I hope all of you who have seen the trailer for Bohemian Rhapsody, have enjoyed it. It means that the hard work of many people, including myself, has been worth it. Watching it brought back so many memories, and while I remember filming each of the scenes that we saw, I smiled thinking of all the other scenes that aren’t represented this time. I am very much looking forward to the next one!
Life doesn’t stand still and I am now preparing for a visit to the Netherlands towards the end of the month. Hannie and Anja, along with their committee, have organised a blockbuster day for May 26th
There have been many questions about Freddie and relationships with other famous people.
The first amongst these is Rudolf Nureyev. There never was a relationship between Freddie and Rudolf. It would be wonderful to think that Freddie got his ballet inspiration at the hands of the premier danseur of his time, but sadly it isn’t a fact. Perhaps Rudolf did inspire Freddie if Freddie saw something on tv, but that is the closest to it. Freddie even appeared at the same Gala with Rudolf in 1988 in Barcelona, but they totally ignored each other as they had there own pieces to perform. Asked if he would like to be introduced to Rudolf, Freddie declined.
Another star linked romantically, or at least sexually with Freddie was Rock Hudson. There were rumours going around that they met at a certain bar in Los Angeles, in fact Freddie only ever went there once and I was with him, and certainly there was no Rock Hudson in attendance.
A couple of people have asked for Freddie’s reaction to Ice Ice Baby.
When he first heard it, Freddie just listened to the start and thought it was Under Pressure being played on the radio again. He carried on eating his breakfast and suddenly stopped, frowning. I thought there was a problem with his food but he said ‘no’. He started listening intently and couldn’t believe his ears. He was smiling when he said that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing…. a blatant rip-off. He got hold of Jim Beach, who was already on the case and left it at that, always remembering that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
There have been a few questions asking if there was anyone Freddie really disliked.
As far as I remember he only truly disliked the Sheffield brothers, and that was only because of the way they treated the band in the early days. Freddie hated wasting time or energy on negative things. He would happily spend hours talking about a new project or the latest love in his life, but would dismiss everything negative with a swift sentence, and the subject wouldn’t be raised again.
Someone asked about Freddie, chords and harmonies.
I was present on a few occasions when Freddie had the very first ideas of a new song. As usual, he created the music first. I remember him just gently feeling the keys of the piano as he obviously had the beginnings of a melody in his head Eventually he started playing some chords, which corresponded to the tune in his mind. He asked me to fetch some paper and a pen and then asked me to write down the chords that he told me. There was a progression of about 10 chords which he put into his shoulder bag to use to jog his memory as to the tune at a later date. While Freddie was quite capable of creating some of the beautiful harmonies recorded by Queen, Brian May was the acknowledged master, and he created some of the most well known pieces of Queen’s multi-layered vocals.
Freddie and Greece.
During my twelve years with Freddie he never visited any part of Greece. He would talk about some of the islands and Athens, but we never made it there. Whether he went there before 1979, I really can tell you.
The question of Freddie and other languages is frequently asked.
Freddie spoke English, and very well. He had a good command of the language and his boarding school education also gave him the accent that we all know so well. I don’t know if he could speak Gujurati, which his parents spoke at home, but certainly in my presence he only spoke English with his family. Even though he lived in Munich for so long, he only really mastered a few swear words that the locals gleefully taught him. Freddie himself claimed he had a perfect American accent, which he often tried out when he was in the States, but it really was a dialect of his own, which centred in the mid-Atlantic mostly very English with a few twangs here and there.
Now I have to study the lessons for my English classes tomorrow. I’m back at school, the teacher’s side of the desk, but still learning, proving the old saying that you are never too old to learn, okay, and also proving wrong that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!
Talk and maybe see you soon.