Camp
can be defined as a kind of aesthetic denoted by its tendency to provide sophisticated,
knowing amusement by being self-consciously artificial and extravagant.[1]
There is a very strongly effeminate[2]
quality to campness and it regards something as appealing or humorous because
of its ridiculousness to the viewer.[3]
Throughout
the 70s and 80s the rock band Queen gained worldwide success with a unique blend
of hard rock fused with countless other influences including ragtime, opera,
gospel, vaudeville, and folk, which they delivered with theatrical bombast,
sometimes attracting criticism for being overblown due to “histrionic vocals,
abrupt and pointless compositional complexity.”[4] A more admiring critic put it this way:
“Few bands embodied the pure excess
of the '70s like Queen. Embracing the exaggerated pomp of prog-rock and heavy
metal, as well as vaudevillian music-hall, the British quartet delved deeply
into camp and bombast, creating a huge, mock-operatic sound with layered
guitars and overdubbed vocals.”[5]
When the
usage of the word camp appeared, in 1909, it denoted: ostentatious,
exaggerated, affected, theatrical, and effeminate behaviour[6]
which Queen certainly conformed to in their music, and also their style:
The “pure
excess” described above could easily be substituted for the “‘shocking’ excess”[7]
which American writer, Susan Sontag, in her essay Notes on Camp (1964), stated
as one of the features which defined campness. “The essence of Camp is its love
of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration”[8]…
an ironic and parodic appreciation of an extravagant form that is out of
proportion to its content.[9]
Queen were certainly not at odds with her analysis, never taking themselves too
seriously while penning with subtle humour parodic tracks the likes of Lazing
on a Sunday Afternoon whose flighty intro resounds as follows, with
ultimate camp:
This far
from humourless style, paired with the whimsical lyrics (which follow) along to
the swooning wall of harmonised backing vocals which intersperse the lead line
(shown in brackets) certainly conforms to the “artifice, frivolity, naïve
middle-class pretentiousness”[10]
which are key features of campness, and of Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon.
There is certainly something shamelessly highbrow and pretentious about the
song, but it is carried with humour.
Lazing
On A Sunday Afternoon Lyrics (Freddie Mercury)
I go out to work on a Monday morning,
Tuesday I go off to honeymoon,
I'll be back again before it's time for Sunny-down,
I'll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon.
Bicycling on every Wednesday evening, [a bicycle bell
rings, camply]
Thursday I go waltzing to the Zoo.
I come from London town, I'm just an ordinary guy,
Fridays I go painting in the Louvre,
I'm bound to be proposing on a Saturday night (There
he goes again)
I'll be lazing on a Sunday, (oooo)
Lazing on a Sunday (ooooo)
Lazing on a Sunday (Sunday) Afternoon.[11]
Deriving
from the French slang term se camper, meaning “to pose in an exaggerated
fashion,” usage of the word camp has always been linked in English to a theatrically
effeminate style associated with homosexuality or pertaining to the characteristics
(real or perceived) of homosexuals. As Dyer puts it, “[Camp] is just about the
only style, language and culture that is distinctively and unambiguously gay
male. In a world drenched in straightness all the images and the words of
society express and confirm the rightness of heterosexuality. Camp is the one thing
that expresses and confirms being a gay man.”[12]
The gay
liberation movement of the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s urged homosexuals
to publicly reveal their sexuality in order to counter shame with “gay pride” and
used camp to confront society with its own preconceptions and their historicity.
Freddie Mercury, the famously homosexual lead singer of Queen, has been
considered a gay icon by some, in no small part because he neither tried to
hide his sexuality throughout the band’s career, nor did he overemphasise the
fact in a way that would lead to it fully defining him as an individual or an
artist.
In
illustration of this, while on one hand Freddie would famously refer to himself
(camply) as, “Gay as a daffodil,”[13]
in December 1974, when asked directly, “So how about being bent?” Mercury
replied, “You're a crafty cow. Let's put it this way; there were times when I
was young and green. It's a thing schoolboys go through. I've had my share of
schoolboy pranks. I'm not going to elaborate further.” This showed him at ease
with his sexuality but not wishing to make it the focus of great attention. He
was a private person in that respect, but he could still bring humour to his
response. As John Marshall of Gay Times expressed it: “[Mercury] was a
'scene-queen', not afraid to publicly express his gayness but unwilling to
analyse or justify his 'lifestyle' ... It was as if Freddie Mercury was saying
to the world, 'I am what I am. So what?' And that in itself for some was a
statement.”[14]
Certainly the
effete, ‘fey’, camp style long since associated homosexuality and camp is
relevant to Queen. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language
refers to the term as “homosexual jargon”[15]
which denotes any of banality, mediocrity, artifice, ostentation, etc. so
extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal and the music of
Queen can certainly be categorised as “perversely sophisticated.” One scathing
critic wrote in Pomp Without Circumstance (1975): “Best of all was [guitarist,
Brian] May's big moment: an immensely likeable, totally silly "virtuoso"
guitar solo which somehow managed to suggest the filigreed fussiness of
"Flight of the Bumblebee" being played by somebody who'd just fallen
in love with feedback.” [16] Another,
Bart Testa, wrote: “Queen makes elaborate music from shards of nostalgia for
the British Empire. They push boys' public-school chorales and English martial
music through the funnel of hard rock, aiming carefully at romantic crescendos embellished
with heavy echo. “[17]
Or as Brian May put it himself, “Most of our stuff, particularly Freddie's
songs, was in oddball keys that his fingers naturally seemed to go to: E-flat,
F, A-flat. They're the last things you want to be playing on a guitar, so as a
guitarist you're forced to find new chords. Freddie's songs were so rich in
chord-structures, you always found yourself making strange shapes with your
fingers. Songs like Bicycle Race have a billion chords in them.”
