As the 1970s marked a change of the guard in rock music, Queen was ready to take the genre to new places. Although it’s easy to see the shades of acts like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin in their use of harmonies and massive riffs, the spirit behind Freddie Mercury turned him into one of the greatest frontmen of all time, soaring across the stage and turning into a different character altogether when feeding off the audience. Then again, nothing could have prepared the world for when that sturdy voice was silenced.
Although it was played up for dramatic effect in the film Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury wasn’t diagnosed with AIDS until well after the Live Aid concert, becoming increasingly ill and making fewer public appearances besides going on tour. As the 1990s started, the public started to catch on to how frail Mercury was becoming, often seen sitting or receiving an award looking thin and sickly while Brian May accepted it on the group’s behalf.
After telling the world of his AIDS diagnosis, Mercury succumbed to the disease the day after, leaving many imitators in his wake. However, they didn’t mean that all new Queen music had to stop there.
Between his many bouts with medication, Mercury was always working on new music until he died and asked the band to help him assemble the songs as he was tending to his health problems. The plan would be for the band to come down to the studio when Mercury was feeling up to it and work as hard as they could to get something on tape.
Since Mercury knew he wouldn’t see the album’s release, he made a point to tell the group to finish the songs after he passed. Although some songs were recycled from the members’ solo catalogues, like Mercury’s rendition of May’s ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’, fans were struck in the gut by ‘Mother Love’.
Being one of the final performances that Mercury ever laid down, producer Dave Richards remembered the singer’s insistence to get it all down on tape, telling NME, “He was dying when he did those songs, and he knew he would be dead when they were finished because he said to me, ‘I’m going to sing it now because I can’t wait for them to do music on this. Give me a drum machine, and they’ll finish it off.”
While Mercury was at death’s door, it’s hard to tell from the power of his voice, still maintaining the precision and finesse of his earlier work when going for a searing high note towards the middle of the song. Time did catch up with Mercury a little too late, with May having to finish the rest of the tune on lead vocals after Mercury couldn’t finish the final part of the track.
Regardless of who was singing the song’s final version, the spirit of Mercury lives on in this Queen tune, especially towards the end, where they feature assorted samples of his crowd warm-ups from earlier concerts, featuring some of the most powerful sustained notes of his career. Not every artist will know when they are making their final album, but Mercury knew his time was short and was going to make every second count.
