god save the queen?

Between January 1974 and January 1978, I worked as a senior instructor at the Hong Kong Outward Bound School. During the last year of this period, I also moonlighted as the television critic for TV & Entertainment Times, a local listings magazine. Around the time I left Hong Kong in 1978, this magazine published an essay that I’d written about Queen, the third of my all-time favourite bands (and the only one I ever saw live). While I begin to refocus on writing after a barren summer in the UK, I thought that I would republish that essay here.

*  *  *

The problem faced by singers and bands that parody rock music is that no one takes them seriously. People do listen to them, it’s true, but only in a vague, slightly amused fashion. However, the best satirists, like the best practical jokers, are taken seriously—the reason being that their particular audience does not recognize the humorous intent.

The band I’m referring to here is Queen. They are possibly the most original band to appear since the Beatles, but the practical joker side of their music is rarely far below the surface. Yet they have reached their present pre-eminence in Britain purely because their audience takes them seriously.

As Perry Martin [a professional musician working in Hong Kong whom I knew at the time] told me: “They’ve made progressive rock into a saleable commodity.” Of course, this is an oversimplification. What they have actually done is to parody rock music in the most effective way: by the best possible use of existing techniques and by the invention of new ones when necessary. In effect, this means that their performance is often far better than that of the band they are allegedly mimicking.

The first clues that the band wasn’t entirely straight appeared on their third album, Sheer Heart Attack. Killer Queen [the first ever track by the band that I heard] is an apparent dig at the female equivalent of Ray Davies’ Dedicated Follower of Fashion, but whereas the Kinks’ ‘hero’ was a feckless, working-class type, Queen’s ‘heroine’ is an altogether more sophisticated character:

Well-versed in etiquette,
Extraordinarily nice, etc.

As for Flick of the Wrist, it could have come straight out of a Victorian melodrama, complete with moustachioed villain (the butt of the humour). Lap of the Gods is more than a little reminiscent of Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Music, while Bring Back That Leroy Brown is a take-off of a traditional jazz band. Dear Friends is only slightly removed from:

Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares,
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

How can a band that does this kind of thing be on the level?

It is yet another attempt to introduce ‘theatre’ into rock music. David Bowie was probably the first to try this, but his music was little more than unimaginative science fiction, and he was obliged to resort to glitter and greasepaint to disguise his limitations. In the same vein, Alice Cooper has all but left the music behind, with the result that his act is entirely theatrical. At the other end of the scale, bands such as Jethro Tull and Genesis have a strong theatrical element in their music, but it is implicit (cf. Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway). The main weakness here is that the intrinsic ‘plots’ are either too convoluted or else too surreal for a wide audience to want to identify with them.

With Queen, the opposite is true. The fun-poking is so outrageously explicit that no one can believe they really mean it. However, they are merely preying on an age-old human weakness, the inability to believe what is right under one’s nose. And in doing so, they have resurrected music hall (US: ‘vaudeville’), updating it for the 1970s. The clue is in the band’s use of ‘barber-shop quartet’ harmonies, even in the most incongruous places. A song that would otherwise be a straight copy of a rock sausage machine such as Led Zeppelin is turned into near farce by the introduction of beautiful harmonizing voices.

Now listen to A Night at the Opera, which, not coincidentally, is also the title of a Marx Brothers film. The album opens with Death on Two Legs, a song ostensibly directed against loan sharks [I learned subsequently that the target of this song was the band’s former manager, who had ripped them off]. Freddie Mercury is a master of the pointed insult:

Insane! You should be put inside.
You’re a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride.

However, the song has been left subtly ambiguous. It could easily refer to a big-shot businessman—after all, how much difference is there between the two types? It just happens that the businessman has his reinforcements more efficiently marshalled, but the ordinary man in the street supports neither type. He simply accepts the status quo, believing that he can do nothing to alter the situation.

The indignant mood of the first song is immediately punctured by Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, which turns the spotlight on the so-called ‘idle rich’:

I come from London town, I’m just an ordinary guy.
Fridays I go painting in the Louvre.

…the type whose pictures you can look at in the social pages of various magazines—always assuming that you want to in the first place.

Seaside Rendezvous also has a touch of this atmosphere, although the target here is the Charley’s Aunt brand of more or less decorous courtship, from the angle of ‘but who needs a chaperone anyway?’

It will be seen that the satirical element in the band’s work has extended far beyond the boundaries of rock music. The limited credence given to prophets of doom is picked out in The Prophet’s Song. No matter that the prophet of doom is always right. For ordinary people, Noah’s flood never happened, and Armageddon is merely a fond hope in the teachings of fundamentalist Christian sects. And it is all summarized in one line:

Listen to the madman!

