"Killer Queen" origin

mooghead wrote:

DICKHEAD ALERT!

Is that your new signature?

antiden wrote:

By the way, those who claim WATC being a gay anthem - are so stupid and ignorant...
It IS A ROCK/SPORT/LIFE anthem!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it's taken on that importance, but Freddie did just write it as a 'fuck you' to the snobby producers etc. who thought they'd fail, and the tabloids who continued to criticise them despite huge success.

Daniel Nester wrote:
The "documentary" in question, is called "Freddie's Love," I think, which is a rehash-type of show, along the lines of an E! True Hollywood show. Not exactly the final word on anything historically accurate.

Quite an awful documentary really. I don't mean that as homophobia at all, I mean it's a bunch of spiteful guys spitting out very private details of their friend's life, presumably to draw attention to themselves.

Daniel Nester wrote:
I do think people react violently when the idea that some of Freddie's songs may have anything -- anything -- to do with his being a gay man. I think there's something more than slighly phobic about it. If it was some hottie gal, it'd be brushed over a little more easily. But then again, I'm a little more touchy about these matters.

Pf. I don't think anyone can claim that Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy isn't written from a homosexual standpoint (even if apparently jokingly), and that's never affected my enjoyment of it at all :)

Killer Queen is about a high class man whore, and given that Fred indicated that he is not only a musical prostitute, but that he also likes to slut himself while in New York, the Killer Queen is the man himself: Freddie!

But he wasn't promiscuous in gay circles in 1974, nor had he said the musical prostitute thing. Plus, the way I understand it, 'musical prostitute' wasn't meant as a sexual remark, more to say that his style borrowed freely from all over the place.

Well shucks, if you don't like the gay theme i would stay away from most of Freddie's songs pal.

Gal Friday wrote:

But who refers to a girl or woman as "Queen"? Princess, MAYBE. But "queen" is a word associated with gay men. The song's about a rich, bitchy, jet set queen (i.e. gay male). Deal with it, Mary.

Your third-rate amateur deconstruction falls apart immediately. Clearly, you have a very limited knowledge of the English language and particularly slang. Did you really make a new account simply to post this nonsense?

" Quean comes from Old English cwene, pronounced (kwn), "woman, female, female serf"; from the eleventh century on it was also used to mean "prostitute." "

From: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000)

The Fairy King wrote:

Well shucks, if you don't like the gay theme i would stay away from most of Freddie's songs pal.

Just because a person is gay it doesn't mean all their songs are about being gay. It's just more confirmation bias because most lyrics are inherently ambiguous. See the masses of nonsense written about Boh. Rhap.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The Fairy King wrote:

Well shucks, if you don't like the gay theme i would stay away from most of Freddie's songs pal.

Just because a person is gay it doesn't mean all their songs are about being gay. It's just more confirmation bias because most lyrics are inherently ambiguous. See the masses of nonsense written about Boh. Rhap.

Well said. Freddie's sexuality was an important part of his life, but it certainly didn't define his life - he hid it well enough for the first decade or so of his career, so it clearly wasn't essential to his music.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The Fairy King wrote:

Well shucks, if you don't like the gay theme i would stay away from most of Freddie's songs pal.

Just because a person is gay it doesn't mean all their songs are about being gay. It's just more confirmation bias because most lyrics are inherently ambiguous. See the masses of nonsense written about Boh. Rhap.

Seriously Caspar? You of all people? :')
Did i say all his songs are about being gay? No.
Do i believe that his "lifestyle" gives us carte blanche to interpret it on other levels than the obvious. Yes.

And i am one of those people that believe Bo Rhap is about him killing off his "straight" side and coming out. It ain't rocket science. It's a bit naive to say his "lifestyle" didn't influence the lyrical content of his songs.

All of it? No. But A LOT were. >:D

The Fairy King wrote:

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The Fairy King wrote:

Well shucks, if you don't like the gay theme i would stay away from most of Freddie's songs pal.

Just because a person is gay it doesn't mean all their songs are about being gay. It's just more confirmation bias because most lyrics are inherently ambiguous. See the masses of nonsense written about Boh. Rhap.

Seriously Caspar? You of all people? :')
Did i say all his songs are about being gay? No.
Do i believe that his "lifestyle" gives us carte blanche to interpret it on other levels than the obvious. Yes.

