Innuendo

INNUENDO

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Through the sorrow all through our splendour

Don’t take offence at my innuendo - Queen (Innuendo)

October 17, 2004

Like the illustration on the album cover, I’ve been juggling so many of Queen’s wonderful songs around lately.

I’ve only just acquired Innuendo, although I knew something about it before. We know that, by the time it was made, Freddie had little time left in this world. At the end of the lyrics booklet appears a picture of the group in an ethereal half-light, which, bearing in mind the physical effects of Freddie’s illness, no doubt also served a practical purpose of concealment.

In a way, there was a need - which could even be traced back to one of the songs on a very early album (Queen II), that is, Brian’s ‘White Queen (as it began)’ - not to ‘speak too late’. On Innuendo it seems that it was the time to form the last message from all four of them together, to say things that wanted to be said before it was too late. Just about every one of us is guilty of saying ‘I’ll do this or do that’, because we think we’ll be granted the time, when what we really should do is 'just savour every mouthful’.*

After his death, the stories emerged of Freddie’s heroic struggle to produce as much work as he could in these last months; material from this time was used in the later ‘Made in Heaven’ album.

For all of us, the studio was always a great escape from the worries and cares of real life. Because you go in and you're completely immersed in the music. Freddie was always a joy in the studio. Always full of ideas. That continued right to the end. For him, it was a great lifeline. So those last recordings weren't trying. Quite the opposite.

Brian May, 'Uncut' Magazine, March 2005.

(quote added Feb 2005)

But Freddie had always shown an extraordinary commitment. A friend spoke to me only today about a documentary she had seen about him covering his meeting with Montserrat Caballé a few years before, and she told me that she was greatly impressed by the graciousness of his manner and by his superb talent which both came across in this particular broadcast.

The fact remains though, that over the years, Freddie also displayed another way of expressing himself. This was typified in the way he talked about Queen’s songs; he seemed to be quite dismissive, not with regard to quality, but to meaning and approach; he described them as a sort of escapism, appearing to discount the need for any lingering or loitering with or around them. If one can cope with the flippancy with which he used to make such remarks, I would say, in the most important sense (and this is my personal thought), he was right: The songs themselves aren’t the be-all and end-all, it’s how they speak to you that counts.

No one ever really knew Freddie. He was shy, gentle and kind...

– Roger Taylor

The rest of us played okay, but Freddie was out there and took it to another level. It wasn't just Queen fans - he connected with everyone.

- Brian May

It’s probably fair to say that it was as a It was as a live band that Queen liked to communicate their songs most of all. One of the things I like to do when watching the ‘Live at Wembley’ DVD is have a look at the ‘Queen cam’ with the camera focused on just one of them – then I can see the sheer effort they were all putting in as individuals to make the concert a success. On ‘The Miracle’ album it was asked ‘Was it all Worth It?’ – it’s concluded that it was.

For myself, I’d like to say that it’s enough for me that the four of them came into my life with their music, and that I’ve been able to build this site. Anything extra that happens from now on will be a wonderful bonus, given by grace and nothing else.

My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies

Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die

I can fly – my friends…

Queen (The Show Must Go On - Innuendo)

Finally, there has been little opportunity to make much mention of John Deacon up to this point. Despite being renowned as the quietest member of the group, he unquestionably made his mark on the songwriting. Among others, he gave us two of Queen’s best known and loved songs – one being ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ (The Game), and the other - which is rather about biting the bullet than the dust - ‘I Want to Break Free’ (The Works). There must be many who have drawn on this song to extricate themselves from some undesirable situation. So, at this point, as I sign off from this page (in the hope that, in the future, other people can have a say on it), I retire, leaving with you a section of the retiring (and retired!) bass player’s lyric:

*‘Don’t Try so Hard’ - Innuendo

I have to be sure

When I walk out that door

Oh how I want to be free, baby

Oh how I want to be free

Oh how I want to break free..

'Conscious Life' by Michael Simons

(Translated into English by myself. German original below).

Reproduced by kind permission of the author who wrote this around 1995 when he was about 16 - concerns the song 'Innuendo' - lyrics here.

Conscious life, that is, to be conscious oneself of what you are thinking, feeling and doing in every minute, indeed in every second - in my opinion it’s either impossible or achieved with difficulty. We (human beings) have tried it for aeons – what comes out of it – we live our lives only to prefer to think about knocking time dead in the truest sense of the word; ‘we’re just passing our time’.

When I assume that I am the sum of my thoughts, that is that I come from my thoughts and go to that which I think (or something like that), I consequently have to disengage myself from all traditions, laws and precepts, in order at some time to be able to live my life as my existence has envisaged it for me – only then can I really live consciously.

