the years. The extended version of the Pretender video, though a solo endeavour, may well be the kind of thing he had in mind; humour, theatricals, colourful language – and frocks to match.

Running Order: Barcelona, The Great Pretender, I Was Born To Love You, Time, How Can I Go On, Made In Heaven, Living On My Own, The Golden Boy, In My Defence. Bonus Videos: Barcelona (Live Version), The Great Pretender (Extended Version), Living On My Own (1993 Remix). Extras: Directors Commentary – Each director explains the creative process behind the videos. A View Forever – Documentary describing the creation and unveiling of the Freddie statue in Montreux. Includes interview with sculptor Irena Sedlecka. The Three Producers – Extended interviews with the three producers who knew Freddie best – Dave Richards, Mike Moran and Mack. The Last Interview – Last filmed interview with Freddie - unedited. Interactive Photo Gallery (CD ROM) – Highlights from the Freddie Mercury Photo Exhibition – accompanied by Thierry Lang performance of Freddie songs.

THE BOOK

During his short and remarkable life, Freddie Mercury gave innumerable interviews. Most are documented and many survive to this day in the archive - on film, audio tape and in text form.

It is no secret that Freddie disliked interviews, despite the great number he gave. He regarded them as tedious and boring but a necessary part of his job. He knew that with the release of each new Queen record, solo project or tour would come the inevitable surge of journalists eager for their pound of him.

Freddie once said that dullness was a disease (the biggest disease in the world no less), and he also explained that talking endlessly about himself was for the most part uninteresting. It had all been covered before, there was nothing new left to tell.

Moreover, anything in life remotely boring, even for a second, was intolerable to Freddie – as many of his interrogators found out. If an interview failed to keep his interest or began to flag even for a second, which was often the case, Freddie would inimitably let it be known. He would fidget, or fiddle with his drink, or light up a cigarette, and then he would attempt to cajole something taxing from his inquisitor. Freddie could no more tolerate a bad interview or interviewer than he could endure wasting valuable time. He hated repetition in all things and struggled to maintain focus in any situation verging on uninteresting. Any journalist left wanting could expect an exasperated, “Now come along dear, I’m getting bored!”

And so it was that for five or ten or thirty tiresome minutes, however long the interrogation endured, one interview after another after another, Freddie tried his best to impart whatever was asked of him. It did not come easy to him, for his mind wandered so easily, and sometimes he complained, yet even so, like every performance in his life, and albeit reluctantly, always he gave it his all. 

Freddie would have given significantly more interviews had certain journalists he encountered – particularly in the early days of Queen’s success, and particularly in England, not so completely ridiculed and misrepresented him at every juncture. Much of what emerged from the dreary encounters that demanded so much of Freddie’s time was wide of the mark and all too predictable, so much so indeed, that Freddie often wondered why certain journalists even bothered to turn up and ask him questions when clearly they already had their answers in mind - if not already written up. Upon reading the fiction penned in his name, Freddie’s reaction was often, “Was I actually at that interview?”

Freddie could be flippant and dismissive, and all the things most people associate with him, and he could do it better than most. Indeed, he became a master of it over 20 years. But, and this is often overlooked, he could just as likely confess, in the next breath, “I’m a very loving person you know,” or “Sometimes I wake up and wish I wasn’t Freddie Mercury today,” and this too could floor an interviewer.

For some reason few people (journalists anyway) expected Freddie Mercury to have a sensitive, tender side. He didn’t say it often, in fact only twice that I could find in the archive, but Freddie’s feeling on this was simply, “I’m a human being… I would like people to realise that I’m a human being.”

Press interest in Queen’s outrageous and flamboyant (always those same tired adjectives) lead singer never faltered. The British paparazzi plagued Freddie throughout his life and never more so, and never more irresponsibly, than during the final traumatic months of his life, at home in London. There was no respite and no consideration – only papers to sell! They never relented for a second, and Freddie (like the rest of the band members) loathed that more than any other aspect of ‘the job’. Freddie never achieved the cut-off, peace, respite, he so dearly craved. He never even came close to it.

In terms of filmed encounters, the archive contains some truly wonderful moments. The whole spectrum is there; Freddie in good or great form, in not so good off-day form, in ‘I’d rather be anywhere else but here’ mode, or else in his typically impatient “Get on with it!” mode. And then, every so often, there are tapes with the man in truly unsurpassable, devastating form – in which case the listener can only pity the hapless interviewer. When Freddie was good he was very good, but when he was great, in top form, he was a formidable unstoppable whirling dervish, with a mind that raced a thousand times faster than anyone that ever interviewed him.

From all these tapes, newspapers and magazines, most facets of Freddie emerge – those he wished to be public, anyway. Collectively they offer a totally spellbinding insight. Like him or loathe him, Freddie Mercury was a fascinating and exceptional human being. As Roger, Brian and John have all stated many times, Freddie was a true one-off.

