Queens’ Tragic Rhapsody

People had trouble with how Mercury lived and with how he died. There were homophobes who saw his deteriora­tion as a punishment for his sexuality and promis­cuity. Others, who had done work combat­ing AIDS, faulted him for not acknowledg­ing his condition until the end. Those judgments will always follow Mercury, but if his music is any key at all, there was an al­most prayerful quality about his failings. In song after song he sang about mortality, sol­itary desolation and hopefulness, but he also implored some unattainable sanctuary ”“ no­where so openly as in “Save Me,” from The Game: “I have no heart, I’m cold inside/I have no real intent. . . ./Save me/I can’t face this life alone.” But Mercury often felt he had to stay alone, as he had done in his childhood. “It can be a very lonely life,” he said, “but I choose it.” (In the early 1970s, when Austin suggested they have a child to­gether, Mercury allegedly responded, “I’d rather have a cat.”) Instead of domestic ref­uge, Mercury sought ecstasy and restless­ness for most of his life, and obviously that choice incurred a cost. One of his best songs, “Don’t Stop Me Now,” set out his ethos with a starkness that was also blissful: “I’m a rocket ship on my way to Mars/On a colli­s i on c o u r s e / I ’m a s a t e l l i t e out of control/I’m a sex machine ready to reload.”

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, poet William Blake famously proclaimed, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wis­dom.” It’s a maxim often taken to mean that a life of intemperance ”“ pursuing desires without self-restraint ”“ eventually brings one to realize the futility of those indulgenc­es, and to recognize more meaningful pur­poses. But it could also mean that without taking risks you never discover what’s pos­sible, what might illuminate you the most. In The Miracle, Mercury faced his excess­es without sparing himself, and uncovered his answer: “Was it all worth it all these years? . . ./It didn’t matter if we won ”“ if we lost. . . ./Living, breathing rock & roll/Was it all worth it?/Yes, it was a worthwhile experi­ence/It was worth it.” He knew he had little time left when he sang those words. There was no room to bear false witness. “My mis­takes,” he once said, “are down to me.”

The best song Mercury sang in his last years, “These Are the Days of Our Lives,” was written for him by Taylor. It is a song about accepting everything you have made of your life and looking toward your departure with a steadfast grace. The song’s video contains Mercury’s final moments in front of a cam­era. He is unmistakably a man almost dead ”“ he is painfully emaciated, and those pres­ent at the filming said that even the touch of his clothes on his skin caused him agony. But he is fully present in those moments, even lu­minous. He looks skyward, his arms spread, then fixes his view on the lens as he says ev­erything he has left to say: “Those were the days of our lives ”“ yeah/The bad things in life were so few/Those days are all gone now, but one thing’s still true/When I look and I find/I still love you. . . . I still love you.”

In those moments, he is as justified as he will ever be: He has found his hard-learned wisdom in maybe the only way he could. It is Freddie Mercury’s dying that saved him.