And i am one of those people that believe Bo Rhap is about him killing off his "straight" side and coming out. It ain't rocket science. It's a bit naive to say his "lifestyle" didn't influence the lyrical content of his songs.

All of it? No. But A LOT were. >:D

I'm not saying that he doesn't have songs that are, on some level, about being gay. The point behind my post is simply that if you *can* interpret a song in a particular way, even without manhandling the lyrics and in a way that makes some reasonable degree of sense with regards to the author, that does not automatically mean the author had that exact intention with the lyrics.

I personally think that, at least before the late 1970s, Freddie did not consciously use homosexuality as a topic because he was not quite comfortable with it himself. It did probably subconsciously slip into his lyrics, but the question is to what extent that counts as true symbolism.

I am of the opinion that it is very easy to read symbolism that was not intended into any literary work, especially poetry, because it is inherently ambiguous - interpretable in many ways. Deducing psychology from poetry is a very risky thing to do, IMHO.

So, in summary: I don't think you can dismiss homosexuality as a theme in Freddie's writing offhand, but similarly, I don't think you can assume it on the sole basis of his lifestyle. I consider a prostitute more likely than a gay man more likely as the "Killer Queen". Freddie might even have identified with this fictional prostitute, but I do think he considered her a woman.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The Fairy King wrote:

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The Fairy King wrote:

Well shucks, if you don't like the gay theme i would stay away from most of Freddie's songs pal.

Just because a person is gay it doesn't mean all their songs are about being gay. It's just more confirmation bias because most lyrics are inherently ambiguous. See the masses of nonsense written about Boh. Rhap.

Seriously Caspar? You of all people? :')
Did i say all his songs are about being gay? No.
Do i believe that his "lifestyle" gives us carte blanche to interpret it on other levels than the obvious. Yes.

And i am one of those people that believe Bo Rhap is about him killing off his "straight" side and coming out. It ain't rocket science. It's a bit naive to say his "lifestyle" didn't influence the lyrical content of his songs.

All of it? No. But A LOT were. >:D

I'm not saying that he doesn't have songs that are, on some level, about being gay. The point behind my post is simply that if you *can* interpret a song in a particular way, even without manhandling the lyrics and in a way that makes some reasonable degree of sense with regards to the author, that does not automatically mean the author had that exact intention with the lyrics.

I personally think that, at least before the late 1970s, Freddie did not consciously use homosexuality as a topic because he was not quite comfortable with it himself. It did probably subconsciously slip into his lyrics, but the question is to what extent that counts as true symbolism.

I am of the opinion that it is very easy to read symbolism that was not intended into any literary work, especially poetry, because it is inherently ambiguous - interpretable in many ways. Deducing psychology from poetry is a very risky thing to do, IMHO.

So, in summary: I don't think you can dismiss homosexuality as a theme in Freddie's writing offhand, but similarly, I don't think you can assume it on the sole basis of his lifestyle. I consider a prostitute more likely than a gay man more likely in this case. Freddie might even have identified with this fictional prostitute, but I do think he considered her a woman.

Empathy my dear Caspar. :D

I must say in the early nineties, when i started listening and getting the albums i interpreted the songs differently. Over the years i gained more knowledge of the backstory and the person, the interpretations changed drastically. Like it had added a few layers.

You can't deny the gayfactor, because artists tend to draw from struggle and this was for him a huge part of his personality in those days. When the guy came out he sang about emancipation and celebration. When he lost another lover, he wrote a ballad. Very black and white i know, but just a tool to illustrate my point. Humour me.

Would also like to add that i watch documentaries, read stories and biographies with a healthy amount of scepsis.

You can't dismiss it, but you also can't assume it offhand. If you do, it's speculation. That's ok, so long as you don't confuse "plausible" with "definite".

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

You can't dismiss it, but you also can't assume it offhand. If you do, it's speculation. That's ok, so long as you don't confuse "plausible" with "definite".

Never said that how i try to tackle the subjectmatter in his songs is definite dude. I know we are on the same page, but the angles differ and we drifted too far from the point i wanted to make in the first place: The topic starter is an obvious douche and i just wanted to stab a little deeper. Never thought you'd actually get into it.

One post on a nine-year old thread and the world caves in...