31: Queen Medley

Late September 2022, the month when we are recording this episode, is a month of quiet

reflection and acceptance of how fleeting life is.

In the UK specifically, this September, we celebrated the life and accomplishments of

a real modern royalty, a person who changed how the world viewed and treated the life, death

and legacy of famous people.

As you can guess from the episode title, it will of course mean to the true queen, the only

queen the band queen and to do so we will discuss two important queen videos the

Queen is ancient 1984's I want to break free and 1991's I'm going slice a month

press F in chat for the respect of the Queen

nah I'm okay

I want to break free

I want to break free

I want to break free

From your lies

You're so self-satisfied

But I don't need you

I've got to break free

God knows

I want to break free.

Two very different videos, each with a very different vibe.

I Want to Break Free is likely the most famous and infamous music video

where the band's members all dress up in drag,

parodying British soap operas, but most notably Carnation Street,

a concept proposed by the band's drummer Roger Taylor.

I'm Going Slightly Mad is a black and white surrealist and absurd collection

of things that just happened for no other apparent reason

beyond the visuals that work well with the lyrics of the song itself.

Also surrealist and absurdist.

This collection of things include Freddie Mercury in a field daffodils, Freddie Mercury with

a banana wig, Brian May in a penguin mask, a person possibly Elton John?

What?

What was this about Elton John?

I forgot to wish that sentence.

A person probably Elton John but probably not in a gorilla suit.

Ah, okay.

Is there a chance it's Elton John then?

No, I think they say that it's not him but also it's an urban legend.

A bit like when Daniel Craig was a stormtrooper.

Elton and I have been friends for a long time.

We've actually sort of said to each other,

one day we'll probably go in there together and write a song,

but it's better being friends, you know what I mean?

A person, possibly Elton John, but probably not,

in a gorilla suit, Roger Taylor with a kettle on his head,

John Deakin as a court jester, also Neil Penguin.

Finally happy

I'm slightly mad

Just very slightly mad

And there you have it

The big secret behind Queen tracks in general is that they sound like bangers

and let's be honest, they are bangers

but underneath the crowd pleasing, sometimes there are different back toys and meanings

when I'm going slightly mad, reflecting the memory loss Mercury struggled with due to his aids.

Or in the case of I Want to Break Free, a one-trelease the song got accepted as a symbol of opposing

unjust political systems. But back to the actual music videos. I Want to Break Free is directed by

David Mallett, a very extremely prolific music director who worked on oh so many music videos,

including an old friend of ours, Dancing in the Streets by David Bowie and Mick Jagger.

A bloody classic, yes.

While we're on the topic of mallet, he was born in West Horsley, Surrey.

This is a fact that will make sense to a very small number of you people,

but let's not elaborate on it any further.

Yes, I did it.

For the listeners of all, me and Neil have no idea what Nelly is writing about here.

I'm presuming Neil doesn't know, because I don't know.

Literally nobody knows beyond a very, very, very small group of people.

Oh, yes.

I'm not going to elaborate further, so let's just move on.

This will be some intense Googling later.

Oh, shits me.

The video of I Want to Bake Free is so well known

that there's no reason for us to keep talking about it.

Instead, more interesting was the reaction

and subsequent backlash to the video.

Not in Britain, of course.

We might have big issues with transphobia

in society in general,

but the UK also has a long-running heritage

of men donning wigs and doing drag for comedic purposes.

So the wink-wink, nudge-nudge of the video

was widely understood in the UK.

Meanwhile, across the pond,

people had an immediate knee-jerk reaction

to seeing men in skirts.

We can't play this.

People think it's homosexual,

said someone from MTV probably, citation needed.

So the video was effectively banned in the US.

In Latin and South America, the song was well received,

but infamously, audiences started throwing stones and bottles at Freddie Mercury

when he put on a wig and fake boobs at a concert in Brazil.

An extra note on this, so this may have been partly due to the song being seen

as a protest song in Brazil, and they thought Freddie was making light of it.

