Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury

by Lesley-Ann Jones

“Do you know, that’s exactly the thing that keeps me awake at night,” he mused. “I’ve created a monster. The monster is me. I can’t blame anyone else. It’s what I’ve worked for since I was a kid. I would have killed for this. Whatever happens to me is all my fault. It’s what I wanted. It’s what we all strive for. 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. I’m starting to worry that I can’t control it, as much as it controls me.

“All artists are terribly insecure people. They are desperate to be noticed.

Artists always have an abusive childhood—at least in terms of emotional deprivation. So they have this desperation to succeed, to get love and attention.

“Freddie Mercury did the most important thing of all,” counters Dr. Hallstrom. “He died young. Instead of becoming a fat, bloated, self-important old queen, he was cut off in his prime and is preserved at that age for eternity. It’s not a bad way to go.”

For Parsees, homosexuality is not only sinful, but a form, unimaginably, of devil worship.

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.”

Freddie later revealed his fascination with mythology and astrology by designing Queen’s now legendary logo. Its principal figure is a spread-winged phoenix, the symbol of immortality remembered fondly by Freddie from the crest of his alma mater, St. Peter’s in Panchgani. The logo also incorporated the zodiac signs of each band member: two lions, for the Leos, Taylor and Deacon, a crab for Cancerian May, and a couple of fairies for Virgoan Mercury, complete with a stylized Q and elaborate crown.

From February 1971 until Queen’s final gig on 9 August 1986, the band lineup remained exactly the same.

A happy person doesn’t feel the need to do anything, to create anything. Happy people are content with their lot, with the way things are. Freddie was perennially anguished. The way he felt about Mary was the cause of that, but was also an inspiration for his work.”

Mary also knew that Freddie had suffered, since childhood, something to which he rarely admitted: a persecution complex. That is, he worried that people were making fun of him behind his back, and that he was indeed ridiculous. It was to remain one of his fiercest inner demons until his death.