Similar to many, I have been on a kick lately. A Spotify kick, that is.
But this isn’t any ordinary musical fixation that sparks with bright intensity only to end with a slow, sad burning flame: It’s a full-fledged fascination that refuses to quit. In fact, it’s so bad that, “each morning I get up I die a little. Can barely stand on my feet.” With this raw emotion and precarious lack of balance naturally comes “the terror in knowing what the world is about” and, despite my best efforts, this fad won’t “let me out.” My fate is sealed: I guess I’m just “another one [who bit] the dust.”
Ever since I saw Oscar-nominated Bohemian Rhapsody two weeks ago, I simply can’t stop listening to Queen. Whether in the car, in the shower, at the gym, or typing out this post, I find myself habitually drawn to the band, returning to its music each time with surprising delight.
While I enjoyed Queen’s music prior to my experience watching this now famous film, Bohemian Rhapsody has rekindled my interest and spurred me to binge listen Queen with refreshed excitement and vigor. There is something timeless about Queen’s music; although the band grew in popularity throughout the 70s, Queen’s ability to compose soaring anthems while simultaneously maintaining a quirky, atomic pulse continues to resonate with audiences today. Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Gen-Zers alike find something in Queen’s music that is inherently familiar, something with which they can identify, and this intangible quality hooks listeners and creates lifelong fans.
Queen has been criticized for including lyrics or musical elements that aren’t “traditional” and don’t make sense in a rigidly conventional way. In fact, the movie plays with this theme and Mike Meyer’s character, Ray Foster, a record executive that later regrets his unwillingness to forgo convention and book the band with his label, listens to “Bohemian Rhapsody[1]” for the first time and questions, “What on earth is it about? Scaramouche? Galileo? Beelzebub? And that Ismallah business?” To which Freddie Mercury corrects, “Bismillah,” refusing to submit to Foster’s acute ignorance and inability to indulge in the possibility that lyrical creativity inevitably promises.
What kind of lyrics are these? With Queen, it doesn’t matter. In fact—scratch that—it does matter, it most certainly matters: The seemingly nonsensical lyrics are a crucial part of the intended effect. Queen captivates its audience with an appealing “defy gravity,” “break all the rules” mentality that pushes boundaries for the sake of proving that boundaries can—and should—be pushed. While this heedless approach doesn’t work for all, it most certainly works for Queen. “I’m a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva?” “Gunpowder, gelatin, dynamite with a laser beam?” “I’m in love with my car[2]?”
Genius.
With Queen, even “sensical” words arranged in seemingly nonsensical, paradoxical combinations carry a profound weight and beauty that resonates with the individual on a deeper subconscious level. Take the closing lines from “Bohemian Rhapsody” for instance:
“Nothing really matters, anyone can see, nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me.”
Nothing matters? Really? If nothing “really matters” why compose this billowing, soulful, operatic anthem? Nothing really matters: Perhaps it is true. And yet, if nothing matters then everything matters: Every musical detail, every nonsensical word, every obscure reference intended to disseminate feelings of utter inconsequentiality. It all matters. In Queen’s world everything is nothing and yet nothing is everything, and this paradoxical life-paralleling logic just works. Only a true “Queen” can pull this off. Pure genius.
These lyrics paired with heart-pounding instrumentals that are seemingly “burning through the sky” and “traveling at the speed of light[3]” produces an unforgettable combination that practically necessitates listeners to echo the words in sound-shattering acts of solidarity. This is the magic of Queen: The band is able to connect with any audience, anywhere, at any time. Even toddlers in pink Minnie Mouse themed car seats “get it” and are moved to belt out lyrics alongside Freddie Mercury. Now that is impressive!
Will someone please let that man GO?!
But perhaps Queen’s most endearing feature is its cohesion in the midst of unfathomable diversity. The band formed organically, by a group of men who found one another despite the steepest of odds, and this “land of misfit toys” quality is the precise element that seals Queen’s untouchable universality. Indeed in the film, music manager John Reid asks the band,
“What makes Queen any different from all of the other wannabe rockstars I meet?”
Without skipping a beat, Freddie Mercury rejoins,
“Tell you what it is, Mr. Reid. Now we’re four misfits who don’t belong together, we’re playing for the other misfits. They’re the outcasts, right at the back of the room. We’re pretty sure they don’t belong either. We belong to them.”
Boom! Mic drop.[4]
And that’s exactly right. Each band member plays a colorful character that is authentically and uncompromisingly himself. The promise in Queen’s appeal is that the individual members don’t belong, and yet—when they come together something magical happens that couldn’t transpire without this exact combination of talent, oddity, and musical genius. There is a certain “rightness” in Queen’s “wrongness,” and it most definitely works.
So was Bohemian Rhapsody a great film? It depends who you ask. Should it have won the Academy Award for Best Picture? I sure think so. Not only did the film rekindle my appreciation for this famous rock band, but it also inspired me to appreciate Queen for the undeniable cultural influence it had during its heyday. Because art is a reflection of society, society shapes art in innumerable ways. And yet, art also becomes so big, so vibrant and human that it grows to exist beyond itself. Thus, art comes to shape society, too. There is something magnetic and vivacious in this sentiment[5], and the band frequently captures this luminous quality in many of its lyrics. “I feel alive and the world I’ll turn it inside out,” Mercury sings. Amen to that! Feel alive! Turn the world inside out! In fact, “go forth and set the world on fire[6]!”
Queen didn’t so much as reflect its society as much as it shaped it. And the band continues to shape it for that matter, adding indescribable color and flavor throughout the decades. Congrats to Rami Malek for winning best actor, and thank you, Bryan Singer, for directing such a powerful film that resonates with all the “misfits” out there[7] and connects people across the globe. But most of all, thank you Queen for doing this first.
“Don’t stop me now.”
“Don’t stop me now…”
Freddie Mercury, you are the champion: We wouldn’t dare.
[1] The song, not the film, silly.
[2] Kidding, kidding. Queen lost me a little there (a sentiment the film sarcastically resounds). You’re better than that, Queen. Yet still, it “doesn’t work” so much that it just works.
[3] “That’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit.”
[4] That just happened.
[5] You might even say, oh I don’t know, “it’s a kind of magic.”
[6] No this is not a suggestion to raze the earth to the ground and engulf your surroundings in a sea of flames. And no, these are not lyrics from a Queen song. Rather, this motivational tidbit is brought to you by St. Ignatius of Loyola. You’re welcome. Now go out and do it!
[7] And, aren’t we all really just misfits when we get down to it?
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