| MercurialFreddie 16.08.2019 15:33 |
"""Meanwhile, the married-with-children lineup had grown weary of the singer celebrating his promiscuity in song. “I can remember having a go at Freddie because some of the stuff he was writing was very definitely on the gay side,” said May. “I remember saying it would be nice if this stuff could be universally applicable, because we have friends of every persuasion.”""" Taken from: link It is the first time that I have seen this quote. Has it ever appeared in any biography or in any gossip in the circles of those who were close to the band that Freddie wrote lyrics that were "too gay" to make their way onto the final version ? Cheers! |
| mariah carey 16.08.2019 15:48 |
He said this in a 1998 interview with Guitar World about Body Language |
| MercurialFreddie 16.08.2019 16:38 |
Thanks!!! |
| The Real Mary Austin 17.08.2019 00:04 |
Fear not! I cometh to tell you the truth. What is particularly „gay“ in anything Queen ever did, including „Body Language“, apart from Freddie having been the singer? Mr May's statements don't always make sense. I loveth you all. M. |
| Stick 17.08.2019 00:25 |
Are you really that superficial in your way of viewing things? Well not a surprise as you constantly act like a cheap, childish attention whore. If I could, I would make you go away. |
| mariah carey 17.08.2019 05:35 |
The Real Mary Austin wrote: Fear not! I cometh to tell you the truth. What is particularly „gay“ in anything Queen ever did, including „Body Language“, apart from Freddie having been the singer? Mr May's statements don't always make sense. I loveth you all. M.Good Old Fashioned Lover is pretty gay, Get Down Make Love also |
| Queenman!! 17.08.2019 09:40 |
mariah carey wrote: He said this in a 1998 interview with Guitar World about Body Language--------------------- yes, indeed. And that attitude eventually got Freddie in his steamy New York underground gay scene catch the HIV virus. |
| The Real Mary Austin 17.08.2019 10:54 |
Fear not! I cometh to tell you the truth. Stick: how would you make me 'go away'? And why do you feel the need to anyway? I loveth you, too. M. |
| The Real Mary Austin 17.08.2019 11:07 |
Queenman!!: „That attitude“ was prevalent in the aftermath of the sexual liberation in the late 1960's anyway. Gay men finally had an opportunity to explore their sexuality without having to fear legal repression. Nobody knew that HIV was looming, thus I find it difficult to understand what you mean by „That Attitude“. Freddie suppressed his gayness far too much anyway by pretending to be bisexual and showing up with yours truly at ‘official events'. I don't get Mr Mays problem. In a truly free society any kind of display of any kind of sexuality would not be taken as excluding anyone. But given the comments here in this forum, Mr Stick, plainly shows how free thinking most people really are. Loveth to you all, M. |
| matt z 17.08.2019 18:18 |
The band was a vehicle for a career and success. Of course some would feel discouraged by inordinate amounts of ANTI ROCK clubby gayness. Just leave it at that. For the most part the song stands as the first complete foray into ONLY KEYBOARDS ....and vocal Plus side from Freddie's incredible vocal delivery and HA HAH! (Grunt) It's trash and debauched nonsense. Of course they had reason to be worried. I've lost a brother (*we didn't lose him, he died as a result of excess as well) to what was clearly to the band, excess and a total lack of judgement going on with FM at the time I have no problem with accepting Brian's perspective here. Even that journalist who gets himself annoyingly on every Freddie doc seemed to think that his carefree partying was going towards an almost suicidal state As a "band of brothers" you notice things changing and you KNOW when a person has erased themselves and a persona and merely become a HABIT. IT'S dangerous and I'm sure the band harbored regrets for not punching Freddie in the face and saying WTF ARE YOU DOING? SHAPE UP MAN! Either way. Yeah the song is trash. But it still has some touches of strength. Courtesy of Fred And as for anyone doubting that its anti rock stance was bugging the band (particularly in the 80's) I'll cite Freddie's It's a Hard Life (attempt at "classic Queen sound" i.e. sales THE BAND IS BACK TO ITS ROOTS! ...a phrase repeated with reach release And MAN on the Prowl.... attempt to cash in with luck and bravado of 1950's ish tune CLTCL. They had been trying desperately to include OLD STYLE stuff and ALSO try to be contemporary as a band without vision trying to find itself in a new era. Hence the LET ME IN YOUR HEART AGAIN which borrows from "here i go again" Whitesnake. Same with keep passing the open windows, out on the tiles /staying power, PISCTP /Diana Ross as others have pointed out here. They lost a lot in the 80's and it clearly became a business with old noodles and attempts to cut what's "cool" In spite of that, Brian, Roger , John and Freddie came up with some good ones Just that calling Body Language gay was a different kind of thing as opposed to "Bring back that Leroy Brown" - gay. It was devoid of instrumentation and the wholebandand must have felt isolating |
| Queenman!! 17.08.2019 19:00 |
