It had been six years since Freddie Mercury, before the eyes of millions, had ascended to the pantheon of the gods. Striding the stage at Wembley Stadium during Queen’s triumphant 1985 Live Aid set, Mercury confirmed himself as the frontman of the age.
On that day, this potent rock titan had done utterly astounding things with his vocal cords. Stirring the crowd to emulate his signature elongated "Ay-oh" and repeatedly landing sledgehammer blows of Queen classics, the moustachioed mainman delivered a masterclass in stage ownership.
Freddie's dominance was something the entire planet could attest to, and many viewers who’d written-off Queen as yesterday’s concern yielded to Mercury's majesty.
But now, that untouchable performer was sadly nearing his end.
On November 24th 1991, the great Freddie Mercury passed away of bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS. For millions of his fans it was a horrible, sad day.
Freddie knew that his end was near for some time. He'd been conscious of the deterioration of his health following his AIDS diagnosis in 1987, yet he had opted to keep the information about his condition shared only with a very small circle.
Mercury didn’t even tell his fellow bandmates until May of 1989, well into the recording process of what would be Queen's penultimate studio LP, Innuendo (their last - Made in Heaven - would be assembled in the wake of Freddie's passing).
In the 12 months before his death, Freddie had been working on Innuendo with producer David Richards at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland. The studio, which the band co-owned with Richards, was a haven from the persistent press attention in London.
It was obvious to Richards that the now gaunt and increasingly tired frontman was in ill health, but didn’t know exactly what the issue was. “I knew that he was really sick. But his voice was still in good shape," Richards told Rolling Stone in 1995. “I didn't know it was AIDS. I was assuming that he had cancer.”
During the recording sessions, Freddie needed a bit more time that usual to get his vocal takes right, and needed more breathers in-between to recharge.
Mentally however, by all accounts Freddie’s attitude was consistently upbeat, professional and optimistic about the material being brewed.
According to Brian May, in an interview with our sister website Guitar World, it was ‘business as normal’, although he and the other band members, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, did begin to get the feeling that this could be the last time that Queen were together in the studio.
“Fred was very positive in how he managed it. I don’t really know how. Nevertheless, he wasn’t able to be there that much, because physically he was already suffering, and he had to go for his treatments. You never knew when he was going to come back at that time.”
Though the album had a crop of superb latter-era Queen cuts including the vivid title track and the more lighthearted I’m Going Slightly Mad, what would eventually prove to be the album’s most defining moment was the epic The Show Must Go On.
Driven by an imperious synth-string motif (which deftly nodded to Pachelbel's Canon), a mighty drum performance courtesy of Taylor and a relentless, growling power chord march, the track resurrected Queen’s former arena-destroying heft.
“I listened to Roger and John putting something down and something triggered in my head - this sort of circular riff,” recalled Brian in the Guitar World interview. “After a few days I did a demo of it, with no real words at that point. Then I played it to Freddie, and I said, ‘I have this title, The Show Must Go On, but maybe that’s too corny.’”
Struck by the strident intensity of this new musical composition, Freddie was creatively fired-up.
Together, he and May developed a lyric that mirrored the very real situation that Mercury himself was going through.
The strength it took Freddie to hold it together as the frontman of one of the world’s most beloved bands was channelled into the lyrics. After dealing with his condition in secret for so long, here - finally - was Freddie's outward scream of defiance at the toll his illness had taken.
"'My make-up may be flaking but my smile still stays on'. That was true. No matter how ill Freddie felt, he never grumbled to anyone or sought sympathy of any kind," stated Freddie's partner Jim Hutton in his book Mercury and Me. "It was his battle, no one else's, and he always wore a brave face against the ever-increasing odds against him."
“There was no mention of the fact that this might be some sort of allegory about Freddie himself. But I think it was unspoken that we both knew what we were writing. Really it’s about Freddie,” May told Guitar World.
“The show must go on
Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile still stays on”
Though the pair had assembled the first verse and central motif of the song, it was actually May who went away and penned some of the song’s most affecting lyrics.
Written very much as a response to seeing his friend's gradual deterioration, The Show Must Go On was becoming both the singer's personal response to what he was going through, and May’s own tribute to Freddie’s awe-inspiring talent and courage.
It wasn’t just this song that found Freddie and May responding to the looming shadow of mortality.
The affecting These Are the Days of Our Lives was very much The Show Must Go On’s twin by dent of its rumination on the passage of time, the bittersweet recollection of past love and its broader evocation of the last words being written in a book soon to be closed.
It was a gorgeous piece, but whereas that song was a fragile, delicate reflection of an intimate relationship, The Show Must Go On was Mercury's defiant stare down at the cruel hand of fate, framed against an apocalyptic backdrop.
Within the massive-sounding song, Mercury was a Greek hero - at war with the fates themselves. There was regret in its lyric, and there was obvious sorrow and tragedy - but there was also a rightful, boiling anger that coursed through each word.
Mercury and May had written one last masterpiece. But could they pull it off in the studio?
When it came to finally lay down Freddie’s vocal, May was concerned that his now frail friend wouldn’t be able to conjure the power needed to sell the song successfully.
Finding it difficult to stand for any significant period of time, it might have been a tough ask of his now very poorly friend to even try to tackle it.
Playing Mercury his demo, Brian assumed Freddie would request that he at least adjust the key, or re-work the song to suit his more limited abilities.
But, this is still Freddie Mercury we're talking about here.
In the spirit of the song’s lyrical protagonist, Freddie summoned inner reserves of power.
That same strength and vitality that had once been deployed to hold the entire world within the palm of his hand flooded through his veins once more.
“I said, 'Fred, I don't know if this is going to be possible to sing,' " May remembered in a Rolling Stone interview. “And he went, 'I'll f*****g do it, darling’, downed a vodka, and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal.”
You can hear the absolute determination and anguish of a man nearing the end of the line in that impassioned, brilliant vocal performance. The Show Must Go On is rage at the dying of the light, delivered, against all the odds, by one of the greatest vocalists ever walk the planet.
After a few more takes, Freddie had got The Show Must Go On in the bag, and then some.
"He absolutely smashed that vocal," May told Guitar World. "It’s like he reached into a place that even he’d never got to before."
Released as a single at the tail-end of the Innuendo promotional cycle on 14th October 1991, ostensibly to underline the upcoming release of Greatest Hits II (the second compilation of Queen’s biggest singles), the thumping ballad took on a whole new resonance when Freddie tragically succumbed to his illness in November.
Queen’s final single then, was suddenly reappraised as Mercury’s last stand.
Victoriously seizing his legacy from the grip of his illness. Its recording story married elegantly with the resilience of the lyric’s main character.
“It was beautiful,” May told Guitar World. “I think it’s one of his finest performances of all time. It’s incredible.”
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