Queen guitarist Sir Brian May has shared which Queen song is his favourite, and it’s not one of the mega-selling hits.
The guitarist was appearing on the BBC’s The One Show when he was asked to selected on of the band’s song that he had a personal affection for.
May said that while anthemic songs like We Will Rock You are great to play live on stage, the tune that resonates most with him is an underappreciated song from the late Freddie Mercury towards the end of his life.
May opted for the title track to the band’s 1989’s album The Miracle.
The album was the thirteens of the band’s long career and featured five singles with I Want It All, Breakthru, The Invisible Man, Scandal and finally the title track The Miracle.
“I’m going to pick a song that not everybody knows out there, which is called ‘The Miracle,’ which Freddie wrote that I always thought has a strange, unique magic to it,” May told the program.
“Especially because Freddie wrote it at a time when it was very hard for him to be optimistic,” May added, referring to Mercury’s HIV/AIDS diagnosis, “and it’s just very beautiful. I’ll go for that.”
The lyrics of the song list things that Mercury considers to be miracles around the globe from drops of rain and test tube babies being born, to historical figures like Captain Cook and rock star Jimi Hendrix. After adding The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Golden Gate Bridge and the Taj Mahal, Mercury suggests peace of earth and perfect harmony is the miracle that everyone is waiting for.
For the song’s video the band were replaced by child actors portraying each of the members through different parts of the band’s career.
Actor Ross McKeller who plays Mercury in the clip would go on to appear in the TV series Band of Brothers, White Collar, 24 Die Another Day, and Ghost Whisperer.
New book claims Mercury had secret daughter
A new book to be released later this year claims that Freddie Mercury father a daughter in the 1970’s and her existence has been kept a secret until now.
According to reports in Britain’s The Daily Mail newspaper the Queen singer had a “fling” with the wife of a close friend and it resulted in the birth of a daughter in 1976.
Author Lesley-Ann Jones has announced her new book Love, Freddie features material drawn from 17 volumes of personal diaries that Mercury gave to his daughter before his death in 1991.
The woman’s name has not been revealed, she’s only referred to as ‘B’ in the announcements about the book. It is claimed that she has always been aware that Mercury was her father and had a close relationship with him in the last 15 years of his life.
The book suggested that Mercury’s former girlfriend Mary Austin, and his bandmates in Queen have all been aware of the existence of the daughter, but have kept it a secret. None of them have yet confirmed if the claims in the book are true.
The Daily Mail say they’ve seen an advance copy of the book and it is a handwritten letter from ‘B’ about her parentage.
“Freddie Mercury was and is my father.
“We had a very close and loving relationship from the moment I was born and throughout the final 15 years of his life.”
“He adored me and was devoted to me. The circumstances of my birth may seem, by most people’s standards, unusual and even outrageous.” she writes.
That should come as no surprise. It never detracted from his commitment to love and look after me.
“He cherished me like a treasured possession.” she said.
Mercury died in late 1991, just a day after he publicly revealed that he was living with HIV. Speculation that Mercury was ill had filled the pages of British newspapers for several years after the singer began to look increasingly gaunt in the band’s music videos.
His death came at the heigh of the AIDS crisis where there were few medications that tackles the virus.
