A Ramble About Queen
One of the first albums I remember hearing when I was a child was Queen’s Greatest Hits. In fact, I played it to death along with The Beatles and the CSNY records my parents had. Now, I’m one of those people that really dislike the idea of just owning a greatest hits record of a band and seeing that as the band but I have to admit that in the case of Queen, the greatest hits record is the one that I was raised on and the one that still strikes me as a collection of amazing songs. Now, I’ve discovered recently that there are a ton of different Queen collections but the one my parents have is one of the first ones on vinyl released back in 1981 and it looks like this
Take “Bicycle Race” I remember listening to that and having it stuck in my head while I rode my big wheel down the block. This was the same song that made me curious about Frankenstein and Nixon. “Fat Bottomed Girls” helped me get through my eight year old pudgy stage (my mom still has the picture evidence-destroy those will you mom?). I felt a sense of devastation and lonely desperation for the first time while listening to “Somebody to Love” and I was ostracized by my catholic school friends when in sixth grade I refused to say Vanilla Ice was cool because he had taken “Under Pressure” and turned it into something really bad. (I haven’t changed my mind Amanda Fox, wherever you are.)
Recently, Queen indeed came up again in my life as it was played at the Beat Kitchen when I went to see the Islands It was actually the house music before any of the bands went on with all the songs from the Greatest Hits collection I remember-same track order and everything. Now, let me specifically adress “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The song is brilliant. No, really. It’s an entire rock opera condensed into one song. Cinchel disagrees and he hates hearing it. To make matters worse, as soon as I even hear one or two chords or even just one of its many lyrics, I have to sing the entire song with complete emphasis from start to finish (I did mention I’m a little obessive-compulsive, right?) Just recently when we were going to a show at the Metro, a passing car was blaring it and I made him stand through a full Kirstie-style (ok so I’m a bit of a drama queen) rendition and then Fri. I couldn’t help hamming it up singing along.
Cinchel’s comment was that it reminded him of bad movies and how could I like something like this and not like Rush? I was pretty upset by this actually (usually we have very very similar tastes) because Wayne’s World wasn’t that bad of a movie (come on! Mike Myers is so cute!) and also because Rush is one of my least favorite bands in the known universe. And then he asked, “What is it about anyways?” So my take at least has always been this: It begins with a question about the nature of reality and human action. The main protagonist is not exactly sure if he has in fact gone through with something horrendous. He comes to the realization of what has happened and confesses to his mother who really in general may represent a woman who gives solace. He’s trying to cope with what’s happened by blowing it off “Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me” but knows that he’s going to have to face the consequences and that, in ruining one life, he’s actually ruined two. It is almost as if he is also taunted by the devil or sees the evil inside of him and he feels at the end the rejection of others. That ’s when the song essentially goes full circle and to cope with the tragedy, the main protagonist proclaims: “Nothing really matters. Anyone can see…Nothing really matters to me.” This is truly a song that delves deeply into the human psyche with such interesting music to carry the lyrics. I mean, there are almost different genres of music throughout the song.
This is only one of many reasons why Queen is a brilliant and perhaps underappreciated rock band. And if you want to read alot more about Mercury, this is probably one of the better places.
(now playing: Mi and L’au:s/t)