As I have a habit of doing, last night I was flicking through the music channels on the telly. I rarely find anything I really really like and even rarer find something I've never seen before.
Last night, one of them, Magic, played "Barcelona" by Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballe. I have seen chunks of this, clips of this, but never the whole thing, not until today.
Freddie Mercury was the first rock star I liked to die on me. I was nine years old and although I remember feeling sad that Roy Orbison died, he was more my dad's than mine at the time. Freddie's death set the scene for me for the rest of my life so far. A life caught between reality and unreality but mostly between love and mourning- that singular feeling of great joy and great sadness combined like bitter green eggs & ham.
The thing is, this particular songs has very particular memories for me and probably other people in the UK. In 1992, the year following Freddie's death, the Olympics were held in Barcelona. The BBC, or whoever was doing the coverage that year, chose the most obvious theme song. The year after his death, Freddie was still there every time some steroid-fuelled runner/jumper/swimmer person was running/jumping/swimming.
Yet, I had never seen the whole video before. He looks so terribly fragile, but still beautiful in that strange way of his. That "You think I'm beautiful but don't know why" way. Montserrat is a great singer, but she's largely redundant because Freddie is there. The song would be less without her, but would be excellent anyway.(CW 2016: I no longer believe this. She is integral. My 2006 self was being a hyperbolic fandiot),
It could not exist without Freddie. I like to think of Barcelona as his last triumphant hurrah, moreso than Made in Heaven - a nice album but half of it wouldn't have seen the light of day if he'd lived. Barcelona is something of an end, and you can bet he knew that in 1988, when it was released.
Like the last line of "I'm Going Slightly Mad" being 'I still love you', perhaps he was quietly preparing for the death he knew was coming. He knew it, even if he kept it from the rest of us until the end. He knew it, and I hope he was saying goodbye, that our love for him was reciprocated in some fashion.
Why do I think this? Because in "Barcelona", the one line not distracted by operatic stuff is this:
And if God is willing we will meet again someday
This is the sentiment that not only gets me up in the morning, but the one that gets me out of bed, into the bathroom, gets me dressed, forces the smile onto my face and the joke onto my tongue. It is the thought that honestly keeps me alive, that one day (ironically, when I die) I will see my boys at last. I nearly typed 'reunited' and 'again' just then, but I remembered in time that we did not meet in their lifetimes.
I'm getting off the point. I was reminded last night of the glorious exuberance of Freddie Mercury and the searing pain of losing him. Somehow "Barcelona" has always captured for me that spirit between the sparkling, glittering triumph and the crushing sadness of losing one of our greatest to such a horrendous, slow, painful and premature death.
If God is willing
If God is willing
If God is willing
Friends until the end.
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