11/09/03

A favourite song is like an old friend. It takes very little time or effort to reacquaint yourself with it. You feel instantly comfortable in its company. It reminds you of the good times of yesteryear while strangely rocking you towards an optimistic frame of mind for the future.

As a kid, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was such a song. While my parents and friends politely partook in catatonic slide shows from overseas trips, I would often escape to stereo cabinets and sift through record collections as the adults ooh-ed and ah-ed.

One family friend had a nifty cartridge player with Queen's 'A Night at The Opera' inside. Luckily I didn't read the title or see the album cover as, at eight years old, the irony would have escaped me. I remember putting on the headphones and inadvertently launching into a mesmerising potpourri of tunes with unpredictable styles, sounds, temperaments and lengths before reaching the penultimate track which did it all in six minutes!

From the piano intro through the dramatic balladry of the opening verses, into the operatic pastiche which suddenly and effortlessly transformed into heavy metal before the gentle denouement - I was transfixed. I couldn't believe the variety of sounds and voices shifting from one ear to the other. Listen to it today on your headphones - it's still as dizzying, innovative and exciting - even if you know every second of it.

Throughout my teens, I dreamed of playing the song in my various garage bands. But it never sounded like the sublime song in my head. And as our band had only one person who could sing in tune we were destined to find the 100-part harmony a major stumbling block had we ever got that far.

When at university, public tastes swayed towards the independent, alternative, experimental and underground. There seemed no place for Queen in rock. They had begun tampering with synthesizers which frustrated me profoundly. Deciding parody the best medicine, I would perform 'Bohemian Rhapsody In-A-Minute' as a sort of attention-seeking party trick. (I still get asked to do it today at social functions.) I would sing the whole song in under sixty seconds, mimicking all the orchestral bits and singing all the vocal parts while convulsing my head in random directions like Martin Short in 'Inner Space'.

When Mercury died, I stopped this gag out of respect. With grunge's intolerance of production values and 'selling-out' my tastes veered away from Queen once more, especially when the Greatest Hits package (Volumes 1, 2 & 3) arrived. Greatest Hits packages are the death knell of any band, usually signifying the end of an era and any discernible creative energy.

Years later, while touring interstate with my junior soccer team, a headstrong member of my outfit - who never travelled without his copy of Queen's Greatest Hits Volume 1 - decided some team bonding was in order. He saw in 'Bohemian Rhapsody' the catalyst. To my surprise the entire bus, including the young homophobes who had previously branded Queen as 'totally gay', would happily sing the entire song from start to finish with all the familiarity of The Lord's Prayer.

Then, when touring with this team once again in the UK last January, I took a splinter group to see 'We Will Rock you' at the Dominion Theatre instead of the educationally sound and arty 'Circe de Soleil' at the Royal Albert Hall. I was told by one ill-informed member of my team that the Queen musical would probably be based around men dancing and kissing each other. (Odd hearing that from a soccer player.)

Naturally, librettist Ben Elton witheld 'Bohemian Rhapsody' until the encore, knowing full well it was what we all were waiting for. Watching a six-year-old in front of me singing 'Scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?' without the slightest idea of what she was singing, coaxed me into the realisation that lyrical content didn't matter all that much in rock classics.

Every member of the audience sang every word and hummed every note in joyous solidarity - like after your hometeam has won the grandfinal - all the way to the final, gentle whimper of the closing gong. We celebrated every single good time we had ever had whenever this pompously silly, capricious song about someone whose mother had just killed a man pleasantly hit the ear drums. You could only pity anyone not there with you.

Last week, at the Queen tribute show 'A Kind of Magic', Freddie-impersonator Craig Pesco didn't really have to sing a note of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. He understood its magic. And so did everybody in the Convention Centre. It was our song now and all Pesco had to do was play the opening notes on the piano for the celebration to begin.

Arms flew up, out and around those near us. A friendship was remembered and reborn. And we all began to sing.