Good Company, another song with a quasi-jazz motif, highlights the folly of the man who spends a lifetime building a wall around himself, using people for as long as they serve his purpose, then discarding them. This song also spotlights the technical wizardry of Brian May, who makes his guitar sound like, in turn, a cornet, an alto saxophone and a clarinet.

Love of My Life has to be a jibe at the Happy Days adolescent sexuality of the 1950s, the

Each night I ask the stars up above:
Why must I be a teenager in love?

mentality, complete with hyperbole and mock pathos. It is in a song like this that the true artistry of the band can be seen: the words are straight, almost banal, but the hyperbole comes in the delivery—it is a slow ballad, sung with earnest intensity. However, the illusion of seriousness is dispelled by the ubiquitous harmonizing voices, echoing the lead singer’s words like an unasked-for conscience.

The entire charade is topped off by a poker-faced rendition of God Save the Queen. It’s only as the final note is struck that the listener is treated to a little flourish in the form of a few extra bars—an embellishment that fits beautifully. Again, the subtlety of the band’s art is evident; a heavier-handed band would have ‘jazzed it up’, that is, if they had had the audacity to play the anthem in the first place.

How do they do it? How do they get away with it? The first is the easier question to answer. Broadly speaking, they use a mixture of farce and melodrama, in proportions that vary from song to song but that are selected with an unerring sense of timing. The guitar solo in Millionaire’s Waltz, albeit in waltz time, would be fairly ordinary, were it not punctuated by an absurd single note struck on a triangle.

As for Somebody to Love: how dare they apply such impeccable musical styling to such a trivial subject? But this is the key to Queen’s success. They do have the nerve to do what they do—and they do it so well!

Just listen to Teo Torriate (this, like the last two songs mentioned, is from the band’s latest album, A Day at the Races, another title borrowed from the Marx Brothers). The resemblance to a school choir performing at some inconsequential concert is uncanny, even down to the school music master pounding away at the piano, at the same time doing his best to conduct his proteges with his head.

It would seem that I’m implying that Queen are an eclectic band. This is not strictly true. Admittedly, they do borrow musical ideas, and from the most unlikely places, but these are blended together in a style that is both unique and instantly recognizable. Rock music has come a long way since Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, even since the Beatles, and the post-Beatles era has been one of diversification—there are almost as many ‘categories’ within the genre as there are bands.

However, the 1970s has seen two main trends: mainstream pop music and ‘underground’ rock, the latter originating in the late 1960s with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground in America, and with Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin in Britain. The factor that distinguishes the two streams is that ‘pop’ music is just that—a barometer of popular tastes at any given time—while what I’ve identified as underground music is music for those listeners who are turned off by the banalities of the former. Being freed from considerations of commercialism, it is invariably more adventurous.

Inevitably, this has meant that over the past decade, the two trends have steadily diverged. Music that attempts to bridge the gap, appearing at a time when pop is becoming increasingly elementary in structure, when talent is no longer a necessary prerequisite for achieving popular acclaim, must be either a tedious preciosity or something very unusual. Most people who have listened to Queen would probably agree that they are not the former.

In fact, if it is time for a major new influence to supersede the Beatles, then Queen are a likely candidate. If this is objected to as an overstatement, it must be conceded that they represent an unexpected swing of the pendulum. Nevertheless, it is important not to underrate the Beatles merely because they were overrated 14 years ago. The hysteria provoked by the Beatles in the period 1963–64 is no longer easy to understand, and it is for this reason that it is extremely difficult to envisage a repeat performance by another band.

The Beatles were technically little better than their contemporaries, but they had the good fortune to be assigned a producer who was sympathetic to their musical ideas. Had they not failed their Decca audition, this would never have happened. Also, nowadays, there are just too many bands of comparable technical ability. However, as I’ve attempted to point out, Queen’s style is unique. Someday, another type of music will supersede rock, yet when today’s leading lights are barely remembered, even as names, I would wager that much of Queen’s music will still be around, valued for its creative genius.

A comparison with the Beatles is not completely fatuous. Admittedly, Queen do have a long way to go to emulate the Beatles’ spectacular chart success on both sides of the Atlantic. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever do so. However, Bohemian Rhapsody, arguably the finest track ever to be released as a single, did hold the #1 chart position for a record number of weeks. Also, Queen share with the Beatles the rare ability to appeal to all age groups.