Everything else would be or is a farce – you are rushing to keep to appointments, trying to keep to the rules and trying to be on good terms with everyone. In this way you lose your identity or rather hide it behind a mask (or many masks).

Perhaps though a crucial event must occur in my life to make me start to live consciously. The meaning of Innuendo is along the lines of insinuation, allusion. When Freddie Mercury wrote this lyric, he knew that he didn’t have long to live.

He died in the same year. Perhaps after 20 years of glamour world rock and roll he had just started for the first time to concentrate on other things, things which aren’t confined to the surface, but are of existential importance.

Indeed, it doesn’t necessarily need to be near to death that one is pulled out of the routine - it can also, for example, be a talk with a friend that opens your eyes, that gives you the courage to be yourself. Indeed, you need courage. ‘Don’t take offence at my innuendo’ – expressed another way ‘take me as I am’.

As soon as I concern myself with me, I start to learn more about myself and my spiritual horizon broadens. At some stage you become aware that your are more or at least can be more than your are – the only condition is to take off your mask(s) ‘You can be anything you want to be …surrender your ego’.

You experience a development which many people can’t cope with though.

You are described and labelled as arrogant, cold etc. As you release yourself from superficiality, you distance yourself at the same time more and more from your fellow human beings. Why do other people simply not realise that it’s just that you’re no longer superficial, it just that you’re deep-thinking - why do you pay such a high price – namely loneliness – for a life in which you is striving to be conscious of yourself, to fathom out your existence and to explore your boundaries?

I can identify personally with the song ‘Innuendo’. I no longer want my life to be determined by unimportant things and flowery phrases. (Why is it that I get forever flustered when at the checkout girl at Ihr Platz supermarket makes her totally unnecessary comments, whenever my mother complains in vain once again to the caretaker about other residents who don’t clean up; when I see how many people mess around with this rubbishy triviality which is of no meaning whatsoever).

Some time an event occurs after which I try to fathom out my existence – after which I don’t want to be at the mercy of arbitrariness, false religions etc. Conscious life starts in my opinion when I’ve removed my mask, I am myself. In this it doesn’t at all depend whether I can remember every second of my life – it’s far more important that I look for the reason that lies behind the sum of my actions. Once you’re searching you won’t stop until you have found the objective, the meaning of existence.

Or as Freddie Mercury expressed it – so long as there is a reason to live, so long as one can or will try to find it, one will keep on trying to cross the fine line that separates you from the meaning of your existence - or at least to tread it or find it.

For me that is conscious life, to confine yourself to the essential and to look for the reason behind it, to depart form the superficiality of everyday life, to ‘study’ and discover yourself – who or what am I, where or into what am I evolving – to incorporate other people whom you like, perhaps even love, into these reflections so their ideas can be understood.

Indeed: if I do my own thing, that is, keep to no law I run the risk of going to prison very quickly. Of course it’s only my body that is locked up there, not my thoughts.

So am I still free because I am indeed the sum of my thoughts ( I can still think, and break new ground in thoughts) or am I restricted in my freedom because I can’t satisfy my thoughts (wishes, needs etc.) any more?

*****

As long as you live (then again, that is relative), it is never too late to leave the everyday tracks and give yourself over to the adventure of this quest – you have to raise courage for it and let your mask drop. Then you are (perhaps) in the position to live your life consciously without religion and a notional structure.

That’s not to mean that there is no ‘power’ which can give us a meaning in the end. I just refuse to believe that this power makes itself ‘manifest’ through some religion or picture of God. If there is such a thing, then I’ll only find it when I’ve found the meaning of my existence!

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'Bewußtes Leben' von Michael Simons

Bewußtes Leben, d.h. sich selber bewußt sein, was man in jeder Minute ja Sekunde denkt, fühlt und macht ist meiner Meinung nach entweder nicht oder nur sehr schwer möglich. Wir (die Menschen) versuchen es seit Ewigkeiten – was kommt dabei raus: Wir leben unser Leben nur dahin, möglichst darauf bedacht, die Zeit im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes tot zuschlagen – we just passing our time.

Wenn ich davon ausgehe, daß ich die Summe meiner Gedanken bin, d.h. ich aus meinen Gedanken komme und dorthin gehe, was ich denke (oder so ähnlich), muß ich mich konsequenter Weise von allen Traditionen, Gesetzten und Vorschriften lösen, um irgendwann mein Leben so leben zu können, wie meine Existenz es für mich vorgesehen hat; nur dann kann ich wirklich bewußt leben.

