Throughout every decade we had Queen, nothing seemed out of their grasp. Compared to most bands that follow one sound and stick with it throughout their career, the rock monarchs were absolutely fearless when it came time to challenge themselves, whether that meant going towards pop, making cheery show-tunes, or the greatest stadium-sized hard rock the world had ever known. While they reached a point where Freddie Mercury could have made a polka song work, Brian May thought that one track was too much for the frontman to take on on record.
Which is strange considering how Mercury operated. The man could easily deliver an entire chorus of voices all on his own in the studio, and when looking at what he made on tracks like ‘Somebody to Love’, he could still appreciate the spectacle of being that over-the-top when the tape started rolling.
When the band pivoted towards pop music, some of the more stratospheric moments tended to take a back seat. Gone were the days of their heavy metal freakouts like ‘March of the Black Queen’ and ‘Ogre Battle’, and in their place were the sleek dance tracks that ruled the airwaves like ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ and ‘I Want To Break Free’.
That’s not to say that Mercury couldn’t still expand his range where he wanted to. The vocal run in the middle of ‘Bites the Dust’ is still a beast for anyone to take on, and anyone who has ever butchered the tune at karaoke will tell you the difficulty of reaching that high note in the breakdown of ‘Under Pressure’.
But that was before most of the band knew that Mercury was living with a terminal AIDs diagnosis, so when making the album The Miracle, it was clear that they were going to be bowing out gracefully. Whereas Mercury had saved his goodbye for the song ‘Was It All Worth It’, ‘The Show Must Go On’ was the true testament to the powerhouse vocalist he was throughout their tenure.
Even though the tune is right in Mercury’s wheelhouse, May was stunned because he thought Mercury couldn’t sing it, saying, “He could hardly stand. I played him some of the demo, with me singing, which went incredibly high and was very difficult. In the past, Freddie was always shouting at me, like, ‘It’s too fucking high! You’re making me ruin my beautiful voice!’ But he just heard it and said, ‘I’ll fucking do that. Don’t worry.’ Then [he] propped himself up on the desk and worked his way through singing all of that song. And it was amazing.”
And considering where friend of the band, David Bowie, ended up, Blackstarmay as well have been his answer record to what Mercury had done. While Bowie doesn’t quite go for the same high notes by any stretch, his way of closing the book on his work right before he died was the kind of final bow that most people only dream of.
Although Mercury wouldn’t have been faulted for taking things down a notch, the fact that he could make something like this from what may well have been his deathbed is a testament to what true professionals are capable of. You may think that you have what it takes to be a rock god because you show up to every show on time and rock every face in the crowd, but no one has ever been able to make a death-defying performance part of their legacy.
