I’ve got a dead body on board!

You know when you’ve just picked up a dead body from the medical examiner’s office and you’re heading back through traffic to the funeral home, but you’re driving slower than usual because the body and stretcher could flip on its side if you go around a corner too fast, and the drivers around you get upset because you’re taking too long and they try to peer in the windows as they scream by but they can’t see into the transfer van because the windows are tinted so the general public won't get freaked out if they knew that they’re within arm’s length of a dead person?

We’ve all been there, right? And don’t you also wish that you could hang a “Body on Board” sign in the back window to clue in the other drivers that you’re actually respecting the deceased person you’re transporting. But I’d hazard a guess that even death isn’t enough for some people to curb their driving habits, which is a shame.

What does this have to do with Queen? Well, when I was driving the transfer van, I would listen to some Queen tunes to kill some time. All of a sudden, All Dead, All Dead would start up, I’d get a waft of decomposing goodness, and the song takes on a very different meaning at that moment. The lyrics become literal. Sorry, Brian.

Mick Rock’s Island

Did anyone else catch the promos for Harper’s Island and recognize the stark lighting and harsh shadows dominating the characters' portraits?

They look suspiciously similar to Mick Rock’s iconic photography of Queen from their early days. I wonder if the art director at CBS who dreamt up the promo isn’t actually paying homage to the band since these low-key, harshly shadowed images don’t appear in the actual series (at least not yet). Granted, the show is not intended to be a film noir series—although that would be an interesting approach—the promos evoke a significantly different feel to the show.

Too bad the art director for the promos couldn’t convince the music director to drop in Who Wants to Live Forever at some point in the show.

Roger screaming

What drew me to Queen as a 10-year-old? It was catching a ride with a schoolmate in his dad's Gran Torino while playing the newly released News of the World album on his 8-track stereo. Sure WWRY and WATC were on the radio at the time so I had some peripheral connection to the album, but it was actually Roger’s screams (or is it singing?) on Fight From the Inside that caught my attention. In hindsight, the song wasn't the most popular one on the album and one would expect a Freddie or Brian song to appeal to the masses, but for me it was the hook in FFTI.

I was so enamored with Queen that I did something I had never done before—I scoped out a used record store and bought my first LP, Queen II, for $7.00.

Welcome to Queenville

Queen has been a constant in my life since 1977 and, thanks to American Idol, TV commercials, and a general resurgence of their music, I get a Queen fix at least once a day whether I'm looking for one or not. So, I thought I'd start a blog that reflects my general thoughts on how Queen has impacted my life for the past 32 years.