But while
Queen were “referred to as 'pomp' rock by British critics,” [18]
owing to their use of “theatricality to the hilt…” not everything about queen
was effeminate, “they are also popular with heavy metal fans” (the suggestion being that heavy metal is a
particularly masculine genre.) “They could be discussed as a progressive metal
band,”[19]
and progressive rock was a genre overly dominated by all male bands, The
Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes, Rush, Emerson, Lake and
Palmer, Gentle Giant, Electric Light Orchestra et al., plus the vast
majority of fans of the genre were white males.[20]
As one biographer wrote, “Queen's music was a bizarre yet highly accessible
fusion of the macho and the fey.” [21]
It is
worthy of note that in contemporary culture both the effeminate, or the overly
macho, in a man, can be construed as in some way ‘gay’, as though
there were some form of Aristotelian Mean of masculinity versus the fey which
constitutes ‘straightness.’ Leaving moderation aside, Queen, at
points, had it in them to fully access both ends of this spectrum. Certainly
the “mock-operatic sound” referenced by the allmusic.com biography of Queen can
be seen as representative of the campness of Queen, as opera has long since
been adopted by queer culture in which “music and drama do not seem to exist
for their own sakes, but rather for the opportunities they create for
performance.”[22] (Freddie
Mercury would in 1988 collaborate on an album with Spanish operatic soprano Dame
Montserrat Caballé, whom he was a great admirer of.)[23]
The
contrast between the heavy metal and prog-rock machismo of Queen and their
effeminate side is further exemplified by contrasting the eerily lady-like
falsetto that begets the track Brighton Rock versus it’s later heavy
chorus and guitar solo, or the hard rock force of tracks such as Hammer to
Fall, or Princes of the Universe, which was written for the swords
and sorcery feature movie Highlander. The music video for this single had
Freddie Mercury duelling with his microphone stand against lead star of the
movie, Christopher Lambert, who wielded a sword. While swordsman ship is
classically perceived as a man’s game, often even entered in the hope of
winning a woman’s favour perhaps even this caricature of the power of music
versus the blade can be construed in some way as camp. As a prelude to the
guitar solo Freddie declares: “Come on! Come on! Come on!... Bring on the
Girls!” in a strange fusion of camp with implied straightness.
While it has
been stated that “Vocalist Freddie Mercury brought an extravagant sense of camp
to the band, pushing them towards kitschy humor and pseudo-classical
arrangements, as epitomized on their best-known song, "Bohemian
Rhapsody.”” And that “… his sexuality was
apparent throughout Queen's music, from their very name to their veiled lyrics
-- it was truly bizarre to hear gay anthems like "We Are the
Champions" turn into celebrations of sports victories. That would have
been impossible without Mercury, one of the most dynamic and charismatic
frontmen in rock history.”[24]
It cannot be fairly stated that the campness of Queen owed it’s quality solely to
Freddie alone. As Jennifer Anne de Boer
wrote in her dissertation, “Lead singer Freddie Mercury's stage
persona, the types of music on which Queen drew, and Brian May's guitar playing
all serve to "feminize" the band…”[25]
In this way May could bend his broad virtuosic style to
conform to the campness of Music Hall-influenced numbers such Bring Back
Leroy Brown (which he also played a section on ukulele in, another
expression of overblown versatility and flamboyant dedication to idiom) Killer
Queen, Seaside Rendezvous – in which Freddie and Drummer, Roger
Taylor, went to great lengths to imitate woodwind and brass instruments, as
well as a kazoo, using only their voices for the instrumental section, and even
went so far as to record an outrageously camp tap dancing breakdown by
recording the sounds of thimbles on their fingers tapping on the table, and
ends, camply, with the line spoken, “Give us a kiss.”
