The world lost musical genius  Freddie Mercury 25 years ago today. Laura Imbruglia shares with us her story of an honorary school production, action figures, and a tattoo on her right forearm. 

I don’t normally find myself in the habit of commemorating death anniversaries, but in the case of Freddie Mercury, I only really became aware of him in the mass grief surrounding his death. 

As he’s now my favourite singer of all-time and a personal hero of mine, I guess it’s a date worth reflecting on.

I was 8 years old and watching some afternoon tv, when a flamboyant man burst onto the screen during the news. It was live footage of Freddie from the 70s. He was prancing around in a Zandra Rhodes costume. As the news was (in my young mind) the most boring tv show in the world, I was quite curious as to why this certainly-not-boring space alien with a suitably otherworldly name was on a boring tv show.

My Mum walked into the room as the news was delivered and I asked her “Mum, who is Freddie Mercury?” Her face dropped as she realised what they were reporting on and she said “Oh no, he’s died!…he was a really great singer”.

That tiny moment is etched in my mind, but I didn’t really think about him again for another 5 years until I was in high school music class and our teacher played us “Bohemian Rhapsody” which I recognised as the epic song from the feature scene in “Wayne’s World”. 

My tiny mind expanded some more but I still didn’t do any more investigation into Queen (however, this was pre-internet, so maybe I’d have gone home and nerded out on youtube if it had been available to me).

A few more years passed and I was prepping a school stage production for the annual “Year 10 teacher take-off concert”. 

We had a maths teacher who rode to school every day, and I knew there was a Queen song about wanting to ride one’s bicycle. I walked around asking all my year 10 schoolmates if anyone had a Queen greatest hits cd I could borrow. One boy said “My sister has a tape, I’ll bring it in”. 

He brought it the next day, I took it home and decided to just press play and listen through til I got to the song. 

I thought I didn’t know many of their songs and might be confused if I tried to fast forward ahead. 

An instant love affair was cultivated. 

It turned out I did know these songs! Most of them anyway, and the songs I didn’t know blew my mind. 

I found the “bicycle” song, but lost my train of thought and played the tape past it. “Don’t Stop Me Now” arrived - it was the best thing I’d ever heard. I flipped the tape and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” played. I’d previously thought that was an Elvis song! 

“Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” came on and I had never heard anything more camp. Men like Freddie did not exist on the Central Coast of NSW and I was now incredibly fascinated by this man who was somehow simultaneously ultra masculine AND ultra feminine!

I never looked back. 

Freddie is now tattooed on my arm and my house holds 3 x action figures, many cds, dvds, books and records featuring his greatness. 

I LOVE YOU FREDDIE! COME BACK!

 Laura Imbruglia is an Australian singer-songwriter. Her latest creation is the devilishly clever arts web series “Amateur Hour”. You can also hear Laura sporadically on 3RRR radio show, “Word Nerds”.