The only missing ingredient, if it can be so described, is the USA. It was acceptance in America that transformed the Beatles from just another rock ’n’ roll band into a global phenomenon. Yet this is the principal stumbling block. America still gives its allegiance to bands such as Jefferson Starship, Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, all of which play music that is ten years out of date, or even to such anachronisms as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. It is the inevitable result of having an ‘awards’ system, with its unavoidable emphasis on the mainstream and consequent inhibition of innovation.

If you have not heard Queen, I strongly urge that you give them a listen, especially on A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. You will not be disappointed. Queen are not merely brilliant; they are a revelation. Queen are not just a rock band; they are a window on life in Britain in the 1970s.

water from the mountains

Although we had been out cycling on the previous two days, we still planned to go out for another ride on the third day. However, there was a slight problem: when I’d looked at the weather forecast the previous evening, there was a lightning symbol in the forecast for noon, which meant that we would have to go out early. Unfortunately, when I checked the forecast again the following morning, I noticed that a rain symbol had been added for 11am. It seemed prudent to eschew the cycling and go for a walk instead.

Because we live close to the northwestern edge of Penrith, when going for a walk we will always head north to begin with. This takes us through the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve, after which, on this occasion, we followed the eastern edge of town, which is also the highest, southwards until we reached the small hamlet of Carleton.

Sixty years ago, Carleton had been located at the junction of the A66, a major road connecting Penrith to Scotch Corner, a major junction on the A1, and the A686, which leads over the Pennines to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. However, the A66 was rerouted in the late 1960s as part of the infrastructure associated with the construction of the Penrith bypass, now part of the M6 motorway. It is no longer possible to follow the original route of the A66 south from Carleton in a motor vehicle, although it is still possible on foot. Incidentally, ‘Carleton’ is of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) origin. The suffix –ton indicates a farm, while carle means ‘serf’ or ‘peasant’. Carleton was separated from Penrith sixty years ago by an extensive area of fields, but during the intervening years, residential development has meant that the two are now contiguous.

The River Eamont runs from west to east a short distance south of Carleton and can be reached by following the old route of the A66. While most of the rivers in Cumbria have names that are Cumbric in origin (Cumbric was the language spoken by the original inhabitants of the region but became extinct in the 11th century), ‘Eamont’ is purported to be of Old English origin. The first element, ea–, means ‘water’, while the meaning of the second element should be obvious. The most likely meaning of these juxtaposed elements is ‘water from the mountains’.

This is not a fanciful interpretation. The source of the Eamont is Ullswater, the second-largest of the lakes in the district. Ullswater is a narrow ribbon lake about nine miles long that is surrounded by mountains, which provide a considerable catchment area during periods of heavy rain. All this runs off into the lake and thence into the Eamont.

The straight-line distance between the outflow from Ullswater and the Eamont’s confluence with the River Eden is no more than about 12 miles, but the actual length of the river is more than twice this because it meanders all over the place. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Eamont is prone to catastrophic flooding following winter storms, which dump considerable amounts of rain on the mountains. In one such storm a few years ago, the bridge at Pooley Bridge, the first to be encountered from the river’s source, was swept away, and houses close to the river are often overwhelmed by floodwater.

Our objective on this occasion was the footpath along the north bank of the Eamont from Brougham upstream to Eamont Bridge, which has always been the most important crossing point over the river. Here are a few photographs that I took along the way:

It was quite a warm day, and most of the sheep in the first field were sheltering from the sun in the shade of a large tree:

This is a general view of the river, looking upstream:

I hadn’t expected to see a grey heron here.

Lone trees in the middle of fields are a common sight. I sometimes wonder whether they have been left by the farmer simply to provide shelter for his livestock:

I simply had to include the following photos of a spectacular bracket fungus growing on a sycamore:

One of Paula’s colleagues is a mycologist, so I might be able to find out the species.

I hadn’t been along this path for several years, but I felt sure that at one point close to Eamont Bridge there had been a footbridge across the river. If I’m correct, then that footbridge has also fallen victim to the rapacity of the river:

To end on a lighter note, here is a photo of a wild rose that I took just before reaching Eamont Bridge:

sneedl’bodja takes a drink

Sneedl’bodja stormed off in a sulk, disappearing in the direction of the village without a single backward glance.