Freddie once confessed, “I don’t like doing interviews because if you plonk a tape recorder in front of me I just clam up.” He was always a tightly closed clam, and prizing anything out of him required not a little patience and skill. Invariably during interviews, Freddie skipped from one thought to another in mid sentence, racing on to the next thing and then the next and finishing only every third or fourth idea; his mind multiple sentences ahead of his mouth. He wanted be concise and succinct and to put across a lot of information in as few words as possible, but mostly they eluded him. Rarely did the words come to him in time and when that happened he just carried on regardless, muttering something inaudible and adding a little “so there you have it!” and that would have to do.

Freddie always got his point across, of course, and he did have bursts of fluency, but mostly his remarkable word dexterity in the field of song lyrics generally did not extend to the interview situation. This too, this rare anomaly, was another of the many endearing facets that made Freddie what he was.

No, Freddie was not the best interviewee in the world, in terms of perfectly executed lucid unbroken sentences without distracted thought, but he never professed to be. Freddie was a musician, he wasn’t a professional speaker. He didn’t like talking with those he barely knew because, like many private people, he wasn’t good with outsiders. He was simply the greatest rock and roll singer and stadium performer of all time, that’s all! – though he never professed to be that either… that is my opinion.

Thanks to various tenacious individuals, we can unravel some of the complex layers and just a little of the mystery that was Freddie Mercury – formerly Farrokh Bulsara. He will remain an enigma for the most part, naturally, and most of the mystique will endure. But at least we can learn something of what made him tick.

Much of what you will read in the book is Freddie at his considered and measured best. If the moment calls for it, Freddie’s razor-sharp wit will conjure something perfect, ad hoc, to slay his interrogator; a pyramid in Kensington, nubile slaves to carry him on to stage, giving up sex and growing tulips, cats and dogs (see the text), likening himself to a musical prostitute. Time after time Freddie Mercury delivered; he never let his public down.

Simon Lupton and I sincerely hope Freddie, and his family of course, would have approved of this book, not least because we have excised the weaker moments and left only the best and most informative bits. We were greatly pleased to hear that Jer Bulsara, Freddie’s mother, felt able to offer a Foreword, and we think her few lovely words say a great deal.

Freddie left explicit instructions that Roger, John, Brian and Jim Beach should proceed with whichever projects they deemed appropriate on his behalf, as long as he himself NEVER came across as boring. That, then, was our governing principal in the compilation of this work.

This book follows Freddie through 20 years of media coverage, finding him at various points in his life, in contrasting moods and discussing a wide range of issues; the good, the bad, and the disgraceful! Whatever he had to say, wherever he said it, and whatever the reason, most of it is documented... most of it, thank goodness, survived. A considerable proportion of it has been transcribed for the first time ever for this project, and from this amalgamation of everything, Freddie looms larger than life, as vivid as ever, and demanding your attention.

There are moments of humour and irritation, of tenderness and startling candour, moments of seriousness and frivolity, and, with hindsight, there are uncomfortable poignant comments too. Freddie addresses each subject in his inimitable flippant way, like no one else could, but always with good humour and frankness. This truly is Freddie Mercury in his own words, being everything BUT boring. Never boring!

THE WEBSITE

www.loveroflifesingerofsongs.com This new website (named after a phrase coined by Brian May), has two main sections.The LOL side concentrates on the DVD and book releases, and Freddie himself. It includes a biography, an exclusive contribution by Freddie’s PA of 12 years Peter Freestone and four new galleries that include classic and rare images. Audio and video content comes from the The Untold Story and extras on the 2 DVD set plus classic quotes from Freddie and interview clips from the audio book that is being released on iTunes. Editor’s notes by Greg Brooks on the book Freddie Mercury: A Life In His Own Words can also be found.

The Singer Of Songs area focuses on Freddie’s musical output as a solo artist. An album discography and commentary is included, as are all his singles as part of a picture gallery. Video clips and background pieces on all the solo videos can be found, as well as sections and audio samplers for the new The Very Best Of Freddie Mercury Solo collection. Peter Freestone again contributes an interesting piece on Freddie’s musical tastes and influences. Links to mobile, download and merchandise stores are also included, as are four more galleries of song-based images and some hidden extras that can be found including a secret party sampler called Mrs. Henderson’s and alternative Mr Bad Guy lyrics.

Mercury Stars On 5th September 2006, Freddie Mercury would have been 60th years old.  A whole variety of events will take place around this date, including a birthday party at the Dominion Theatre in London supporting the Mercury Phoenix Trust, the charity set up in Freddie’s memory by Queen and Jim Beach (Queen’s Manager), after his death to fight AIDS worldwide..

Freddie Mercury’s new website, www.loveroflifesingerofsongs.com. was launched in mid-July and when you visit it you will see that the home page is designed around the constellation of Virgo (Freddie’s star sign, viewed from the southern hemisphere, as Freddie born in Zanzibar). In addition the website is joining forces with the Mercury Phoenix Trust on a fund raising initiative which will feature two additional mythical constellations: one constellation is entitled Lover of Life and the other, Singer of Songs. You can visit one or both of the constellations and name a star in either constellation and attach a short birthday message for Freddie.  The minimum amount payable in order to name a star will be £1.00 or the local currency equivalent.  The profit will go to the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

As the two constellations grow, visitors to the site will be able to fly through the constellations and stop at any star to see whose star it is and what message is attached. Celebrities such as Robert DeNiro and Montserrat Caballé have already agreed to name a star and it is hoped that two massive constellations can be built by both the famous and ‘the not famous’ to join the Mercury Phoenix Trust in its fight against AIDS worldwide.

