"Debauchery".
"Youthful lack of control," it was said in the United States.
Today all this could be reduced to a tattoo.
Because of the video more than the song itself,
I Want To Break Free
put
Queen
on the verge of charming indecency.
And he did it from the voice, and the vote, of
Freddie Mercury
, pontiff of sensitivity always off-center for the conservative canons of rock.
For those days in 1984, this song meant
an approach to the flame and morbidity of sexualities
.
Thinking about it, these same lines could also deal with
Soy lo que soy
, Sandra Mihanovich's album released just that same year.
I Want To Break Free
: we are talking about one of the most popular songs in all of history.
"I want to see myself free," sang Freddie Mercury, while the most restless understood that it was an Olympic coming out of the closet.
But - the "but" is on purpose -
I Want To Break Free
is composed by John Deacon, a heterosexual "denounced" by Mercury himself when biased readings suggested that the lyrics had been dictated by Freddie himself.
40 years ago the controversial video clip was released.
It happened in April 1984. It was the last interesting thing that happened with Queen after the album
The Game
(1980), when Mercury grew his mustache.
We're talking about
Crazy Thing Called Love
.
From the band's only successful album in the United States, and the last of the quartet that was really worth it.
I Want To Break Free
is later.
It belongs to
The Works
, the eleventh work of the British.
It was recorded between August 1983 and January 1984. It was released on February 27, 1984 in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States.
Radio Ga Ga
became the first and unfortunate broadcast cut.
Queen was already the memory of a great band that was going through its last decade horribly.
A shocking video
Freddie Mercury in "I Want to Break Free."
When he sang it in Brazil, dressed as in the video, they threw everything at him.
Then came the negative impact of the video of the cross-dressing members with
I Want To Break Free
.
The song to watch ended up censored in the United States
.
It could be inferred that from that moment Queen ceased to exist until the death of its famous singer.
The MTV network did not want to rotate it because the singer was seen with formidable fake tits, a mustache and a wig
.
It was the closest thing to a coming out with a whistle, a horn and the hysterical queen singing a beautiful hymn to freedom.
Too bad there were no social networks.
It would have been a trend towards the second.
More than a song,
I Want To Break Free
was received as a manifesto.
It sounded like "let's say everything" and let it be known once and for all: I'm gay and I shout it from the rooftops.
At least in Argentina, with the new democracy, crude interpretation killed the interpreter.
The song that fueled controversies was another "fucking hit" by Queen's George Harrison: John Deacon.
A biography will say that thanks to him, the bassist who retired from music like a mature soccer player, Queen managed to play for the only time at the dance studio Studio 54 in New York with
Another
One Bites the
Dust
.
The illustrious video was recorded at the end of March directed by David Mallet, who made clips for Queen, Iron Maiden,
David Bowie
, etc.
The parody idea had come from the wife of drummer
Roger Taylor
, who was inspired by an English soap opera from the '60s,
Coronation Street
, about the lives of working-class people.
The four characters
Mercury's character ridiculed a self-sacrificing housewife with bulging breasts, dressed in a miniskirt, heels and (oops!) mustaches.
Brian May, the guitarist, wore curlers (obviously)
, Deacon played a widow and Taylor played a good school girl.
The media decided that
I Want To Break Free
was an ode to the LGBT community.
When Queen went to play at Rock in Rio, in 1985, even the Polish Goyeneche knew the song.
It was like
Despacito
.
He even played at funerals.
A journalist from Rio wanted to know if this topic, Freddie tells me the truth, is dedicated to homosexuality.
Smoking a cigarette, in a T-shirt and with a thick, generic mustache, the band leader detached himself from the assessment: "Not at all, it's also by John Deacon," he slipped in, hinting at the bassist's hetero tendency.
"It's his, a happily married man with about four children..."
And he added: "
I don't know where they get all that from. It's about someone who has a hard life and wants to free himself from problems. Nothing to do with the gay movement
. "
The Rio journalist must have had hearing problems, because she asked him exactly the same question and good old Freddie, fed up with the matter, simply asked her to change the subject.
The Brazil thing was not
all right
: the uncomfortable interrogation was added to the fact that when it was time to make the hit, the singer appeared on stage dressed almost like in the video.
Result?
Blunt elements flying against the costume of him and Freddie asking for mercy with the joined hands emoji
: "Stop! That's it! Stop!"
Brian May and Freddie Mercury, guitar and vocals of Queen.
If the groups' videos were intended as a new instance of music promotion, MTV was the true reason for being.
I Want To Break Free
was banned.
Queen suffered censorship from the world's most important music network
.
In retaliation, the band decided that the United States would not be part of the album tour.
In favor of the journalism of the time, it can be argued that the lyrics of the song are so simple, so Palito Ortega, that perhaps one, naturally, tends to try to look for a message between the lines.
But
so much scandal over a man dressed as a woman?
Seven years must have passed until MTV decided to program it without censorship.
Poor Mercury didn't get to zap to see it.