THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF FREDDIE MERCURY (SPLENDID!)
[“I love George Michael. He has a sense of dignity.”]
• He was born on 5th September 1946 in Zanzibar and went to boarding school in Bombay until 1959.
• "My real name is Pluto" he once quipped - actually his real name is Bulsara. Frederick Bulsara.
"I'm an old slag who gets up every morning and scratches his head."
• In ver late '60s he went to Ealing Art College where he played "keyboards" in a couple of very "horrible" "progressive" bands, Wreckage and Sour Milk Sea.
• He used to run a stall in smelly Kensington Antique market, selling disgusting purple loon pants (flared trousers) and other hippie-type garments.
• At Queen's early "gigs", he used to serve popcorn, which he'd with his own fair hands, to the audience.
• He thought up the group name Queen all by himself: "It's regal and it sounds splendid." He also designed the Queen crest logo.
• In 1973 he recorded a version of The Beach Boys' "I Can Hear Music" under the name Larry Lurex in an attempt (failed) to cash in on the glitter-pop boom.
• In 1974 his voice packed up thanks to irritating throat nodules and laser beam treatment was prescribed — but: "I didn't like the look of the doctor." So he went to bed for three weeks, instead.
"I'm a mother figure to many people."
• For the cover of the band's second album, punningly-titled "Queen II", he thought it would be a splendid wheeze for the band to smear themselves with Vaseline and then get hosed down: "God, the agony we went through to have the pictures taken, dear!"
• His greatest hobby is shopping for exotic objects d'art. "All my money goes to Sotheby's. And Harrods. Cartier, Asprey and Christie's. The Japanese call it crazy shopping — I walk around like the Pied Piper with hordes of people following me."
• In 1975 he produced and played "piano" on a single called "Man From Manhattan" by Eddie Howell, whoever he might be.
• In 1976 he met Elton John who told him that he liked the Queen single "Killer Queen": "Anyone who says that goes in my white book — my black book is bursting at the seams."
"I think I'm going to go mad in a few years' time."
• He used to do an inimitable imitation of Shirley Bassey singing "Big Spender" whilst sipping champagne on stage.
• In 1980 he came up with the splendid wheeze of decking out the backstage waitresses at a Madison Square Gardens concert in highheels, bikini bottoms and nothing else!!!!
[“I am so depressed by these people who still won’t admit that everything we so simply drips with originality.”]
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