Shunshelstinx was about to call after him, but then he decided that this would not be a particularly worthwhile action to take. By the time he’d made one decision and changed his mind, you can be sure that Sneedl’bodja would have been so far out of earshot as to be coming back into range from the opposite direction. Shunshelstinx and Qumfl’quelunx trudged disconsolately back along the lane leading to Three Foxes Wood, cheered by the thought of sitting in front of a roaring fire drinking cocoa and knowing, or hoping at least, that Sneedl’bodja would catch up with them very soon. In fact, he was probably ahead of them already, because he usually was, but that did not stop Shunshelstinx worrying about him. Shunshelstinx always worried about Sneedl’bodja, because he always worried about everything, and he was not hopeful that Sneedl’bodja could restrain his natural impulse to act first and think not at all. But, he thought, perhaps he knows what he’s doing.

“Even if I don’t,” he concluded.

Sneedl’bodja did indeed know what he was doing. And where he was going. The village inn. Many years ago, he had discovered that the public house in the village stored vast quantities of a large variety of brown liquors, most of which he found very pleasant to drink. He particularly enjoyed a liquor that came in clear glass bottles and tasted like a mixture of fire and water. He would take the most hair-raising risks for a drink of that, especially tonight, but he would have to be at his very quickest.

The lights were still on in the drinking rooms, and Sneedl’bodja peered carefully through the window to spy out the terrain, although carefully and Sneedl’bodja are about as far from being natural bedfellows as it is possible to imagine and still be in the same story. In other words, he shot a perfunctory glance through the window. Inside, he saw several gadgies†, some of whom were leaning on the bar in various degrees of instability. Others were standing unsteadily, and all were talking animatedly.

“Did you hear that Old Man McScranagan’s garden shed burned down tonight in mysterious circumstances?” said one, taking a long drink from his mug of foaming ale.

“I heard that it was spontaneous combustion,” said another, who had already drunk too much foaming ale to have any idea what he was talking about but who did not want to be left out of the conversation.

“Bah!” thought Sneedl’bodja irritably. “When I need that pot-bellied poltroon Qumfl’quelunx to provide one of his sound effects, he isn’t here. That is so typical of that vacuous waxwork! I shall just have to think of another plan.”

His ‘other plan’ would see Sneedl’bodja at his most reckless, but it was also what he was good at. Speed of movement, that was the key—well, that and confining those movements within the narrow zone of the gadgies’ peripheral vision. But although he was unwilling to admit it, he relied on Qumfl’quelunx’s bizarre repertoire of sound effects to provide the vital distraction. Without his portly friend, he could not be sure that he would not be seen, but after all, a drink of fire water was a drink of fire water and was surely worth the modest risk involved.

That was it! Yes, it was worth the risk. And with that question answered, Sneedl’bodja sprang into action, his judgement clouded only very slightly by a fondly anticipated glass of fire water. And he knew his way into the drinking rooms, having been there on more than one previous occasion. Shunshelstinx, we can safely assume, is totally unaware of this backsliding behaviour by his frenetic friend. He certainly wouldn’t have approved.

Anyway, in one continuous springing movement, Sneedl’bodja was at the door, which had one of those new-fangled contraptions that allow the door to be pushed open easily from the outside. But then it thoughtfully closes the door behind you automatically, thus saving you all that inconvenience. It must have been a very lazy gadgie who invented that one.

However, unknown to Sneedl’bodja, the innkeeper had attached a bell to this outer door since his last visit, having for some time been puzzled by the speed with which his whisky was being drunk. He was convinced that his customers were coming in quietly while he was in the cellar and sneaking the odd tipple while pretending to wait patiently to be served. Early one evening, before his regular customers arrived, he had marked the level of whisky in the bottle with a red pencil. Shortly thereafter, also before the regulars arrived, Sneedl’bodja, who just happened to be in the neighbourhood, had seen his opportunity, slipped in quietly through the front door and helped himself to a large whisky. A very large whisky. The innkeeper was not pleased to discover a discrepancy of almost an inch between the red line and the level of the whisky, but at least he had confirmed his suspicions. Someone really had been drinking his whisky, as he had thought. But in answering one mystery, he had created another. The bar was empty. Nobody was waiting to be served. He had identified the offence but not the culprit. It wasn’t one of his regulars, after all. Well, yes, it was one of his regulars really, but it was a regular of whose existence he was unaware.

Anyway, Sneedl’bodja pushed slowly at the door. If his hope had been to enter quietly, that hope was dashed by a sudden urgent clanging overhead. Sneedl’bodja’s lightning-fast senses picked up the alarum a fraction of a second before either the innkeeper or his customers, and in a blur of motion he was crouching under a blackened oak settle in the darkest corner of the main drinking room. That split second later, half a dozen pairs of eyes turned to the door, saw it close mysteriously all by itself, and nothing else.