Alles andere wäre oder ist eine Farce – man hetzt seinen Terminen hinter her, versucht die Vorschriften einzuhalten und versucht sich mit (allen) Menschen gut zu stellen. Dabei verliert man doch seine Identität bzw. verbirgt sie hinter einer (oder vielen) Masken.

Vielleicht muß aber erst ein einschneidendes Ereignis in meinem Leben eintreten, damit ich anfange bewußt zuleben. Innuendo heißt soviel wie Andeutung, Anspielung. Als Freddie Mercury diesen Text schrieb, wußte er, daß es mit ihm zu Ende geht.

Er starb im selben Jahr. Vielleicht hatte er nach 20 Jahren Glamour Welt Rock ‘n´ Roll erstmals angefangen, sich auf andere Dinge zu konzentrieren, die sich nicht auf die Oberfläche beschränken, sondern von existentieller Wichtigkeit sind.

Es muß ja nicht unbedingt der nahe Tod sein, von dem man aus der Routine herausgerissen wird, es kann ja auch z.B. das Gespräch mit einem Freund sein, das einem die Augen öffnet, einem den Mut gibt „man-selber-zu-sein“. Mut braucht man allerdings. Don’t take offence at my inneundo – Nimm keine Anstoß an meinen Andeutungen. Anders ausgedrückt: Nimm mich so wie ich bin.

Sobald ich mich mit mir selber beschäftige, beginne ich, mehr über mich zu erfahren – mein geistiger Horizont erweitert sich. Irgendwann kommt man zur Erkenntnis, daß man mehr ist oder zumindest mehr sein kann, alsman ist – einzige Bedingung ist, seine Mask(en) abzulegen: „You can’t be anything you want to be[...]Surrender your ego.”

Man erfährt eine Entwicklung, mit der allerdings viele Menschen nicht fertig werden.

Man wird als arrogant, introvertiert, kalt etc. bezeichnet und abgestempelt. Indem man sich von der Oberflächlichkeit löst, entfernt man sich gleichzeitig immer mehr von seinen Mitmenschen. Wieso realisieren es andere Menschen einfach nicht, daß man eben nicht länger oberflächlich sondern eben tiefgründig ist, wieso zahlt man für ein Leben, in dem man bemüht ist, sich selber bewußt zu werden, seine Existenz zu ergründen und seine Grenzen zu erkunden einen derartig hohen Preis – nämlich Einsamkeit?

Ich kann mich persönlich mit dem Lied Innuendo identifizieren. Ich will nicht länger, daß mein Leben vonunwichtigen Dingen und Floskeln bestimmt wird (Warum rege ich mich bloß andauernd an der Kasse vom IHR PLATZ auf, wenn die Kassiererin ihre völlig unnötigen Kommentare von sich gibt; wenn meine Mutter sich wieder einmal nutzlos beim Hausmeister über nicht putzende Mitbewohner beschwert; wenn ich sehe, wie sich unzählige Leute mit diesem „scheiß Kleinzeug“ abgeben, das von keinerlei Bedeutung ist).

Irgendwann tritt ein Ereignis ein, nachdem ich versuche meine Existenz zu ergründen – nachdem ich nicht länger Willkür, falschen Religionen etc. ausgeliefert sein will. Bewußtes Leben beginnt meiner Meinung dann, wenn ich meine Maske ablegte, ich selber bin. Dabei kommt es noch gar nicht einmal darauf an, ob ich mich an jeder Sekunde meines Lebens erinnern kann, viel wichtiger ist es, daß ich den Grund suche, der hinter der Summe meiner Handlungen steht. Wenn man erst einmal auf der Suche ist, wird man nicht damit aufhören, bis man das Ziel, den Sinn der Existenz gefunden hat.

Oder wie Freddie Mercury es ausgedrückt hat: Solange es einen Grund gibt, zu leben, solange kann oder wird man es versuchen ihn zu finden, man wird immer wieder versuchen, die eine, feine Linie zu überschreiten oder zu mindestens zu berühren oder zu finden, die einen vom Sinn seiner Existenz trennt .

Das ist für mich bewußtes Leben, sich auf das wesentliche zu beschränken und den Grund dahinter zu suchen, die Oberflächlichkeit des alltäglichen Lebens zu verlassen, sich selber zu „studieren“ und zu erkennen – Wer oder was bin ich und wohin oder zu was werde ich gehen oder mich entwickeln – andere Menschen, die man gerne hat, vielleicht sogar liebt, in diese Überlegungen einzubeziehen, ihre Gedanken zu begreifen.

Allerdings: mache ich mein eigenes Ding, d.h. ich halte mich an kein Gesetz mehr laufe ich Gefahr schnellstensins Gefängnis zu kommen. Dort ist allerdings nur mein Körper eingesperrt,meine Gedanken nicht.

