Sunday Morning Post

Posted on by Sorryless

When Freddie Mercury sang a song, it was as if he was telling the grim reaper to give him just a little more time. He didn’t much care about leaving too soon, but he just wanted to make the song count.

He used to say he didn’t concern himself with things like mortality. To his way of thinking, dying was gonna happen no matter how much you cried about it. So why not raise a middle finger to the fucking thing and do whatever it is you were meant to be doing in the first place?

His talent was a deconstruction of the white picket fenced logic that was busy getting the world nowhere fast. He made magic with the absurdities and then he dressed them up in felt tipped bullets and made fire. He was a scoundrel and a prince, a king and a queen. He was heart and soul in a world that never seems to have enough of it.

He had the remarkable ability to treat each and every song as if it had never happened before. No matter if he’d written it years earlier and no matter if he had belted out the lyrics a thousand times since. Because that song, the one he was singing in that moment . . . it had never happened before.

His music possessed a desperate immediacy that felt wonderfully illogical. It felt the way music was supposed to feel when you were young and pissed off at the world. He was a totem to a generation of kids who wanted to believe in something, because he threw a wicked curve ball at the consecrated rules. He let everyone know it was okay to expect your music to behave differently. He was a cubist with his lyricism, a maestro with his vocals. And he knew us in a way we didn’t even know ourselves.

It really is impossible to believe he’s been gone almost twenty seven years, and that’s because his music will never go to sleep. I like to think the genius part of him went on a mystical vacation to a much better place than this.

His heart and soul, well . . it’s still working the room.

 

Published by Sorryless

35 thoughts on “Sunday Morning Post”

  2. B,

    What a wonderful review of the man who was Freddie Mercury. You have managed in so few words to capture the essence of who he was. And you are so right.

    His music will never sleep. He is Haydn, Debussy, Stravinsky… musicians whose music was innovative and still here today and will be for all the tomorrows.

    Beautifully done, mi amigo…

    Q

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Q,

      He was a prophet without trying, a poet without the angst. As with all things brilliant, we mostly took it for granted that he would be doing his thing forever. And yes, he will be . . just not in the way in which we had envisioned.

      I do wonder what he would have been like in the years that followed. I like to think he would have been the same person- intensely private and maddeningly obsessed with the music above all else.

      All genius goes away, so it’s the soul that ventures on into the mystic. Which IS the lesson, seeing as how it’s the only part of us that is unaffected by the status driven inanities of a given time.

      Muchas gracias lovely! MWAH!

      B

      Liked by 1 person

      1. That he was and that we did. All the greats leave too soon… I sometimes believe it is because they gave so much while they were here.

        I am sure he would have been exactly the same.

        It goes away – or is cut off prematurely. The soul IS what makes the difference.

        You rock and you soul!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I think so too So very much in such a short time, really. We always think . . what would he have come up with in the twenty seven years since. It’s human to think so, I guess.

        I like to think he would have been even moreso.

        The soul is everything.

        To rock and soul

        Liked by 1 person

      8. Flying away on a wing and a prayer . . who could it beeeeeeee? Believe it or not it’s just meeeeeee!!!
        Dang that brings back some awesome memories. I LOVED that show! Now Imma have to do a post on it at some point.
        Thanks T!

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Had to say I too was a fan. I still weep when I hear, Find me Somebody to Love. I’m crying as I write this. He was so poignantly sincere as if he spoke for all of us, panther like with an angel’s halo, that taut, gleaming chest harboring a heart the size of the moon. What a fucking legacy. Sigh

    Liked by 2 people

      2. SB,

        Your lasting impressions post. Gush worthy!

        And I don’t like using exclamation points because I don’t think it comes off as genuine. But I am being genuinely genuine. Which is redundant. Which I can be.
        And hey, I don’t comment on your blog either. But I really and truly dig what I read, each and every time.

        Peace to ya sistah

        Like

  5. Beautifully done, Marc. (yeah like that’s an unusual occurrence from you) Anyway, Freddie was the best and like most of the greats, he didn’t dwell on it. Had he lived I think we would be listening to some pretty marvelous stuff. After all, that’s what he left us.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Bogie,

      You’re so good to me.

      And no, Freddie just went about the business of being Freddie. Which was our great good fortune. And yes, I believe we would have been listening to some pretty marvelous stuff if he was still kicking it. Indeed.

      He is still kicking it.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Ms Lyon,

      Why thank you very kindly, and much. And yes, it is inconceivable that he’s been gone for so long a time. But his gift to us keeps paying it forward.
      See the movie, you’ll love it. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Wow, just wow. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about Freddie and I think you’ve hit a part of it right in the solar plexus. I really do feel listening to each song it as though that is the last song in the world. There will never be another song written or performed. He just seems to put so much of everything, no matter the song.

    The thing I’ve been thinking about this weekend as I’ve continued my own Queen wallow is how he did that no matter the song. I have Queen playing on random on Spotify through my Echo and it just went from Get Down, Make Love to Innuendo. And somewhere soon, it will likely go from Teo Torriatte to I’m in Love With My Car. My point? That Freddie and the boys had this incredible ability to right some of the most ribald, raunchy songs (Fat-Bottomed Girls. Hello?), some remarkably silly songs, and then this wealth of such soul-searching beauty in so many other songs. And, yes, every one feels like it is the only song Freddie cared about while he sang it. Doesn’t matter if it’s Tie Your Mother Down or Love of My Life. He sang like he meant it.

    What I find fascinating is how many songs in his final years were premonitions of what was to come for him and … demands … of how it would be. Who Wants to Live Forever. The Show Must Go On. He sang with real pain and real love. He was a showman, but he used that showmanship to connect and bare his soul in a way that few do. And he still had fun doing it.

    Ok, I’ll stop now.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Mark,

      First off, this is a carazy fun comment to read, so thank you for it.

      The rest, yes. To all of what you’re saying. And how you get it, and know. And those songs, fucking A right. They ran the spectrum madly and it was for keeps.

      The best of ’em lose wickedly. It’s always like that.

      Don’t stop. Ever.

      Liked by 1 person

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