Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography

by Lesley-Ann Jones

‘This is only two hours from London, but I can breathe here, and I can think and write and record, and go for a walk, and I think I’m going to need it these next few years.’

Success, fame, money, sex, drugs – whatever you want. I can have it. But now I’m beginning to see that as much as I created it, I want to escape from it.

The big Freddie. I’m not him, I’m quieter than that. You try to separate your private life from the public performer, because it’s a schizophrenic existence.

‘Just throw my remains in the lake when I go,’ Freddie jested. He repeated this at least twice.

Freddie may have had an inkling that his days were numbered. He was certainly living like there was no tomorrow.

it was a good morale-booster for us, too, because it showed us the strength of support we had in England, and it showed us what we had to offer as a band.’

‘That’s why they were the best on the day. I remember Freddie being stunned when he launched into “Radio Ga Ga” and saw thousands of hands start going. He was dazzled by that, having never seen anything quite like it before. They had only ever performed that song in darkness.’

This was Queen’s ultimate moment, towards which they had been building their entire career.

Their popularity had slipped due to a plethora of miscalculations, mishaps and a general, wide-sweeping change in musical tastes. Queen were beginning to feel that they’d had their day. A permanent split was on the cards. They’d talked about it. Thanks to Live Aid, all this was about to change.

What do I remember? That Freddie Mercury was the greatest performer on the day. Perhaps the greatest performer ever.’

So I watched it on television. I was so proud. My husband turned to me and said, “Our boy’s done it.”’

Of all Queen’s 704 live performances fronted by Freddie, it remains their most iconic, their finest hour.

‘Folk, opera, classical, he loved them all. I think he always wanted to be a showman.’

Some believe he made peace with his past in ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ – the band’s first hit, in 1974.

‘My lyrics and songs are mainly fantasies,’ he said. ‘I make them up. They are not down to earth, they’re kind of airy-fairy really.

Being so reserved and undemonstrative, there was little in the way of physical contact between the Bulsaras and their children, as Freddie would later reveal to his lovers Barbara Valentin and Jim Hutton.

at St Peter’s Church of England School in Panchgani, where he was admitted to ‘Class Three’. He would remain there for a decade, seeing his parents only once a year, for a month each summer. Little wonder that his relationship with his mother and father became distant,

A typical British Raj hill station in Western India, 184 miles from what was then Bombay, Panchgani (‘Five Hills’)

The Zendavesta, or sacred scriptures, contain no formal commandments, but simply the ‘Three Good Things’ by which Parsees have long tried to live. ‘Humata, Hukhta, Huvareshta’: ‘good thoughts, good words, good deeds’.

Having grown exceptionally close to his mother and to his sister Kashmira as a small boy, being sent thousands of miles away to school at such a tender age must have been a terrible wrench.

He was relieved when teachers and friends adopted the diminutive of a respectable English name. ‘Freddie’ he became. Thankfully, it stuck. His parents and family raised no objections, and refer to him as ‘Freddie’ to this day.

With his close friends, he formed his first band, The Hectics. Thanks to his lively boogie-woogie piano-playing style, Freddie was soon the talk of the town.

The pop idols of the day included Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Fats Domino and Little Richard, and it was from these artists that Freddie drew inspiration.

He was quite the flamboyant performer, and absolutely in his element on stage. Invariably he had the roles of girls in plays!’

And Bucky – that’s what we used to call Freddie, because of his teeth.

Otro sobrenombre

‘He had this habit of calling one “Darling”, which seemed a little fey. I just knew that he was homosexual when he was here.

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, as the others would make fun of him. Funny thing was, he didn’t seem to mind.’

Sometimes after school we used to jump out of the window and swim in the sea, which Freddie loved to do.

Another of our good school chums did go once to a Queen concert, and tried to go backstage to see Bucky. But when he managed to put himself face to face with him, Freddie just looked right through this poor fellow and said to him, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I just don’t know who you are.” ‘That was when we all knew for sure that he wanted nothing more to do with us. The past was something he was determined to leave behind.’

Past behind

Thousands were slaughtered in bloody street battles. The Bulsaras and many like them ran for their lives. Leaving Zanzibar with a few suitcases between them, Freddie’s family headed for England, where relatives had offered them refuge. They never looked back.

Opting instead to develop his artistic talents, he attended Isleworth College in 1966 to obtain an A level in Art, moving to Ealing College of Art that autumn to embark on a course in Graphic Design and Illustration. He would graduate in the summer of 1969, aged twenty-three, with a Diploma in Graphic Art and Design. Far from being ‘the equivalent of a degree’, it failed to match the scholarly brilliance achieved by his future fellow band members.

‘Fred lived like a gypsy,’ Brian May would recall. He wanted it all and he wanted it now, right on his doorstep:

Freddie’s ambition was crystallised. While still as enthusiastic as ever about the musicians who had thrilled him at school – Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Fats Domino – he was bowled over by Hendrix, and set about reinventing himself in the American rocker’s image.

‘After Freddie left college, I was in a band for about two years. He came round one day and told me that he was going to concentrate on getting a band together. I told him, “Don’t do it, stick to graphics. There’s no money in music. Stick to what you know.”’ But Freddie had made up his mind.

While still at school and with the help of his father Harold, he had carved his own Red Special guitar from a discarded mahogany fireplace and some cuts of oak.

Incendio por un rayo?

‘I could play you tapes of Smile which have the same general structures as what we’re doing today,’ Brian said in an interview in 1977.

They needed to make more money. Unashamed clothes horses themselves, they decided to have a go at selling fashion.

Otro laburo

I’d lay odds that he never choreographed a single move. His showmanship, everything he did, was instinctive. That’s an art form in itself. I have no idea what he might have done had he not been a performer.