The antics surrounding the making of I'm Going Slightly Mad were less antics

and more of making the best with a very bad set of cards while trying to have fun doing so.

The video was shot in 1991. By that time Freddie Mercury had a very advanced form of AIDS

with only a few months left. The video partially looks the way it does due to those constraints.

He had to have his face caked up in makeup to cover blotches and also wear bad clothing and many

layers of it to hide his physical state. He also wore wigs and hats. The video is also in black and

right to help covering up his date.

In his statement at the weekend, Freddie Mercury said he hoped that everyone would join him,

his doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease.

But despite all of this, he had a real creative input to the video and was even partially co-directing

scenes with the official directors from Duru Productions. He also directed all the videos

from the album Innuendo, including his final performance. Well, this'll be a ride of an episode.

Strap in lads, ladies, let's get going.

Let me first be the first person to be one of the great states of the UK to actually give my sorrow to the passing of Freddie Mercury back in the early 90s.

I was only an infant, but he will be surely missed.

Yes, I'm also very sad about Freddie Mercury dying. No one else.

I think we can't rewind. We've gone too far.

I'm very sad that we can't rewind time and go back to the times when he was alive and the creative force he was.

Don't laugh, David.

You have to accept his immense legacy in music and pop culture.

I'm just laughing because we're not talking about the Queen.

David, you mentioned the name.

Now we have to talk about it.

No, actually, October is the International AIDS Awareness Month.

When this will hopefully be released, David, if we manage to.

If you don't, November also works because he died in November.

Anyway, we're kind of like a good several months of being depressed.

Anyway, should we start with I want to break free or I'm going slightly more?

I'm thinking I'm going slightly mad because it's a bit more of a sad story.

So we'll start with the sound and then go to the happier one.

I like the sound of that.

Yes, let's not be depressed.

This episode will get progressively less depressing as it goes on.

It's a really fucking good video.

Can I be the old one out?

Convince me it's a good song and a good video because I'm a bit sort of like,

what is this?

Why have we watched this?

Why do we watch anything?

Why do we watch Hardway?

It's not, like, I think I'm quite critical when it comes to the stuff we tend to watch and talk about.

And I don't know, this one, I was a bit sort of torn because I didn't really get it.

But in fairness, I was kind of looking at it with the glass half full.

I didn't realise it was one of the last sort of videos that I guess Queen made together.

It's not the last, is it?

The last is Days of Our Lives.

It's basically one where he barely moves, he kind of looks at the camera.

There's a whole story how they had to wrap it up in ASAP

because he was more or less dying by the stage.

Well, I can't convince you to like the song.

It's a very weird song.

It's not like a conventional song.

It's a bit of a, you know, it's a surrealist piece.

If you vibe with it, that's fine.

If you don't, then fair enough.

Queen have many other songs to like.

They do.

Well, speaking of vibing,

why don't we start off with the props that they use within this video,

such as the kettle hat.

It's one of my favourite parts of the video, in fairness.

Is this going to be your suit, part of your suit for your wedding?

Maybe, yeah.

I'm thinking of a, what do you call it, a coffee maker though, instead of a kettle.

Because it's kind of two jobs in one.

Looks good and also keeps me caffeinated.

Just drag your white into your brain.

Yeah, I think all the props in question are like the very sort of euphemisms for being crazy.

Like, I think my favourite one is things, I think I'm a banana tree and it just cuts him

with a little bunch of bananas on his head.

I won't say Wikipedia, but I think it was somewhere else, actually.

They were explaining the process of writing,

and they basically spent the whole night

just making progressively more and more bizarre statements,

like kind of and yes-ing each other all the time.

But yeah, by this point, it was kind of,

the context was

Mercury's like

AIDS prone dementia

so that was the background

but he also wanted to make it a funny song

to actually genuinely have fun with this

because if you don't laugh off

stuff like this, what tales do you have?

It reminds me of a line in The Highchaker's Guide to the Galaxy

which many things do

I think it might just be in the radio play actually

but it doesn't matter. This morning I decided to go mad

and now I'm chasing a Chesterfield sofa

through prehistoric England

is what's going on in the book

And he's like, I decided to go mad this morning.

It's going great.

It kind of feels like the fun side of going a bit mad,

if that makes any sense.

You know, where you've just went, fuck it.

I'm going to embrace it.

Yeah.

And then you end up with penguins pooping on your sofa.

Yeah, that was from a, there's a behind the scenes video of this,

which is actually nice because we don't usually get those.

I'll put that in the show notes.

And there's a good bit where the penguin that you see running around

just takes a massive shit in the sofa.

that's quite a big number there

I don't think that mouth is just

just a penguin

penguin say shit I don't know how a penguin should

share with

that seat's got to be real

clean that

fucking seat

it was a big one

I think if you said in our discord

it's either the art

or departments of scrubbing it

as Freddie's is pointing

saying I'm going to have to

crawl on the floor.

It's Freddie Mercury and you mentioned

earlier there was like another who I presume

is the official director from Doro Productions

I presume that's who the guy is

he's talking to. No there's two people

Doro is a department

of two names. Okay

but yeah they directed a bunch of stuff

for everything from Queen's

Innuendo album which kind of

It makes sense visually when you see them.

I feel like the black and white and all that stuff

is kind of a happy accident, though,

because it kind of fits with the general style.

I don't know if there'd be a name for that kind of general style.

It kind of reminds me of Metropolis and stuff like that,

sort of old German films.

Yeah, like Frankenstein style.

That bit where he talks about the screw at the very beginning

just reminded me of that.

Yeah, I thought that was the thing they were going for.

The founders are Austrian.

You might not be that far off.

in terms of like the props and stuff like that

I think it looks like a decent amount

of effort has been put into sort of making them

all up and stuff like that

the kettle head is the most impressive one I think

it looks like it's actually boiling

because he's static, might have been just the kettle

connected to the plug at the back

and he was just asking something

that's the only thought I had and it's literally

just a literal kettle that it's boiling

you know I did just pop up on my

screen here and it does have the plug in

it looks like it could be routed down his back

so yeah maybe the poor

was it Brian May that had the kettle inside?

That was Roger.

Yeah, poor bastard was just standing there

with a kettle going inside.

I would have a question for you, both of you.

If you were going slightly mad,

what item would you turn into

in terms of becoming

anamorphic? Is that a term?

A phrase that I quite like, which is

mad as a box of frogs.

I've always just found that funny because a box of frogs

would be pretty angry, I imagine.

I'd probably turn into a box of frogs

and just hop away in various directions

and live my life in the wilderness.

I like that.

Is the phrase or the term laughing your bop off,

is that a familiar one of you guys?

I've heard laughing your arse off.

Yeah, like your arse, your head.

But I always pictured it as like a bop.

So I think I would look like a bit...

Like a burger.

I thought that you just, like,

if you went by laughing your arse off,

your arse is just two buns.

Yeah.

It would work.

It would just fall off.

So I'm a frog.

Neil is some form of bread.

He's got a little baguette.

What are you, Neil?

I don't know, actually.

I should have thought about that before asking the question.

A person, they described me once as a slightly angry lemur.

Lemur?

Lemur?

Lemur.

Lemur.

Lemur, thanks.

I still don't know why, but that's stuck.

So I would imagine I'm just turning into a slightly angry lemur.

Is there any good Bulgarian phrases for going nuts?

Or have you all just accepted it?

It's just a fact of life.

Several expressions, they're kind of in the same vibe.

But the one that I know of is, translates vaguely as,

I'm being called by the horned ones.

I think the context is of devils or something.

Being called by the horned ones.

Caught.

Being caught.

Being caught.

Right, yeah.

Sounds like it could be a euphemism for someone else.

Yeah, no, I fully realised it took a second while I was translating it,

but it's literally what it says.

We'll try and say it, you horny bastard.

Is it fair to say that if you were turning mad,

you would turn into a giant penguin?

Well, kind of Brian May style, but actual penguin.

They're just perpetually sort of daft-looking animals

sort of running around with their wee wings going,

and I think maybe one of the reasons I like this video

is just because there's lots of penguins running around,

and that's...

Yeah, it's true.

Do you think those penguins are still alive?

I'll have to. What?

I mean...

I'm just curious. Probably not.

What is the life...

I was going to say, what is the life show?

What is the lifespan of penguins?

How long does a penguin...

To Google...

Exist for...

15 years.

Oh yeah, they probably did.

But they enjoyed their fame while they had it.

Shall we break free?

Through some form of editing transition I haven't thought of yet.

Are we travelling backwards?

Travelling back to...

Night teenage.

I'm sure we all of us

it's actually a video in some of us

not all

Neil

yes

any of your thoughts?

it's the first time I've watched it in years

I remembered all the cross-dressing

stuff obviously, did not remember

any of what I'm referring to as Freddy's

dream world

where it like teleports to this

strange hedonistic

land full of people in skin suits and not skin suits like skin tight suits sorry

eating grapes and rolling over each other and shit i didn't i totally forgot about all that yeah i'm

right yeah i'm the exact same i could not remember i just remembered him in a vacuum

so in my head the song was just three minutes of vacuuming um so yeah so that was a nice surprise i

i like that sort of transition they've done when he opened the cupboard i'm wondering if that's like

a saying like i don't know we're hidden behind the closet or something i don't know we out of the

closet i don't know going into the closet going back straight into the closet don't have to come

out of the closet but you're going into the closet with me i don't know but i read a interesting

sort of article about how how the juxtaposition between like all this well in fact i think first

we should probably talk about the eastenders thing before we get onto that uh coronation street whichever

I had no idea.

I'm not familiar with the Coronation Street cast of that time, so I probably wouldn't

have got it.

But however, it turns out the video, all the characters that are playing in the video are

like Coronation Street characters.

They're like a parody of them, which I had no idea.

But even if you don't know this, it kind of still works as stereotypical characters.

Like, you know, you have the angry old lady and you have the mother that is kind of a bit

too trying to look young and hip.

And the actual teen schoolgirl.

So anyway, yeah, point is that they're kind of still going into stereotypes,

which was, even if you didn't know the Coronation Street connection,

it still reads as a parody or stereotype.

It kind of, everything looks like your standard British soul popper at the time as well.

So an interesting bit that I think someone put in,

which I noticed as well when I was reading the Wikipedia page,

I should do sort of all knowledge.

It quotes, Freddie is playing a Liverpudlian slag,

which I thought was a little bit intense for Wikipedia.

I was like, okay.

It should be censored.

Because my experience of Wikipedia

is that anything even slightly out of line

is immediately removed

because I've tried that stuff before.

So I'm surprised that one got through.

I think that's a quote.

Yeah.

Right, okay.

This is one thing I didn't understand though

because Coronation Street

and I asked my colleagues

who are actually slightly more familiar with that than me.

It's shot in Manchester

or like the story is in Manchester.

So I don't understand why she's...

why is he

I'm never putting it

a slot

it must be the character

he's based on that I guess

but still I was just

surprised that that was

on Wikipedia

I was like

well okay

this had jumped out

to me

it just made me laugh

I was gonna say

should we

should we get to

the whole topic

about

about the continent

who didn't understand this

well the Americans

yeah that's it

honestly I'd always

presumed there would

have been a bigger

backlash to it

at the time

because you know

dresses as women

ooh it's scary

etc etc

from what I was reading

it sounds like

in the UK at least

because there's so much sort of tradition like in pantos you've got a leading boy or whatever what

isn't it it's like it's traditionally always oh no that's the other way around that's a woman dressed

as a boy name i believe there's a lot of cross-dressing in like british culture especially

related to comedy you know you can debate either way if that's good or not but either way the uk

saw the funny side of it and i think it is funny to be honest because like uh freddie murky running

around dressed a woman but still with his mustache i'm like i'm sorry that's just funny

I mean I genuinely think that Roger Taylor looks fantastic as a woman

yeah those were rather shocking

yeah I was like what?

yeah I think he's the only one who's like really really committed to it

he's just like yeah people are going to feel very confused when they see this

when I first watched the videos as a kid I thought he was a girl

obviously I had a concept of men dressing as women for comedy or whatever

but he just looked so convincing

and the Geneva question

I was like

oh he's just

just a girl there

Lither did

five year old

yeah I think

if you hadn't seen him before

you wouldn't know

so

fair play

fair play to him

in the makeup arts

did quite a good job

on him

but yeah I think

in America

it was seen

as more controversial

they're very

puritanical country

aren't they

surprisingly

of everything

like nowadays

you can be like

oh they did

the whole like

her poor drug race

blah blah blah

but there's only

the more poor race

I think it basically

boils down to one they don't have the context of kind of like how that was used for comedic purposes

and also just general homophobia were you so surprised when you found out that mtv just refused

to play the video though they just outright banned it yeah i don't know if it was banned but they just

it was like soft banned by omission of not showing it as far as i know and it's basically the song

didn't chart no way near as high as other countries because of this so what was your thought about

Latin American

this was based on just one article

so a citation needed again

but apparently

I think you mentioned in the opening that

a lot of places it kind of became a political

thing sort of probably

unrelated to the video where you know

I want to break free but they kind of took

that as I want to break free from whatever oppressive

government system blah blah blah

seemed like that gig in particular where he got

stuff thrown at him seems like it could

have been partially homophobic but also

could have been partially people just thinking why aren't you taking this song which we consider

like an anthem of political unrest etc seriously you know i imagine imagine the song still used

at like political rallies and stuff today that point i was making earlier where um he kind of

disappears into his own i kind of interpret this dream dimension dream world thing i read quite a

good thing where they were saying that's kind of an analogy for having a boring normal life and then

just sort of fantasizing about going out and being hedonistic and sliding over people and eating

grapes and stuff like that you know as he does in the video maybe not literally that i don't know

i kind of feel like lying on the sofa being fed grapes is pretty hedonistic you can you combine the

two you have a boring life where you can come home and just do fuck all but then also have like you

know some i don't know where i'm going with this just have an orgy in the weekend i don't know

we don't judge

what do you guys think of the

sort of Freddy's dream world bit

of the video? Way too ballet

movement for my tastes

I think I'm less keen on that

it's interesting to see because like I said I didn't remember it

but I'm less keen on that than the kind of

EastEnders cross-dressing bit

Grenation Street

sorry they just blend into one in my head

it's cool but it's just

I think there's something slightly disturbing about the kind of

body suits I wear and they kind of look like

they've skinned a cow and they've just sort of pasted it on themselves.

They were like, were there like a national ballet or something?

So I don't know what the art direction was for this, I'm afraid.

I think there's a real contrast between what, you know, the parody of the video is and this.

It's kind of gives like a deeper insight to like what his mind must be,

because I assume that these videos are probably mostly Freddie's doing, right?

I don't think the rest of the guys are like,

yeah, let's go in and we'll have a mattress of people

and ready can lie on them

and it can be really seductive and sensual.

And, you know, I get the feeling

that they just go along with it.

I think it's quite fun

because that must have really pissed the Americans off even more.

That's true.

It's like, okay, here's a couple of men in drag

and okay, now here's the mind of one of them.

Like, oh no.

It's almost like, you know,

they kind of look at it for the fear of God.

I enjoyed it.

I think that was one of my sort of favorite points, actually.

when he's lying on the...

The human slip and slide where he's just like...

That's actually quite a clever idea

because basically all the people just roll over

and he's on top just going,

I'm Freddie fucking Mercury, bitch.

Canceled in America.

As long as the music is still there

and as long as the people are still buying the music,

then it's okay.

When they stop buying our records,

then I'll say goodbye and do something else.

Become a strip artist or something.

What music you would strip?

What music would you use?

All the songs I've written.

Come on.

Final points.

I like the first middle.

It's a surreal visual interpretation

of what going mad in a comedic fashion feels like.

I quite like the fact that it's sort of a cheerful view

of going mad, which, considering everything that was going on

in Freddie Mercury's life at that time,

that's pretty impressive that he managed to laugh at the problem

rather than, you know, laughing rather than crying,

which I think is commendable.

And I wanted to break free.

It's a classic for a reason.

I don't know much of Queen outside of their hit song,

I knew about I Want to Break Free

because who didn't?

But it's fun, it's campy, it's pure Queen Madness

it's exactly what it should be

I really don't understand why America couldn't

see it as a laugh, but that is their loss

I don't know about

the other song, I'm going slightly mad

I didn't know about it until the podcast

I think musically it's utter trash

it made me realise

how much rubbish

in my opinion, that Queen actually

released, but you honestly can't hate

on them, I think what they brought to the world

in the world of music is pretty legendary,

regardless what anyone else has to say.

So on this podcast,

we often discuss videos that are very hard to be quirky,

but they usually miss something.

And usually that's what they're missing,

the creativity and vision that those two videos have,

regardless of whether it's Freddie Mercury

or the Dora production or a combination thereof.

And I frankly don't think Queen have a single real bad video,

even considering the more conventional and boring videos.

like a crazy little thing called

love. Yeah, they're awesome.

Go and watch them, especially if you haven't

seen I'm Going Slightly Mad.

My favourite parts of I'm Going Slightly Mad has

to be Freddy with the bananas on his head.

It's on the nose as fuck, but I found it funny.

And the runner-up is the penguin

mask that I can't remember which

member of Queen had it, but

one of them has like a giant, has like a big

steampunk penguin mask, but he uses

it to talk to the penguins and shit. I quite enjoy that.

And I want to break free my favourite part

is the fact freddy still has his mustache on when he's in drag totally embracing the gag was fun and

the worst parts i think we mentioned this earlier and the behind the scenes of going slightly mad

freddy and one of the other directors or whatever are arguing about the creative aspects of the film

blah blah blah well one of the art department is literally cleaning uh penguin off a couch

and that just hit very close to home for me i've been that person trying to get something mundane

done well

the fucking

people in charge

are arguing about

their bullshit

the only person

working on that set

at that time

let's be honest

we've got a runner up

as well

the fact that

me and my dad

frequently argue

about which generation

had the best music

usually at Christmas

and stuff like that

and every fucking time

eventually he just

brings up Queen

and I don't have

a reply to that

so he always brings

that fucking thing

and that annoys him

always tell me

he just has to look

harder for better

music now

but you know

he's got a point

favourite part of

Slightly Mad

is the kettle on Roger's head.

I am convinced it's a real kettle.

We just noticed the plug.

I didn't notice the lead

until we talked about it.

Favorite part of I Want to Break Free,

I think it's Freddy lying on a pile of people.

Just seems like a very Freddy.

Sliding.

It's like a very Freddy thing to do.

And I wonder where these people are today.

I wonder if they still use that

as like an icebreaker.

I was once Freddy Mercury's mattress.

Worst part for I Want to Break Free,

I don't think it could do anything wrong in my book.

So I do not have a worse part of that song.

I'm going slightly mad.

I thought it was a literal too...

I'm sorry.

I thought it was far too literal for my liking.

I didn't like the way they had a lyric of something.

I don't know, like a screw.

Then there's a screw.

Then there's a three-wheel bike.

So my favorite point from both the dupes is...

So I already mentioned it's Puffin' O's We Child.

I genuinely thought Roger Taylor in I Want to Break Free was a woman.

That's my favorite part, just that he looks so utterly convincing.

And the worst part is that... nope, nope, it doesn't exist.

Love all videos.

There is no negative.

Nope, not today.

And there you have it.

Take a look at the show notes for links to today's video, links to Instagram, Twitter.

I don't know what they're about on social media too.

Also email us at gontofarcast at gmail.com.

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And if you're enjoying your podcast, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast, Play of Choice.

As you know, that kind of actually helps a lot.

Thanks.

Anyway, bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.