Freddie Mercury

He was born with four extra incisors. At boarding school they called him "Bucky" because of it, because of the teeth that stuck out, and it embarrassed him: in the photographs from those years he covers his mouth when he laughs, a gesture he kept all his life.

He never had them fixed. He could have paid for it a thousand times over and did not, convinced — as everyone around him always repeated — that this mouth was part of his voice, and that touching it meant risking the one thing he was not prepared to lose.

That is the whole man. The strangeness that embarrassed him was also his gift, and he knew it before anyone else did.

The fleeing came from further back

Farrokh Bulsara was born in 1946 in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Africa. His family were Parsi Zoroastrians, descended from Persians who centuries earlier had fled to India escaping religious persecution. Exile was already in the blood; he only repeated the journey.

His father worked for the British colonial administration, which gave him a childhood of a certain privilege. At eight he was sent to a boarding school in Panchgani, in India. There he took piano lessons, formed his first band at twelve — the Hectics, who played rock and roll covers — and began calling himself Freddie.

In 1964 the Zanzibar revolution forced them to flee again. The Bulsaras arrived in Feltham, a London suburb, as one more refugee family, with what they were wearing. The boy from the English boarding school became an immigrant in England.

He studied art and design at Ealing Art College — that is where the Queen crest comes from, which he drew himself, combining the four members' zodiac signs — met Brian May and Roger Taylor, and around 1970 stopped being Bulsara. He took Mercury, the name of a Roman god. He did not change his surname: he changed species.

Four octaves and no shame

The voice ran from F2 to F6. Four octaves, measured, and an absolute willingness to use them for anything: the fake opera of "Bohemian Rhapsody", the stadium anthems of "We Are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You", the rockabilly of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", the euphoria of "Don't Stop Me Now". Queen allowed themselves to flirt with the ambition of progressive rock and with the most direct pop on the same record.

And on stage he broke every mould of how a rock singer was supposed to behave: theatrical, ambiguous, extravagant, with a freedom that in his time bordered on scandal. At Live Aid in 1985, before a packed stadium and a watching planet, he gave what many still consider the greatest live performance in the history of rock: twenty minutes in which one man conducted tens of thousands of people as if they were a single voice.

The outsider who had had to invent himself from nothing ended up being the one who made a whole stadium feel it belonged to something.

The man who barely spoke about himself

Behind the flaming god was someone intensely private, and that is the half the legend covers up.

Freddie barely spoke about his Persian origins. He barely spoke about his private life. He gave charming, empty interviews, and kept himself back.

His deepest bond was with Mary Austin, his partner between 1969 and 1976 and afterwards his closest friend until the end, the person he trusted most and to whom he left his house in his will. From 1985 he lived with Jim Hutton, who was beside him until the last day. He lived his intimate life away from the spotlight, in an era that punished what he was with cruelty.

The man who gave himself entirely on stage guarded every inch of himself off it. Like so many great showmen, he was inwardly a solitary.

He chose the moment

He was diagnosed with AIDS around 1987, when the illness was a sentence surrounded by fear and stigma. He told the band in 1989 and nobody else. He kept recording to the end, with a voice that was fading and would not surrender: he came into the studio when his body allowed it and did whatever he could do that day.

He owed nobody an explanation and gave none, until he decided to. On 23 November 1991 he made public that he had AIDS. The next day he died, aged forty-five, at his home in London.

He chose the moment to tell it, and told it just before leaving, on his own terms, as he had done everything else. He was given a Zoroastrian funeral, the rite of his ancestors: the outsider returned, at the end, to what he had been from the start. His ashes went to Mary Austin, who buried them in a place she has never revealed.

Two stamps and a clap

He has been dead for more than thirty years and his voice has not lost a gram of its force. He still fills stadiums he no longer walks into.

And there is something in his work worth underlining, because it is rarer than it looks. "We Will Rock You" does not start with music. It starts with two stamps and a clap, with you, and it teaches anybody — before any theory, with no instrument, without being able to sing — that belonging requires neither permission nor talent: it is enough to keep the beat.

That is the story underneath the legend. Not the untouchable icon, but the boy from an island who arrived in England with what he was wearing, invented himself completely, and with that hand-built invention taught a planet to sing together.

Go and watch the twenty minutes of Live Aid. You will see a man who belonged nowhere making the whole world, for a while, belong to him. And look, when he laughs, at the teeth he never wanted fixed.

Sources

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; Stone Town, Zanzibar, 5 September 1946 – Kensington, London, 24 November 1991), British singer and songwriter, vocalist and pianist of Queen. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were Parsi Zoroastrians of Persian descent via India; his father worked for the British colonial administration in Zanzibar, then a British protectorate. At eight he was sent to St Peter's boarding school in Panchgani, India, where he took piano, formed his first band at twelve, the Hectics, and adopted the name "Freddie". He was born with four extra incisors, often credited with his wide vocal range, and never had them corrected. In the spring of 1964 the Zanzibar revolution led his family to emigrate to Feltham, Middlesex, England. He studied at Ealing Art College, graduating in 1969, and designed the Queen crest combining the four members' zodiac signs; he met Brian May and Roger Taylor and changed his surname to Mercury around 1970. His documented vocal range runs from F2 to F6. With Queen he achieved worldwide fame with "Sheer Heart Attack" (1974), "A Night at the Opera" (1975, with "Bohemian Rhapsody"), "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions", "We Will Rock You", "Killer Queen", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Don't Stop Me Now", among others. Queen's Live Aid performance (1985) is considered by many the greatest live show in the history of rock. He was extremely private about his origins and his personal life; he met Mary Austin in 1969, was her partner until 1976 and remained her closest friend, leaving her his London house; from 1985 his partner was Jim Hutton, who was present at his death. Diagnosed with AIDS around 1987, he told his band in 1989 and made it public on 23 November 1991, a day before dying of bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS. His funeral followed the Zoroastrian rite and his ashes were given to Mary Austin, who buried them in an undisclosed place. "Made in Heaven" (1995) collected his last recordings. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of his work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Britannica, Biography.com and press coverage.