Wear your crimson velvet capes, put on your tiaras: the
rest of the week will be royal.
Queen were formed in 1970 when Farrokh Bulsara joined guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor in
their band Smile as lead vocalist and pianist, convincing them to change their
name to Queen and changing his own name to Freddie Mercury in the process.
Bassist John Deacon joined the band in 1973, prior to the recording of their
eponymous debut album. It was very well received and it contained many great
songs and at least one classic, Keep Yourself Alive. Commercially, the album
performed better in the US, where it went gold.
Their next album, in 1974,
simply called Queen II, is the one that established them in the UK. It went Top
5 and contained the band's first single, Seven Seas of Rhye. It also contained
The March of the Black Queen. The song is one of Queen's most complex songs, up
there with Bohemian Rhapsody, maybe even more so. In fact, it was too complex
to be performed live. The song, a Mercury composition, also contains the first
gay hints of any of their songs. The introduction goes: "You've never seen
nothing like it, no, never in your life, like going up to heaven and then
coming back alive. Let me tell you all about it." and the song climaxes
with: "I'm lord of all darkness, I'm Queen of the night. I've got the
power - now do the march of the Black Queen. My life is in your hands, I'll fo
and I'll fie, I'll be what
you make me, I'll do what you like, I'll be a bad boy - I'll be your bad boy - I'll do the march of the Black
Queen."
In my humble opinion, the
song was more than a little inspired by Bowie's The Width Of A Circle. Here's
the video:
Sheer Heart Attack, in 1975, took them one step
further: it was even more positevely received by the music press and improved
their chart fortunes: #2 in the UK and #12 in the US. The lead single, Killer
Queen, occupied the exact same positions in the respective Singles Charts: many straight
analysts maintain that the song concerns a female high-class prostitute, but
they fail to explain as to why Freddie replaces Asia Minor with Geisha Minah.
This play on words is Freddie's coded reference: Geisha was used by many
European gays in the 70s and 80s as the superlative of gay (like: gay, gayer,
Geisha). The song and its absolutely fabulous lyrics was inspired by Eric Hall,
famous for his flamboyant public persona and outlandish fashion sense. After an
early career as a singer (he sang backing vocals for Tiny Tim) and as an actor, he
became a publicist for EMI Records (Queen's label in the UK) in the 1970s. Eric
himself later admitted that Freddie wrote the song for him. It's one of the few
hit songs that begin with finger-snapping. Here's the video:
Killer Queen was my intro to the group. I somehow had the mistaken idea they were metal or at least hard rock but that Black Queen song shows they were doing Bohemian Rhapsody style songs prior to '75. As far as coded lyrics or anything else goes, I got the gay vibe from Mercury the first time I saw him. Gaydar may or may not be a legitimate thing but it works for me more often than not. Looking forward to more about the group.
ReplyDeleteGreat comment, RM! I believe that, quite like other great groups that had multiple, equally good, composers (the Beatles, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac), Queen embraced multiple musical styles all at once: Mercury introduced drama and theatricality with mythological and religious references, May gave us Classical Rock, Taylor's compositions were more Pop-Rock, while Deacon was the closest to pure Pop. Their magic consisted of their ability to mix all these different styles to a cohesive whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.
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