Queen part 2

Queen's next album was the one that propelled them into superstardom: A Night At The Opera was a monumental album and the jewel on its crown was Bohemian Rhapsody.

I have never considered Bohemian Rhapsody (one of my all-time favorite songs) to be gay until recently. A few months ago Mercury’s biographer Lesley-Ann Jones has revealed its hidden message: this was Freddie's coming out. Lyricist Sir Tim Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Chess), as well as Freddie's friend, agrees: "It’s fairly obvious to me this was Freddie’s coming-out song. I’ve spoken to Roger Taylor [the band’s drummer] about it. There is a very clear message in it. This is Freddie admitting that he is gay. In the line “Mama, I just killed a man” he’s killed the old Freddie, his former image. With “Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he’s dead” he’s dead, the straight person he was originally. He’s destroyed the man he was trying to be, and now this is him, trying to live with the new Freddie.“I see a little silhouetto of a man” – that’s him, still being haunted by what he’s done, and what he is."

Lesley-Ann Jones put the theory that Bohemian Rhapsody was a confession about his sexual orientation to Freddie in 1986. The singer laughed, then fell silent, before answering: ‘Bad timing!’

But the writer says her interpretation was confirmed by Freddie’s lover Jim Hutton after Mercury’s death – aged just 45 –from an Aids-related illness in November 1991. She says Hutton told her: "You were right. Freddie was never going to admit it publicly, because he had to carry on the charade about being straight, for his family. But we discussed it many times. It was Freddie’s confessional. It was about how different his life could have been. How much happier he would have felt, had he been able to be himself. The world heard a masterpiece of imagination. It was so intricate, and had so many layers, but its message was simple. Bohemian Rhapsody was ‘Freddie as he truly was", said Hutton.

Here's the video:

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy is found in Queen's next album, 1976's A Day At The Races (2 Marx Brothers movie titles in a row). It is music-hall inspired and was a hit single. The lyrics quite deliberately avoid naming the sex of Lover Boy's romantic partner. Throughout my months of research on the subject, I have notice this: when a song is meant to be about straight romance, it is made perfectly clear. Even songs who try being coy about it, like Jim Stafford's My Girl Bill, will eventually leave no doubt that it's about two guys pining for the same girl. On the other hand, people like Sam Smith have admitted that the had purposefully used vague lyrics so as not to lose their straight audience. So, whenever there's a doubt, I think gay. As is with everything, there are exceptions of course. We'll try to steer clear of those.

The video:

Also on the same album, You Take My Breath Away, a love song written for David Evans, a man with whom Freddie was infatuated at the time.

video: