From the depths of my memory, I vaguely recall first listening to Queen back in 1991 when I was going through secondary school. Back in those days, everyone was listening to bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden and Guns N’ Roses; so listening to a softer, melodic band like Queen was kinda… weird.
I just came back from the musical, “We Will Rock You”, and it really really rocked. As a jukebox musical, the songs are entirely made of Queen material. When the opening song Radio Ga Ga played, I felt tears welling in my eyes. Yes, I’m emo like that. And it got worse when Somebody to Love and No-One but You (Only the
Good Die Young) started playing, the latter was sung to a short black and white montage of musical greats who have passed too early including Freddie himself.
I won’t describe the whole musical, for fear of spoiling it for you if you intend to watch it sometime in some other part of the world. But as the music played, I was hit by waves and waves of memories and emotions to which I remember those songs when they were the soundtrack of my life.
Performing Crazy Little Thing Called Love with my band.
Listening to Somebody to Love (over and over) when I was rejected by a girl I had a crush on.
Making out with a chick in the car, in the middle of the pouring rain with the radio playing A Kind of Magic.
Sweet Memories.
Tonight I was reminded of how powerful Queen’s music still is, and how much it has been a part of my life. The musical was truly magical as it really brought their music to life, and made it accessible to the masses, especially the current pop-consuming generation who never had real exposure to Queen’s music like folks of my generation.
Tonight I was reminded of the simpler and happier days of my life and how I’ll always hold on to those memories and the music that played along with it.
Sometimes I get the feelin’
I was back in the old days long ago,
When we were kids, when we were young,
Things seemed so perfect – you know,
The days were endless, we were crazy, we were young.
The sun was always shinin’ – we just lived for fun.
from “These Are The Days of Our Lives”
- Queen, “Innuendo”, 1991
Freddie, Brian, John and Roger… Thank you for the music.
Visit the official musical website for more info.
Wow, how touching. I’m, unfortunately, both too young and too green to the music of Queen to appreciate this kind of walk-down-the-memory-lane. (Only gotten into Queen two months ago) I’ve had the same sentimental experience though when hearing old songs from when I was really young.
One thing I have to disagree with you on is that Queen was not soft. Grand, complex, extravagant they may be, but not soft. If you listen to some of their earlier stuff, they can rock just as hard as Metallica etc.(in fact, Metallica was heavily influenced by Queen):)
Yes, the earlier Queen was pretty hard but that was way before my time.
My apologies if I was unclear. I was referring to my first Queen CD Innuendo, compared to Metallica’s Black album and Maiden’s Seventh Son. Back when I was in an all-boys school, one of the measures of bravado is simply listening to music that could pop your ear drums. Thankfully, Queen wasn’t one of those bands…