Women in Music and Bohemian Rhapsody

So, as a music major, my Writing in the Major course is Music History.  I write one big paper and it has to be on (you guessed it) music history. I chose to write my paper on the influence opera had on Queen, which of course, included quite a bit about Bohemian Rhapsody.  Branum's close reading of Bohemian Rhapsody had me thinking quite a bit about my days in Music History. I went back the other night and reread my paper (and actually found a few spelling errors, OOPS!) to look at my close reading of Bohemian Rhapsody and compare Branum's interpretation to my own.  I will get to this later in the post, but first...
I am a music nerd. I love music history. So much so, that for Christmas I bought my boyfriend a Build-Your-Own Hurdy Gurdy.  Below are some pictures of the Hurdy Gurdy and the BYO one I got him as well as a link to go check out a really cool Hurdy Gurdy song if you have no idea what the heck I am talking about here. 

https://youtu.be/bvNZeh6f8vE

So basically, the Hurdy Gurdy is a Medieval string instrument that you crank to play. What makes it so cool is that it acts as a drone-tone, meaning as long as you keep cranking the crank, the sound is continuous.  Music history isn't really filled with female musicians, but one of the earliest, if not the earliest noted female composer is Hildegard von Bingen. She was not only a composer but also an artist, author, mystic, pharmacist, poet and even was canonized in 2012. Needless to say, she was one bad booty woman (I feel like it would be disrespectful to call a Saint a bad ass or a bad bitch, so you get "bad booty"). 

"So Hannah, why the heck are you talking about this when I thought you were going to talk about Queen?" Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I'll get there, okay? This past week I ordered all of my music for my senior recital which is next semester.  When facing major musicians block, the only thing that gets me through is thinking about female musicians and more specifically female tuba players.  Only 5% of professional female low brass players are women.  This makes me angry.  For my entire musical career I have been given a hard time by the men in my section for being a female. Once they all realize I am a force to be reckoned with, they back off but I just become "one of the boys", which is fine by me, but after a while, it gets belittling.  I feel like I loose my identity.  So to honor and embrace the fact that I am a female tuba player, I am choosing to do a lecture recital in which all of the music I am performing is composed by women.  It is not only hard to find music composed by women, but it is even harder to find music composed by women for tuba.  Fortunately for me, in 2013, a bunch of women worked together to compose and record an album of tuba music composed by women and performed by a female tuba player.  It is great and gets me through the times when I am angry about being a female musician.  I get down a lot because I often feel smothered and over looked because I am a female tuba player.  Like some how I'll never be as good as a man because I am a woman.  One of my peers actually said to me, "The reason tuba is a man's instrument is because we're anatomically bigger and can take in more air than girls so its just easier for us." Listen asshole,  I don't play tuba for it to be easy. I play tuba because I am empowered when I play and I show up all of the men who told me I couldn't do it.  

So for my recital I am playing a piece which was originally written by Hildegard von Bingen and arranged by Joanna Ross Hersey for tuba.  I have been practicing it lately so when I was prompted by Branum's Bohemian Rhapsody analysis to reflect back on my times in music history, I was reminded of all of these things.  That is all for that portion of my blog post.  Rant over.  

OK SO BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

So Branum looks at Mercury's lyrics as all about him coming out or struggling with his sexuality.  While I do not disagree, I did look more into the background of all of the allusions that Mercury made to characters from Greek mythology and opera.  I will save you all the 18 pages of explanation for how Queen drew influence from opera, but I will explain a bit of the influences present in Bohemian Rhapsody, especially in the so-called "operatic section". Here is an excerpt from my paper from last year.

Other elements of Bohemian Rhapsody which pushed the boundaries of rock and roll were the lyrics.   The lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody are poetic and dramatic.   Mercury claimed to Kenny Everett that the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody are complete nonsense, but Promane argues that encoded within Bohemian Rhapsody are  

“a multitude of personal factors that go beyond the nonsensical themes that Everett describes ...  Much like Bob Dylan and Igor Stravinsky, Mercury prided himself upon challenging his audience by disclosing limited or erroneous information to intrigue and to complicate the disclosure surrounding his repertory.” (p.  38) 

Bohemian Rhapsody famously contains lyrics in the so called “operatic section” which are in Italian.   Queen references Galileo, Scaramouch, Figaro and Magnifico.   Each of these characters points to representing an aspect of Freddie Mercury’s life, but as previously mentioned, Mercury claims that the lyrics of his song are simply nonsensical and random.    

Other lyric within the song arguably reflect the personal life of Mercury as well.   Following the lush opening a cappella section, the dramatic monologue arguably reflects the inner turmoil Mercury likely ensued as a result of his closeted homosexuality.   Some argue that this also reflects Mercury’s struggle with accepting the fate of his battle with AIDS but given that Mercury was involved with his girlfriend Mary Austin until 1975, the year Bohemian Rhapsody was released, it is unlikely that Mercury was battling his diagnosis of AIDS.   Another contributing factor to refuting that claim is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not name AIDS until July of 1982.    

Reading the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody with the thought in mind that Mercury had only just come to personal terms with his sexuality makes the personal struggles of the narrator parallel that of what Mercury was likely experiencing.   Like the narrator of Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury was going through an internal conflict, feeling suffocated by continuing to live a double life.   This is exemplified in the text, 

“Too late, my time has come.   

Send shivers down my spine, my body’s aching all the time 

Goodbye everybody, I’ve got to go 

Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth”  

(as cited in Promane, 2009, p.51) 

Some people also argue the role “mama” plays in the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody.  It is unlikely that Mercury wrote “mama” to symbolize his biological mother, Jer Bulsarsa, but rather his girlfriend Mary Austin.   This was a common term which was quickly appropriated from the African-American blues tradition into the work of many musicians like Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix (Promane 2009).   In the early monologue-like lyrics following the opening a cappella section,  

“Mama, just killed a man, put a gun against his head 

Pulled my trigger now he’s dead....”  

(as cited in Promane, 2009, p.  51) 

with the idea that “mama” is an epithet of Mary Austin and the narrator reflects Mercury himself, Mercury is likely singing of his recent acceptance of his sexuality and the dissolution of the relationship between Mercury and Austin.   The lyrics continue, 

“Mama, life had just begun 

But now I've gone and thrown it all away 

Mama, ooh, didn’t mean to make you cry 

If I’m not back again this time tomorrow 

Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters”  

(as sited in Promane, 2009, p.  51) 

With the same representations as before, Mercury is likely singing of how he feels that he ruined the relationship with Austin.   He states, “didn’t mean to make [her] cry” and asks “mama” to carry on without him (as if nothing really matters).    

Promane, Barry C. (2009) “Freddie Mercury and Queen: Technologies of Genre and the Poetics  

of  Innovation.” The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario , Barry C. Promane, , pp. 1–136.  

Opera. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/opera 

So that's a bit of my interpretation of the meaning behind Bohemian Rhapsody.  Mercury claims his lyrics were nonsense, but I think he may have made this claim to defer people from trying to dissect the meanings behind his lyrics.  Mercury kept is sexuality under wraps his entire life.  He never explicitly came out to the media, but he have relationships with both men and women.  He didn't even come forward about his AIDS until the day before he passed.   While I understand refusing to explain  the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody, but I think that as a result, it only made people wonder more. 

To those who made it to the bottom of my post, thank you for reading my rant.  If you're still curious about my Queen paper and want to read it, go ahead and ask me and I can e-mail it your way.  

Stay safe and healthy all of my lovely ladies (and Nick).  I care about you all dearly.  

Until next week...