The Real Mary Austin wrote: Queenman!!: „That attitude“ was prevalent in the aftermath of the sexual liberation in the late 1960's anyway. Gay men finally had an opportunity to explore their sexuality without having to fear legal repression. Nobody knew that HIV was looming, thus I find it difficult to understand what you mean by „That Attitude“. Freddie suppressed his gayness far too much anyway by pretending to be bisexual and showing up with yours truly at ‘official events'. I don't get Mr Mays problem. In a truly free society any kind of display of any kind of sexuality would not be taken as excluding anyone. But given the comments here in this forum, Mr Stick, plainly shows how free thinking most people really are. Loveth to you all, M.--------------------------------- I thought you had difficulty understand" that attitude" Freddie had in the early eightees and was well documentated over the years by his inner circle who knew him the best. I guess they are all wrong you are the real gay expert on sexual liberation and can read into the mind of Freddie Mercury. Quite strange you don't get the point from Brian May with the dark side of this liberation. ( Don't stop me Now , Body Language etc)You must have been closer to Freddie than Brian was I assume? An opinion is an opinion mate. I advise you to listen to he words of Freddie to Paul Gambacinni: " Freddie, have you heard about the news of the new virus that kills a lot of people in the gay scene lately? "Darling, I'm doing everything with everybody!". But hey, we are all wrong... right? |
| Holly2003 17.08.2019 19:16 |
"Meanwhile, the married-with-children lineup had grown weary of the singer celebrating his promiscuity in song. “I can remember having a go at Freddie because some of the stuff he was writing was very definitely on the gay side,” said May. “I remember saying it would be nice if this stuff could be universally applicable, because we have friends of every persuasion.” I love Brian's universally applicable songs such as Fat Bottomed Girls and Tie Your Mother Down |
| Saint Jiub 17.08.2019 19:36 |
Freddie attempted to make Fat Bottomed Girls universally applicable in Chicago during the Jazz tour: "This song is dedicated to" ... "and all you fellas with big tits and asses" ... |
| k-m 17.08.2019 19:44 |
Brian can be very annoying indeed ("Freddie would love that" - his usual way of legitimising any nonsense "Queen" engage in these days), but I don't see anything wrong with that particular quote. He's perfectly entitled to an opinion and doesn't have to pretend he liked everything Freddie wrote because of some ill-conceived political correctness. And yes, Queen did write universal music, so he had a point. I'm sure Freddie understood that. In fact, we all heard his solo stuff and I think it's fair to say he could be a little annoying when given complete freedom. Just listen to his vocal improvisations on the original "Living On My Own" recording, I think it's unbearable. |
| HelloDelilah 17.08.2019 19:49 |
matt z, you made so many great points!! There was definitely a strong rock vs disco movement around the early 80s and Freddie got caught up in the middle as he continued to embrace his sexuality and frolic in the gay clubbing scene. That seemed to be a low point in the band's career. Luckily, they picked it back up in the mid-80s with the release of The Works album and were at their peak again during Live Aid, but unfortunately, it lasted only a few years with Freddie's declining health. I'm sure the other band members saw coming and totally regret not waking Freddie up. They seemed to have stayed out of each other's personal lives. All that excessive behavior was destructive and as a result, we lost Freddie. It's so very sad. :( ****************** Queenman!!, I think most people understand what "that attitude" you alluded to as it was well documented. |
| runner_70 17.08.2019 20:17 |
In a recent Interview MACK stated that during their time in Munich there were a Lot of homophobic tendencies within the band towards Freddie. At least we know now where they come from. May and Freddie were never big friends. John and Roger yes but not May. He still is jealous of Freddie to this day as he was (and still is) the main focus of Queen and will always be. |
| Queenman!! 17.08.2019 20:21 |
HelloDelilah wrote: matt z, you made so many great points!! There was definitely a strong rock vs disco movement around the early 80s and Freddie got caught up in the middle as he continued to embrace his sexuality and frolic in the gay clubbing scene. That seemed to be a low point in the band's career. Luckily, they picked it back up in the mid-80s with the release of The Works album and were at their peak again during Live Aid, but unfortunately, it lasted only a few years with Freddie's declining health. I'm sure the other band members saw coming and totally regret not waking Freddie up. They seemed to have stayed out of each other's personal lives. All that excessive behavior was destructive and as a result, we lost Freddie. It's so very sad. :( ****************** Queenman!!, I think most people understand what "that attitude" you alluded to as it was well documented.Great... for some it isn't |
| HelloDelilah 17.08.2019 23:46 |
Queenman!! Oh well. LOL :) |
| matt z 18.08.2019 04:50 |
Yeah. Just trying to say that they had felt themselves so cliché of themselves and were grasping into different straws after the game. Brian and Roger had their own projects and activities and Freddie had his moments of brilliance, but it's hard to not understand that a song like BODY LANGUAGE entering the fold wasn't something the band readily accepted. Nobody really even plays on it. It's trash. It just goes to show how much respect and authority Freddie had in the band that it was even released as a single. Rock and roll has always been macho. Even Little Richard had bravado and macho stuff. Who's to say BODY LANGUAGE doesn't have iteither? I already emphasized that his delivery of it was hot bold and dirty. It's just that the song basically doesn't include the band at all and was very very very very out of left field. True there are numerous comparisons where Freddie's songs were as such; but the band as a whole were realizing something was going bad with him. He wasn't well living like he was. They must have heard or seen enough to know that it wasn't ordinary and was damn near self destructive or those opinions wouldn't have been harbored and documented stretching as far back as the late 70's |