PHOTO EXHIBITION The official 60th anniversary photographic exhibition, Freddie Mercury: Lover Of Life, Singer Of Songs, showcasing rare images of Freddie from both public and private collections - including those featured in this article - is at Proud Central, 5 Buckingham Street, The Strand, WC2N 6BP (www.proud.co.uk) from 8th September-22nd October 2006. Opening Times: Monday to Thursday 10am - 7pm; Friday to Sunday 11am to 6pm. Entry: Free. www.proud.co.uk

With thanks to Nick Weymouth, Jim Beach and Phil Symes

FREDDIE IN HIS OWN WORDS

I’m not going to be a star, I’m going to be a legend! I want to be the Rudolph Nureyev of rock and roll!

In the beginning I was quite prepared to starve, which I did, and just make a go of it. You have to believe in yourself, no matter how long it takes.

When we first formed all of us were aiming for the top slot and we weren’t going to be content with anything less. You have to have a kind of arrogance and lots of confidence and absolute determination, as well as all the other obvious skills like music.

When we first got our band together I think most people were really shocked because they thought pop groups usually consisted of ex-truck drivers of very little brains.

We said, ‘Let’s make it interesting. Let’s try to incorporate all the different backgrounds that we’ve acquired’. I suppose it was snobbish really. We didn’t want Queen to be just everybody’s band, but for just a select few to start with.

At the start I knew we were going to be huge – and we were. There was never a doubt in my mind. Never.

I’ve never considered myself the leader of Queen –the most important person perhaps…”

I often wonder what my mother must think when she sees way out pictures of me on stage in all that regalia and make up. But like my father, she doesn’t ask any questions.”

When I was a small child, in the choir in India, I just loved to sing. Then I realised I could actually write songs and make my own music. It dawned on me that I could do it my way. Suddenly there was a little taste of success, and I liked it.”

The fighting for the Queen songs has been one of the worthwhile factors. Sometimes I think it’s a question of whoever fights the longest wins the day.” If I wanted children I’d just go to Harrods and buy one. They sell anything there. Buy two, and you get a nanny thrown in!

I’d love to have a baby, yes. But I’d rather have another cat.

We started the video boom, remember!

I’m not a star-f***er.How can I be a star-f***er? I am a star!

I suppose that’s what Bob Geldof is at the moment, the Mother Theresa of rock‘n’roll.

People are apprehensive when they meet me and they think I’m going to eat them. But underneath it all I’m quite shy and very few people know what I’m really like.    

I am so depressed by these people who still won’t admit that everything we do simply drips with originality.   

I’m a city person. I’m not into all this country air and cow dung!

I like to be surrounded by splendid things. I want to lead the Victorian life, surrounded by exquisite clutter.

I don’t care what journalists say. What do they know? F*** them if they just don’t get it!

From now on, dressing up crazily on stage is out. I don’t think a 42-year old man should be running around in a leotard any more. It’s not very becoming.

When my legs give out, I’ll be happy to just sit around in bandages, knitting socks for sailors!

I know there will be a time when I have to stop, but music will still be my thing, so I’ll have to think in terms of what I can do. I don’t want to end my life just being a rock’ an’d roll star. Maybe I can go into production or I’ll still write songs -  – because you might not have the physical fitness to run around on stage, but you can still write songs. So, one way or another the music side is always going to be in my life..

Will my music stand the test of time? I don’t give a f***. I won’t be around to worry about it. In 20 years time… I’ll be dead darling. Are you mad?

I don’t expect to make old bones, and what’s more I don’t really care. I certainly don’t have any aspirations to live to 70. It would be so boring. I will be dead and gone long before that. I’ll be starting a new life somewhere else , growing my own pomegranates.

If I’m dead and I want to be buried with all my treasures, like Tutankhamen, I’ll do it. If I want a pyramid in Kensington, and I can afford it, I’ll have it. Wouldn’t that be fab? Will I get to heaven? No. I don’t want to. Hell is much better. Look at all the interesting people you’re going to meet down there!

I’m just a musical prostitue, my dear.

I’ve stopped going out, stopped the nights of wild partying. I thought sex was important to me, but now I’ve gone the other way. What more can I do? I’ve stopped having sex and started growing tulips.

I have a good relationship now, and also I’m an old bird now. I’ve stopped all that and I don’t miss that kind of thing. Everything is fine.

I don’t want to sound like Gloria Swanson or something, but I will not come to the realisation that it is going to end.

I love the fact that I make people happy, in any form. Even if it’s just half an hour of their lives, if I can make them feel lucky or make them feel good, or bring a smile to a sour face, that to me is worthwhile.

From the book Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words by Greg Brooks & Simon Lupton

by Greg Brooks
<< Back to Issue 328

Login Here

Free Newsletter


Subscribe to
our email newsletter by emailing:

david.harvey@
metropolis.co.uk