The Greatest Pretender

In 1964, the Sultan of Zanzibar was overthrown as a result of a bloody revolution that killed up to 20,000 civilians. This threw the country into political uncertainty and forced many people and families to flee the country. One such family was Bomi and Jer Bulsara and their two children Farrokh and Kashmira. They fled to Middlesex, England, where they set about making a new home for their little family. If you have seen the new Bohemian Rhapsody movie (as I'm sure many of you have) you'll know that Farrokh Bulsara would one day become the legend that is Freddie Mercury. Mercury is known by many different people as many different things, some as a rock legend, others as "that guy who did Bohemian Rhapsody", and even some as just "that singer who fell victim to AIDS" , but to me, he is the epitome of a musician, as he did not just sing music, but rather he created it and brought it to life.

One of the great things about Freddie Mercury (and partially as a result Queen itself) was his ability to get away with making any kind of music, and his voice fit any genre perfectly. His discography varies from songs like Love of my Life (a soft, slow love song) to Fat Bottomed Girls (far more harsh sounded, more like rock music) to Barcelona (an opera-esq song that Freddie Mercury created for and sang with Monserrat Caballé). He simply could sing anything, and even nothing. He was famous for his mid-concert interlude, where he would sing seemingly random notes and words and the audience would repeat them back to him, which they loved just as much as any of the most famous Queen songs. Although massively overplayed (in my opinion), especially recently, Bohemian Rhapsody does demonstrate Queen's ability to adapt to any genre and to get experimental, but successfully. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is non-cyclical in structure and comprises dozens of chords, even though Mercury claimed to be barely able to read music. Despite being six minutes long (far longer than any song normally played on the radio), Bohemian Rhapsody became an overnight success in part thanks to a comedian and radio DJ by the name of Kenny Everett, which almost lead to the overall success of Queen as a band. Mercury gave Everett an advanced copy of the song when he was on the show. Even though the song hadn't technically passed through the proper channels necessary for radio distribution to be permitted, Everett continuously discussed a record that he loved and yet could not play before "accidentally" playing the record, stating "Oops, my finger must've slipped". As a result Everett played the song almost non-stop, reaching a record 36 times in one day, because the song had not yet been distributed to the public. Whilst this anarchic anecdote is lovely, it shows how popular the song was in it's own right. Queen had a certain level of success before Bohemian Rhapsody, but this song sent them into international fame almost instantly, despite producers stating that the song would never be a hit.

"I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what's happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things." -Freddie Mercury, 1986

Freddie Mercury was a crowd pleaser, but in the best possible way. Along with the other members of Queen, he pioneered a form of concert in which every single member of the audience feels like they are part of the performance, the most famous and obvious examples of this being the songs We Will Rock You and Radio Gaga. Brian May once wrote that Mercury could make "the last person at the back of the furthest stand in a stadium feel that he was connected". However, I put it to you that this is not the most powerful song in the queen repertoire in terms of involving the audience. (Although I do realise that I may be biased by my obsession with Far Eastern languages, but stick with me here) Queen were huge in Japan, they even toured there twice, once relatively early on, as Queen were still gaining fame. Whenever they went in Japan they were mobbed, far more so than back home in the UK. So Brian May wrote the song Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together). The song is predominantly in English, and it isn't the most lyrically compelling of all of the Queen songs, but thee chorus is sung in both English and Japanese, with a beautiful translation that in no way detracts from the overall composition of the piece. On occasion musicians will add lines into songs based on the countries that they are singing in, but this song was not like that, it was specifically written in Japanese to thank the Japanese people for their support of the band, and whenever it was sung (relatively infrequently when the band were not in Japan to be fair) Freddie Mercury really did sing it. There's a passion to this song that isn't found in some of Queen's more pop-throw-away type music, and whether that’s due to Brian May's lyrics and composition, or to the performance of the song from the whole band, it demonstrates the universal appeal that Queen had, and how that appeal was reciprocated by the band.

Teo torriatte konomama iko

Aisuruhito yo

Shizukana yoi ni

Hikariyo tomoshi

Ito shiki osheo idaki

Whilst I don't believe you need the translation of this song to enjoy it, I do realise that leaving a typed version of it without the English version would be slightly unjust to the lyrical genius that is Brian May:

Let us cling together as the years go by,

Oh my love, my love

In the quiet of the night

Let our candle always burn

Let us never lose the lessons we have learned.

手を取り合って　このまま行こう

愛する人よ

静かな宵に

光を灯し

愛しき　教えを抱き

Freddie Mercury once said in an interview that he didn’t care what was done to his music after he died, as long as it was never boring, ("You can do what you want to my music, but never make me boring" - Freddie Mercury, ten days before his death) and that's part of the reason why I named my blog after one of my favourite songs of his. (If it turns out that my blog is boring, then I apologise in advance). The Great Pretender was one of Freddie Mercury's final pieces of music and when it was released the world didn’t realise the true extent of Freddie Mercury's "pretending". The music video is also an incredible throw back to all of the versions of Freddie Mercury that had been shown to the public throughout the years. Of course the song was a cover of the Platter's version released in 1955, but Freddie Mercury's version demonstrates a side of his life that almost nobody at the time knew, and how could they? Mercury was a very private man, and in 1987, when his cover of The Great Pretender was released it is possible that he already knew that he had contracted HIV/AIDS, and if so this provides a very obvious link to the song itself and why he chose to cover it. However, some sources (including his partner, Jim Hutton) say that it was in mid 1987 that he was diagnosed, which adds another layer of nuance to the song. Freddie Mercury was a very private man, as evidenced by his lack of openness about his relationships, or the fact that he didn’t publicly announce that he had AIDS until the 23rd November 1991, the day before his death. He was famous for his lack of interviews and even lived most of his public life under a pseudonym (the extent to which he did this was not revealed until a significant amount of time after his death). Despite his flamboyant appearance and his penchant for large parties (his 41st birthday party being of particular note), he was a genuinely shy individual, who used this flippant exterior to hide his true loneliness, and thus he was The Greatest Pretender.

I seem to be

What I'm not you see

I'm wearing my heart like a crown

Pretending that you're still around.

Note from the author: I appreciate that this small piece of writing could never do Freddie Mercury and the rest of Queen justice, and therefore I will probably be following this up with further discussions on other songs of particular note. In the meantime, I have created a Spotify playlist of all the songs that I have discussed above if you felt the urge to listen to any of them…or all of them…repeatedly…

The Greatest Pretender