Bin ich dann immer noch frei, weil ich ja die Summe meiner Gedanken (ich kann immer noch denken, gedanklich in neue Dimensionen vorstoßen) bin oder bin ich in meiner Freiheit eingeschränkt, weil ich meinen Gedanken (Wünschen, Bedürfnisse etc.) nicht mehr nachkommen kann.

*****

Solange man lebt (wobei das auch wieder relativ ist), ist es niemals zu spät, alltägliche Bahnen zu verlassen und sich auf das Abenteuer dieser Suche zu begeben – man muß nur den Mut dazu aufbringen und seine Maske fallen lassen. Dann ist man (vielleicht) in der Lage, sein Leben auch ohne Religion und ein gedankliches Konstrukt namens Gott bewußt zu leben.

Was nicht heißen soll, daß es keine „Macht“ gibt, die uns am Ende einen Sinn geben kann. Ich weigere mich nur zu glauben, daß diese Macht sich durch irgendeine Religion oder Gottesvorstellung „greifbar“ machen läßt. Wenn es sie gibt, dann werde ich sie nur dann finden, wenn ich den Sinn meiner Existenz gefunden habe!

_________________________________________

'Legends Never Die', ca. 1999. Thanks to Michael

(This is also featured on queen-greatest-bits.de).

_________________________________

A poem to Freddie, written and and later posted by Canadian fan Jill, then aged 14, on the Roger Taylor Online forum in October 2004:

Unshed tears tease my eyes,
For the void in your presence
Is no longer held within.
I can't help but imagine
How it'll be when I see you again.
Will you love me just the same,
When we meet in heaven?
Once more, will we walk together
As a smile dances upon my lips
For you'll surround me with your warm embrace
Will your face look as it did,
When we meet in heaven?
Or will it be seemingly ageless
Showing hidden traces of
Yesterday, today and those to come.
Will your touch feel right,
When we meet in heaven?
Making thoughts flood within
When words have no avail,
And my breath runs short
Will your voice still send shivers,
When we meet in heaven?
Or will it be but a subtle whisper,
A hushed tone that fills me
As would a multitude.
Will your eyes bore through like always,
When we meet in heaven?
Seeping through my soul,
Making me feel as though I need nothing,
But for us to just be...forever.
Until that moment,
When all times end is unknown,
I'll wait
With your fist held firmly in the sky,
Until at last our fate shall rest in eternity,
The day we meet in heaven.

__________________________________________________

Freddie Mercury – Trabi

Here’s a fascinating little story about a journey to London from Germany in a special ‘Freddie Trabi’ car (the ‘Trabi’ (Trabant) being the model of car driven in the former East German state) which I found on www.queen-greatest-bits.de and translated. For the direct link to the story, click here.

Text and Pictures by Ortwin Rave, 20.01.2002

Ten years ago when Freddie died I immediately got on the next plane to go to Freddie’s house and to the cemetery where the wreaths were laid. One thing was for certain then – that this would not be my last time there. A year later the film ‘Wayne’s World’ came to the cinemas. At the start of the film Wayne and Garth play Bohemian Rhapsody in the fun mobile and head-bang to it – really crazy. There was only one thing for it: I also wanted to have a fun mobile. A week later I painted the Queen logo on my Renault 4 with stencil and paint. It was really cool.

At the beginning of last year my mate and I decided that for the tenth anniversary (how time flies), at all events, whatever happened, that we would go to London. We didn’t yet know how and by what means. I just thought that it had to be something special, it was, after all, a special occasion. Then I had the idea to buy a Trabi saloon (I’ve had convertible and a VW 181 for nine years), to make a ‘fun mobile’ out of it and set off on the journey. But this time it should look really good. But as I was suffering from a chronic lack of money I just had to see how I could do it at the best price. Then I had a brilliant idea. I looked up several advertising signwriters in Dortmund and asked whether and to what extent they would finance me if their name was included on the car (the TV might possibly make a report about it). The boss of the Blum advertising agency thought the idea was so good and whacky, and he proposed arranging the whole thing (two days usage) for nothing. Who could say no? After a few more hitches the Trabi was ready enough by the middle of November for us to be able to travel to London.

In the photos the Trabi is standing opposite Freddie’s house and from the crowd of people there you can see which day it was. I can only say it was wonderful, although it was a sad occasion.

________________________________________________________

A photo of my Queen print by 'Bradford'

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Roger Wallpaper by Elenir

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I'm not going to be a star, I’m going to be a legend.

Freddie Mercury

Sketch of Freddie sent to the fan club 

by a Russian fan

From Russia with love - August's site:

Pictures from www.queenzone.com

except

album cover from www.queencollector.com