The Week in Queen (4)

Given the fact that I’ve gone on the record before about how my parents were early adopters of premium cable television, and tended to leave me and my Little Bro to our own devices more often than not, it seems like it would be an uphill struggle to convince anyone that I had a particularly sheltered childhood. And yet I’m pretty sure I did, maybe not in the never-saw-naked-boobs, never-heard-a-dirty-word, never-smelled-weed-in-my-dad’s-workshop sense, but possibly in a deeper sense. Just because I was exposed to these things doesn’t mean that I understood them. At all. I was effectively sheltered by my own naïveté. I could visualize a naked woman but wasn’t at all sure what to do with one of them. I wouldn’t have a name to put to that acrid aroma in the garage for at least a decade. And I laughed at dirty jokes because it was expected, not because they made any sense with the definitions of various blue terms nebulous at best in my mind.

Which is kind of a roundabout way of admitting that when I first became aware of the music I’m chronicling in this feature, I had no clue that Freddie Mercury was gay, despite the fact that the name of the band was slang for that sexual orientation. In my own retro-speculation, if you had asked me back then what the first thing I thought of when I heard the word “Queen” was, I’d probably say the chess piece. And then I could have nerdily rattled off a dozen more meanings and associations without ever getting close to homosexuality, because I had zero knowledge of that connotation. I may have been allowed to watch movies and listen to music at my own discretion, but outside of pop culture my life was extremely mainstream and as heteronormative as could be: two parents, father worked in an office, mom stayed home, lived in a detached house on a cul de sac, &c. So maybe I was kind of externally sheltered after all, and pop culture was a relatively tiny window out the side of the box, but what I saw out there either reinforced what I already knew or was flatly incomprehensible because I lacked a point of reference.

Our parents took us to church every Sunday, too, and sent us to Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Since I didn’t go to Catholic school, CCD was mandatory in order to hit all those big childhood sacramental milestones (confession, communion, confirmation) but after being confirmed at the end of seventh grade, eighth grade CCD was considered optional enough that my Sunday School peer group went from two separate classes of fifteen or so to a single class of four (unhappy to be there) thirteen-year-olds. I don’t remember much from that year of CCD, except that the teacher’s approach seemed to be to prepare us all for living in the world as Catholic adults by telling us how horrible and sinful secular society was. I do remember spending a couple of weeks going over some handouts which were lists of rock and pop acts and explanations of why they were all immoral and depraved and what hidden anti-Christian messages they were spreading. The Rolling Stones got a shout-out for Sympathy for the Devil as well as Goat Soup (the goat being an obvious diabolic symbol). The Doobie Brothers were indicted for promoting drug use. And both AC/DC and Queen were mentioned for their glorification of sexual deviance and perversity (because “AC/DC” is slang for bisexual just like “Queen” is for gay). And weirdly enough I remember thinking (aside from the fact that my dad was a huge Stones fan and had introduced me to the Doobie Brothers as well) that I never got a swingin-both-ways vibe from AC/DC … but the Queen thing clicked at that point as making perfect sense.

Of course at that point I think I still only half got it. Once the idea was spelled out for me, I could see how Queen’s reputation for campiness and Freddie Mercury’s butch, mustachioed appearance were right in line with my young teenage apperception of the gay lifestyle. It would still be another few years before I really got the gist of the sexual politics in a lot of Queen songs. I mentioned last week that I think most Queen songs have a certain technical precision of musicality that borders on perfect; in addition, I’d posit it’s that skill in execution which allows Queen to get away with certain excesses. The camp, of course, because camp done badly is just pathetic. But also the emotional content of the songs, a lot of which are about anger or frustration or despair in pretty bleak terms. The best Queen songs (e.g. “Under Pressure” and “Somebody to Love”) absolutely seethe with dark menace on some level. And if anger and frustration and despair don’t get to the heart of what it felt like to be a born romantic who happened to be gay in the late 70’s and early 80’s, they must at least be within shouting distance. Once I started empathizing with those sentiments, Queen went from being one of my guilty pleasures to … well, something I could apparently write a limitless number of weekly 1000-word essays about.

Monday: Queen-free, although my wife and I both noticed that Jon Gruden dropped a Queen reference during the MNF broadcast. We noticed the oddness of it in particular, as he said "What's that song I like? 'We Will Rock You'?" Like he was the only person who likes Queen's jock-jammiest tune. Gruden is CRAZY.

Tuesday, 12:05 pm: "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions" on Big 100 FM, heard through the monitor while the little girl was napping. And followed immediately by "Under Pressure" because it was Twofer Tuesday, thus definitively answering the question as to whether or not the "Rock You/Champions" combo counts as a single track or meets the twofer obligation in and of itself. Apparently yes to the former, no to the latter.

Wednesday: Queen-free.

Thursday: Also Queen-free. "Feast or famine" seems appropriate for this week, at least.

Friday, 12:30 pm: "Somebody to Love" on Big 100 FM during naptime.

Saturday, 2:45 pm: "Bohemian Rhapsody" on 102.7 Jack FM on my way to the grocery store.

Sunday: Queen-free.