Taylor was also known for hitting the highest notes in
Queens sophisticated “wall of sound” vocal arrangements, a C6 in Seaside
Rendezvous. His long falsetto melody which takes the lead line in
instrumental section the sci-fi skiffle ’39, described by May who penned
the song as a “Tour de Force,”[26]
also exemplifies Taylor’s contribution to the overall campness of the Queen
aesthetic.
The peak of camp expression from the band probably
culminates in the hit single Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy, the last
example of Mercury's vaudeville/musichall influenced pieces, which I have heard
described as “a bit far even for Queen” by more than one fan. It includes “Queen's
trademarks: catchy melody, playful arrangement, nice harmonies, a guitar solo
with the distinct guitar sound and style, and high built-in lead melody content…
The non-model-like song form has a long non-repeated content, while we have
four choruses (one of them is instrumental).[27]
Classic Rock Magazine, in October 2006, described this
song as “quaintly British… one of several Queen songs to be inspired by the
tradition of Music Hall… this song sits
perfectly next to Seaside Rendezvous. Full to the brim with camp
innuendo from wonderful vocal and harmonies thick enough to beat a whale to
death, even the multi-layered guitar solo seems lathered in saucy seaside
postcard humour. Lyrically it’s never clear whether Mercury is referring to
himself or an object of his desire as the titular man about town but, just as
it’s difficult to be insulted by Bon Scott’s red-blooded heterosexuality, you
find yourself drawn effortlessly into Fred’s own world.” [28]
In praise of a style earlier berated for “pointless compositional complexity.”[29]
Classic Rock’s analysis continues: “The vocal textures and arrangements are
on a par with the infinitely more familiar Bohemian Rhapsody, with one
break-down mimicking a clock striking nine [camply]. Has a rock band ever done
this? We doubt it and Queen’s ability to seamlessly fit such a count into a 4/4
time signature beggars belief: you try dividing eight by nine and see how far
you get...“[30]
A
particular analysis of the Campness of the 2976 Queen single
“Good
Old Fashioned Lover Boy” (by the author.)
During the heart
felt Intro which plays as follows:
Freddie Sings with
pure romance, “I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things, we
can do the Tango just for two. I can serenade and gently play on your heart
strings, be your Valentino just for you.”[31]
It could be said that this lyric is “shmaltzy,” meaning overly sweet and
sentimental in American slang,[32]
but something of this full blown “cheesiness” is very fay and effete. Yet the
heart of the campness of this song, which begins with the flighty turn around
in the ultimate bar of the passage above, takes heart during the chorus which
begins the body of the song:
Chorus:
The bouncy staccato which leaves the
left hand hanging on all but the last offbeat in the first six bars gives the
song a buoyant, campy feel as it is accompanied by the lyrics, “Ooh love, Ooh
lover boy, where you going tonight, hey boy!”
Variations on the lyrics continue
throughout in a camp style over this passage: “Set my alarm, turn on my charm,
that’s because I’m a good old fashioned lover boy”, “Write my letter, feel much better, and use
my fancy patter on the telephone”, more so “Everythings alright, just hold on
tight, that’s because I’m a good old fashioned lover boy” because of the
inescapable sexual innuendo in the lyric ‘hold on tight’, but probably most so
in the line, “Driving back in style, in my saloon will do quite nicely, Just
take me back to yours that will be fine,” because Freddie declares “Come on and
get it” with immensely exaggerated pomp before doubling the chorus.
One can’t help but remark upon the continual repetition
of the word “boy” throughout the song when analysing it from this angle.
There is also a Bridge (which appears surprisingly
early in the structure) which takes the piece briefly into the minor of chord
iv, Ab minor:
Freddie
sings “Ooh let me hear your heartbeat” and the rest of the band sing a chorus
of, “Grow faster, faster,” with unambiguous camp as Freddie continues, “Can you
feel my love heat, come on and sit on my hot-seat of love…” with thick sexual
connotation which is only neutralised and made less shocking by the innocent
fey style in which it is delivered, and perhaps also because it is followed by
the line “and tell me how do you feel,” given that the term ‘hot-seat’ is used
in slang to denote a situation where someone is sat down on a chair and given
the opportunity to speak (deriving from the expression’s original meaning for a
high-pressure situation in which a great deal of attention and scrutiny is focused
upon a person.)[33]
Finally,
there is also the Midsection, which begins in Fm and has the rest of the
band questioning Freddie in moody tones,
“Hey boy where do you get it from?
Hey boy
where did you go ?”
To which he
gleefully responds, “I learned my passion in the good old fashioned school of
loverboys.” One can’t help have in mind the English boarding schools which for
a long time, perhaps unfairly, have been associated with acts of homosexuality
in England.
