Recently, while staying with my family in Moscow, I came across a pile of rock-related books that I adored as a teen. The majority of them was about Beatles, my first music love – a book of their lyrics, Russian translations of their biographies, and magazines featuring a story about, say, Paul McCartney (at that time, I thought of him as an old man – … Continue reading For Freddie (2021)
To celebrate the upcoming re-release of Brian May’s “Back to the Light” (1992/2021) album, I would like to dedicate a few words to each song, reflecting either on a couple of lines from the lyrics, or on a song in general. If you never listened to this album before, please check it out (here and here)! I. A shadow of a man I used to … Continue reading The Songs of Darkness and Light
A couple of days ago I was walking through the Toronto downtown, and, as I looked at the familiar enormousness of the Scotiabank Arena, my eyes welled up with tears. Because I remembered the summer of 2019 so clearly – how we strolled by the CN Tower all the way to the venue, to a joyful crowd of people wearing Queen t-shirts – my people, … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Dr. May!
Sheer Heart Attack captivated me many years ago, even though back then I understood very little, both literally and figuratively. I remember being mesmerized by the unusual tone of “In the Lap of the Gods,” loving “Tenement Funster,” being scared by the aggressiveness of “Flick of the Wrist” – again, completely missing out the lyrics but sensing the mood from the harsh riffs, Freddie’s voice, … Continue reading Sheer Heart Attack
I needed to listen to something fresh and young, something that would alleviate that sickening feeling from not-so-happy news from around the world and from the cold breath of the pandemic winter. While revisiting my “tiny essays” format, I thought of Queen’s first album – again, a memorable item in my cassette collection, often played in my youth, and then somehow left out of my … Continue reading Queen
I will not be the first to say how prophetically the Queen’s music video “Thank God It’s Christmas” is perceived today, now seen through the veil of lockdowns and hardships, with the world shrinking to the small and intimate space of our houses. Here we are, in December 2020, approaching Christmas, back in lockdown. Our little neighborhood is now all illuminated by festive lights, and … Continue reading It’s Been A Long Hard Year
Writing about Queen II makes me extremely happy – along with A Day At the Races, this is an album that I can always listen to without getting tired. I take a deep breath at the beginning, synchronizing my heartbeat with the rhythm of “Procession”, breathing out only at the end, after the jolly singing of “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” is … Continue reading Queen II
As I was putting Christmas lights on our porch today, I caught myself murmuring “Las Palabras de Amor,” a song that matches this holiday season so well, with cold weather raging outside, and us huddling together in the safety of our houses and apartments, close to our family and pets, grateful for this warmth, in both literal and figurative sense of word. I feel this … Continue reading Hot Space
As we move more and more into winter, with the news being a mix of hope and desperation, and the days growing darker and shorter, I am trying to think of Christmas and New Year – that in a couple of weeks I will bring a tree into our house, and we at least have a bit of a holiday spirit in a tiny circle … Continue reading One Beautiful Christmas Day
“Innuendo” is one of the few Queen albums I knew for my entire life. I first heard this record in 1991, and it became inseparable from my coming of age. When I decided to dedicate this Tiny Essay to Freddie’s memory, I found out that my perception of “Innuendo” is split into two levels: I see these songs through the prism of my current knowledge … Continue reading Innuendo
Desperate Writers 