| Queen Fan MS 18.08.2019 09:53 |
@Matt Z - great post. I agree with your take that 'Body Language was devoid of instrumentation and the whole band must have felt isolating' as well as seeing something different going on in Freddie's life at that time! May be they let Body language be released as a single because if it fails (probably they know it already it was trash and told Freddie too!), it will all be Freddie's fault. Lol! But looking at other comments about Freddie's attitude at the time, I feel we are being too harsh and judgemental here. Just my 2 cents. Freddie must have witnessed his heterosexual friends and other rockstar friends have the time of their lives and able to get away with it. Wasn't sex, drugs and rock and roll, the way of life in 60's and 70's ? I am sure Roger has had his share of fun as well. Didn't he say in the 'News of the world' documentary that there was loads of sex and it depends on what era it was? All heterosexual members had their fun and more or less settled down by the time Freddie felt sexually liberated to explore the field. Even Freddie's gay friends said they were all promiscuous at the time. Everybody has character flaws. Everyone has had their missteps at some point in their lives. Didn't John have a bit of drinking problem during magic tour and bit of stripper fun in 2000's? Didn't Brian have his share of affairs too? Since Freddie is gone and has no wife, children, and unfortunately the only rockstar to die of Aids, he had been an easy target and his character and his lifestyle choices are scrutinized so much and everything bad is attributed to them without analyzing other issues properly. I think it is a bit unfair! After all Queen were 4 strong individuals, 4 strong characters, 4 big egos! All of us don't know all the background information, circumstances, influences for specific person's behavior. All we have is second hand information. Even Brian has had his memory lapses! We were all told Paul Prenter being a bad influence from documentaries and movie, but Brian also recently said "Prenter was not all bad" either. I don't think Brian and Roger were homophobic but there could have been others who were homophobic who had a bone to pick with or who was playing both sides, feeding some truths and some untruths. We need to take all the comments with a grain of salt as the other person is not avaialble to refute or say their side of the story! Regarding Mr. Paul Gambaccini, did he interview any of the members of the band prior to 1991? I have never seen any photos of him with the members of the band including Freddie or interview in print, audio or video? I only saw him interview Bono at live aid. Did he interview any of the Queen members at live aid? Was he part of Queen's trusted group of journalists or in their inner circle? Has he given any other quotes from Freddie or any other band mambers? I really would like to see them. Freddie may have told Paul G about 'doing with everybody' but we also know that Freddie could be a bit flippant in his comments specifically if it was a journalist(who is not part of his inner circle) 'prying' into his private life during his private time, to get some info! Most of the time, I think most of the time, he gave them what they wanted to hear! I think even Brian or Roger said in some interview that a lot of the stuff written about Freddie is not true and even some of the so called Queen 'parties' have been exaggerated by their own team, as well. Still I am surprised, someone felt it necessary to include the exact quote he 'supposedly' gave (even though there are no other quotes from him given by the band or Freddie), in every other documentary or print about Freddie, since his death. Freddie must have really rubbed somebody the wrong way or they hated his guts when he was alive and wanted to prove a point! Very sad. |
| MercurialFreddie 03.09.2019 13:21 |
@Queen Fan MS Wow that is a really thoughtful response. A nice spark of hope that this forum will once again be what it used to be! This is gold: """""Regarding Mr. Paul Gambaccini, did he interview any of the members of the band prior to 1991? I have never seen any photos of him with the members of the band including Freddie or interview in print, audio or video? I only saw him interview Bono at live aid. Did he interview any of the Queen members at live aid? Was he part of Queen's trusted group of journalists or in their inner circle? Has he given any other quotes from Freddie or any other band mambers? I really would like to see them. Freddie may have told Paul G about 'doing with everybody' but we also know that Freddie could be a bit flippant in his comments specifically if it was a journalist(who is not part of his inner circle) 'prying' into his private life during his private time, to get some info! Most of the time, I think most of the time, he gave them what they wanted to hear! I think even Brian or Roger said in some interview that a lot of the stuff written about Freddie is not true and even some of the so called Queen 'parties' have been exaggerated by their own team, as well. """"" |