As discussed, Campness, as a form of aesthetic, was an
inextricable part of the music and style of Queen, although it would be unfair,
owing to their diversity of their styles and music throughout their twenty year
career, to dismiss the band’s style and music as camp alone. Their embrace of
the effete alongside credible pure hard-rock, heavy metal, and progressive
styles, could perhaps be construed as part and parcel of the band’s broad range
of influences, exemplified by Mercury citing as two of his heroes, Liza
Minelli, whom he described as “oozing with sheer talent… which she gets across
the stage, and the way she delivers herself to the public is a good influence,”
and Jimi Hendrix whom he described as his “Idol.” Continuing to say “He sort of
epitomizes, from his presentation on stage, the whole works of a rock star.”[34]
While on the face of it these two influences seem broadly
diverse, one embodying the feminine, the other the masculine, there is
certainly one ingredient in common to what they were admired for, and that is
their stage presence. Clearly this aesthetic, which, while spearheaded by
vocalist Freddie Mercury was fully embraced and brought to bear by the entire
band, must have been the their motivation in their embrace of campness, the
fact that at its core, camp as a performance style is something that entertains
by being larger than life. This has contributed to Queen’s enduring popularity
and legacy as one of the greatest performing bands in the rock cannon.
[1]
(2013) “The Random House Dictionary” Random House, Inc. 2013, Noah
Webster.
[2]
(2009) “Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition” William Collins Sons &
Co. Ltd. 1979
[3]
Babuscio, J. (1993) “Camp and the Gay Sensibility” In Camp Grounds:
Style and Homosexuality. Ed David Bergman. Amherst: U of Massachusetts, p.19-38.
[4] Barnes,
K. (June 20, 1974) "Queen II," in Rolling Stone, p. 52.
[5]
Alllmusic.com biography of Queen (accessed 2013) http://www.allmusic.com/artist/queen-mn0000858827
[6]
(2011) “Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition”, OUP Oxford.
[7]
Sontag, S. (1964) “Notes on "Camp"” in (2009) Against
Interpretation and Other Essays, Penguin Classics.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Rodriguez, E. M. (2012) Lecture Notes
(Accessed 2013).
[10]
Sontag, S. (1964) “Notes on "Camp"” in (2009) Against
Interpretation and Other Essays, Penguin Classics.
[11] Queen
(1975, 1993) “A Night At The Opera” CD Sleeve Notes, EMI Music UK.
[12]
Dyer, R. (2001) “The Culture of Queers” Routledge.
[13]
Webb, J. (December 1974) “Freddie Mercury Interview” in New
Musical Express.
[14] Urban,
R. (Not Dated, Retrieved 01-08-2010) "Ragged Blade Reviews: Queen's
Freddie Mercury and his Legacy" Urban Productions, NYC
[15]
(1976) “Webster’s New World Dictionary of the English Language”,
Prentice-Hall.
[16]
Nelson, P. (April, 1975) “Queen: Pomp Without Circumstance,” in Rolling Stone,
p. 78.
[17] Testa
B. (Februray, 1978) "News of the World," in Rolling Stone, p. 96.
[18]
Brown, C. (1992) "The Art of Rock and Roll" New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, p. 189.
[20] Planer,
N. (2008) “Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements”, BBC Four.
[21]
Alllmusic.com biography of Queen (accessed 2013) http://www.allmusic.com/artist/queen-mn0000858827
[22] Rodriguez,
E. M. (2012) Lecture Notes (Accessed January, 2013).
[23]
BBC Four (29-12-2012) "Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender - Directors
Cut" Available online at the time of writing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p012tfl4
[24]
Erlewine, S. T. “Queen Biography” (Not Dated, Accessed January 2013)
All Music Guide.
[25] de
Boer, Jennifer Anne (1999) "On the Margins of the Mainstream: Queen, the
Rock Press, and Gender"
McMaster University, Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 3651,
abstract, p. iii.
[26]
(2008 DVD Release)"The Making Of A Night At The Opera - Classic
Albums" Eagle Rock Entertainment.
(Accessed January 2013 at http://www.queensongs.info/index.php)
[28] Author
Unspecified (2006) "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" in Classic
Rock, p. 31.
[29] Barnes,
K. (June 20, 1974) "Queen II," in Rolling Stone, p. 52.
[30] Author
Unspecified (2006) "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" in Classic
Rock, p. 31.
[31]
And all following lyrical quotations, Queen (1976, 1993) “A Day at the Races”
CD Sleeve Notes, EMI Music UK.
[32]
Spears, R. A. (2007) “Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial
Expressions”, McGraw Hill.
[33]
(2009) “Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition” William Collins Sons &
Co. Ltd. 1979
[34] Cohen, S. (April
1975) “Queen's Freddie Mercury Shopping For An Image In London” in
Circus Magazine.
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