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Sep. 5th, 2011
Happy Birthday, Beautiful One.
Sep. 5th, 2011 06:20 pmDearest Freddie,
I wanted to paint you a picture to celebrate what would have been your 65th year. But nothing I could whack together between university commitments and commission commitments would have been good enough. It wouldn't have expressed all that's inside my heart.
I wanted to sing a song for you. But no song could encompass what you mean to me. My body is tired from a migraine and endometrial pains since 6am. My voice would never be strong enough to sing the right notes, to express the strength of the love and admiration in my heart.
So for now, all I have are these words. I still want to cry that we've lost you. I want to take God by the lapels (if He has them) and ask him why, why, WHY he had to take you, of all people, away from us so soon? The earth misses you so terribly. There's a great, sad, empty space where your brilliance should be. And so many young ones try to fill that space, but they can only fill their own spaces. Yours was one of a kind.
As a singer, I listen to the way you used your voice and I learn something new every day. I am in awe, over and over again. Your voice is familiar and comforting, and yet every day there's something new and inspiring there, if I just listen hard enough. It wasn't perfect, but it was fucking-well close. It made the little cracks, the warbles, the aching reaches for the most sublime notes all the more striking. They hit me that much harder, dug into me that much deeper. Sometimes, when you sang, it was like you were wringing the pain from my heart with your very hands.
As a rock pianist, you were second to none. I still haven't figured out Bohemian Rhapsody, and sometimes I don't think I ever will. I watch you sing AND play, and I am in utter wonder. Your long, elegant hands owned that keyboard. I could watch you forever, making those beautiful sounds.
Your music has been the soundtrack of some of the most precious moments of my life. Trips down south in a clapped out old kombi van, Queen's Greatest Hits repeated over twenty times during the trip. Singing along with my brother and sister in the back, air-guitar and air-piano-ing each solo. Listening to Queen diligently while everyone else I knew was listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Watching you and wishing, *wishing* I could be a rock star like you, but feeling repeated defeat because I was born a woman.
And it's still my greatest wish, to rock out on stage, to parade in my dominant sexuality, to rule, to roar, to explode in all my amazing glory, like you did. I would not be shocking, I would not be strange. As a singer, I would be resplendent. When you did your thing, I live vicariously through you.
But, above all, the stories of who you were as a person touch me deeply. I love to read about you, to hear about you. There are things about you I relate to so strongly. It makes me so happy to be your fan. When I'm doing what I know I was born to do - be creative - and I'm in pain, I know I can do it, I can push through the pain and do what I need to. Cause you went through worse, and you still made beautiful things.
I'll never forget you, Freddie. I will never, ever forget you. You mean more to me than words could say. All my love, darling, all my love. And a very, very Happy Birthday.
Forever yours,
Nancy.
I wanted to paint you a picture to celebrate what would have been your 65th year. But nothing I could whack together between university commitments and commission commitments would have been good enough. It wouldn't have expressed all that's inside my heart.
I wanted to sing a song for you. But no song could encompass what you mean to me. My body is tired from a migraine and endometrial pains since 6am. My voice would never be strong enough to sing the right notes, to express the strength of the love and admiration in my heart.
So for now, all I have are these words. I still want to cry that we've lost you. I want to take God by the lapels (if He has them) and ask him why, why, WHY he had to take you, of all people, away from us so soon? The earth misses you so terribly. There's a great, sad, empty space where your brilliance should be. And so many young ones try to fill that space, but they can only fill their own spaces. Yours was one of a kind.
As a singer, I listen to the way you used your voice and I learn something new every day. I am in awe, over and over again. Your voice is familiar and comforting, and yet every day there's something new and inspiring there, if I just listen hard enough. It wasn't perfect, but it was fucking-well close. It made the little cracks, the warbles, the aching reaches for the most sublime notes all the more striking. They hit me that much harder, dug into me that much deeper. Sometimes, when you sang, it was like you were wringing the pain from my heart with your very hands.
As a rock pianist, you were second to none. I still haven't figured out Bohemian Rhapsody, and sometimes I don't think I ever will. I watch you sing AND play, and I am in utter wonder. Your long, elegant hands owned that keyboard. I could watch you forever, making those beautiful sounds.
Your music has been the soundtrack of some of the most precious moments of my life. Trips down south in a clapped out old kombi van, Queen's Greatest Hits repeated over twenty times during the trip. Singing along with my brother and sister in the back, air-guitar and air-piano-ing each solo. Listening to Queen diligently while everyone else I knew was listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Watching you and wishing, *wishing* I could be a rock star like you, but feeling repeated defeat because I was born a woman.
And it's still my greatest wish, to rock out on stage, to parade in my dominant sexuality, to rule, to roar, to explode in all my amazing glory, like you did. I would not be shocking, I would not be strange. As a singer, I would be resplendent. When you did your thing, I live vicariously through you.
But, above all, the stories of who you were as a person touch me deeply. I love to read about you, to hear about you. There are things about you I relate to so strongly. It makes me so happy to be your fan. When I'm doing what I know I was born to do - be creative - and I'm in pain, I know I can do it, I can push through the pain and do what I need to. Cause you went through worse, and you still made beautiful things.
I'll never forget you, Freddie. I will never, ever forget you. You mean more to me than words could say. All my love, darling, all my love. And a very, very Happy Birthday.
Forever yours,
Nancy.
