Freddie Mercury: A Kind of Magic

No two Queen albums ever sounded the same; in fact, no two Queen songs sounded the same.

two Queen albums ever sounded the same; in fact, no two Queen songs sounded the same. But they always immediately sounded like Queen, and that was much to do with Freddie.

‘Freddie was fully focused, never allowing anything or anyone

‘He lived life to the full. He devoured life. He celebrated every minute. And, like a great comet, he left a luminous trail which will sparkle for many a generation to come.’

‘I lost somebody who I thought was my eternal love . . . When he died I felt we’d had a marriage. We’d done it for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.’

Back then it would have been very hard for him to tell us and we respected his feelings. He didn’t have to say anything, I knew he was very ill.’

to get in the way of his vision for the future. He was truly a free spirit. There are not many of these in the world. To achieve this, you have to be, like Freddie, fearless – unafraid of upsetting anyone’s apple cart.’

‘I like to write songs for fun, for modern consumption. People can discard them like a used tissue afterwards. You listen to it, like it, discard it, then on to the next.’

‘I really do love performing. I mean, it’s totally natural for me. I’m a dandy, a show-off. I get very high on all the attention. I love it.’

‘It’s a Hard Life’, a ballad which Freddie based partly on the ‘Vesti la giubba’ aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera Pagliacci.