I (still) want to break free

 

April 2d marks the 37th anniversary of “I want to break free” being released onto the world. Not only is this song a classic rock anthem by legendary British band Queen, but it also tells the equally classic tale of controversy when it comes to homosexuality being alluded to in music in general, and Rock music in particular. In a week when Hip Hop star Lil Nas X had to justify another music video for arguably the same sort of reason (albeit 37 years later), we figured this story was quite fitting…

In 1984, Queen were standing at a bit of a crossroads. Granted, they were one of the most successful rock bands in existence, filling up stadiums across the world and breaking records in the process, but they had also been at it for over a decade and the first signs of band fatigue were starting to show. Several members, including lead singer Freddie Mercury, were working on solo projects when they were not seen out-partying the late Keith Moon. However, the John Deacon-penned “I want to break free”, from the band’s 11th studio album The Works, came out as an anthemic, power chord-based track which displayed none of the confusion the band may have experienced backstage.

The early 1980’s were also a time when the band had successfully started crossing over to the United States, ever since the 1980 “Another one bites the dust” had African-Americans assuming Mercury and his friends were black musicians… That mistake swiftly got rectified, but the band’s profile kept on rising in music’s #1 worldwide market. Then came “I want to break free”, more to the point its music video: intended as a parody of British soap opera Coronation Street, each of the band’s members could be seen dressed as a woman, with Mercury vacuuming the living room and drummer Roger Taylor acting as the school girl…

What was obviously meant as a joke, and taken as such by a British audience who got the reference, was very much taken at face value in the US. As Mercury already had a habit of toying with gay symbolism, without ever quite crossing the line or formally coming out — at a time when such a decision would have been hugely more consequential than today, the arguably more puritanical American society was having an increasingly harder time digesting such antics. In effect, that video was the last straw, the one people were not willing to go along with, no matter how asinine that whole story really was…

Queen were never able to regain their musical momentum in the United States — until 1992’s Wayne’s World reintroduced “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the world in general and North America in particular. Their loss: the rest of the world never stopped enjoying Mercury’s work…