“Must’ve been the wind. It’s pretty gusty tonight,” said one drinker.

“Poltergeists!” exclaimed the one who had already drunk too much foaming ale to know what he was talking about.

A third gadgie sat down suddenly, pushing a half-drunk glass of foaming ale across the table as he did so.

“That’s enough ale for me landlord,” he said emphatically. “I’ve just seen a pixie dressed in a dark brown jogging outfit run across the floor.”

“I’d better get you home George,” said his friend, who knew that pixies do not exist.

By this stage of the evening, all the gadgies had drunk far too much foaming ale to make any connexion between a door that appeared to open by itself and eye-witness evidence of pixies.

“Excellent!” thought Sneedl’bodja. “This is my chance, while their backs are turned.”

He leapt up on to the bar counter, found an empty glass, picked up the whisky bottle, pulled out the cork, poured himself a more generous helping than usual (a far more generous helping than usual), replaced the cork and drank it down, all of it, in less time than it takes to tell how the feat was accomplished. And then, wobbling unsteadily, he started to run back down the counter, but at that moment he caught sight of a strikingly good-looking gelgin in the long mirror on the wall behind the bar.

“Who is that handsome fellow?” thought Sneedl’bodja, stopping suddenly. “Why, he’s almost as good-looking as me!”

Stopping suddenly may have been his intention, but, thus distracted, he skidded spectacularly in a pool of stagnant ale and disappeared over the edge, arms flailing wildly. Regaining his composure in mid-air, he landed athletically on the floor behind the bar, fell over, stood up again and staggered out into the passageway connecting the drinking rooms. How to escape? That was now the problem.

As luck would have it, at that precise moment, the innkeeper noticed that the whisky was still swirling in the bottle. That is how fast Sneedl’bodja can be. Anyway, the landlord had enough time to confront his customers before the eddies died down.

“Not me!” said one, very positively.

“Me neither!” said another, equally positive that he was not responsible.

“And certainly not me!” exclaimed a third, who positively glowed with indignation at the very thought that he even drank whisky, certainly not without paying for it.

“Count me out!” added a fourth, who only ever drank whisky when someone else was paying for it.

“Perhaps the tide has gone out!” interjected the one who had already drunk too much foaming ale to know what he was talking about but who was determined at all costs not to be left out of the conversation.

“Perhaps your brain’s gone out!” said the landlord in exasperation.

Meanwhile, Sneedl’bodja half ran, half crawled along a second corridor, terrifying on the way a small and very yappy terrier. Or was it the other way around? Whichever interpretation you choose to believe, we can safely infer that Sneedl’bodja did not pause momentarily and stoop down to stroke the unsuspecting dog behind the ear, although he may have kicked it. On the other hand, if he did aim a kick at the dog, he probably missed. Anyway, Sneedl’bodja did not stop. He simply kept running, helter skelter, side to side, staggering really more than running. Turn left at the end of the corridor. Miss the turning and hit the wall. Through two open doors. Crash! Ooops! That should have read ‘open two doors’. Up one step and down three, he slipped, slithered and slid until, finally, without quite understanding how he was able to do so, and with a more than generous admixture of sheer luck, he reached the back of the inn. Drawing further on his luck, his judgement not being available for consultation for most of the evening, he found a half-open sash window through which he could probably wriggle, although it would be rather a tight squeeze.

At the opposite end of Sneedl’bodja’s erratic trajectory through the building, the innkeeper was unconvinced.

“Poltergeists indeed!” he said contemptuously.

footnote
† This is what gelgins call people.

an illusion of snakes

As I lie in the burnt, acrid dust of despair,
I hear the low hiss of a viper, poised to strike.
I raise my tired head and see the reptile prepare
to sink its fangs into the naked flesh, the meat
of my beliefs, to poison and to make alike
the opposites inside my mind. An objective
opinion is thus distorted by the heat
that places death in such improper perspective.

I cannot move, for I am pinned by a python
that squeezes my body so much less than my mind.
My thoughts race oddly in a lonely marathon
of wonder, continuous no more but broken
by the crushing tentacles of doubt, which can blind
tired eyes so they do not glimpse the truth of logic.
So now, as deliberate lies have been spoken,
the snakes may yet conceal their sinister magic.

My thoughts are polluted by venom, and poisoned
by the racking doubt of mental dislocation.
Slowly, steadily, the processes of my brain
cease to operate, except in wild, unreasoned
spirals of hate and pain: mental immolation.
Yet the body lives on—only the mind is slain.