The lyric that defined Freddie Mercury: “Was it all worth it?”

In 1988, things were tough for Queen. The year before, in 1997, the band had learnt about Freddie Mercury’s HIV diagnosis, a thing that, back then, still felt like a death sentence. It was made worse by the absolute media frenzy that had revolved around the singer as the AIDS crisis was picking up, with his celebrity status beginning to feel like a punishment.

Mercury seemed to always be forced to live in some prejudiced trap. At first, it was the fact that his sexuality was literally illegal. Until 1967, homosexual acts between men over the age of 21 in the UK could genuinely land you in prison, which is enough to build a pretty solid closet for any man and keep him there.

So even after that was lifted, Mercury still never truly ‘came out’ in the traditional or expected sense. There was never a moment when he stated to the public what his sexuality was. Instead, he just presented how he wanted to present on stage, but kept a modest distance from his partner off it – a sad way for any lovers to have to live.

Just when that seemed to be getting better, when the singer was becoming more comfortable being open in his sexuality and the UK seemed to be slowly becoming more accepting, the crisis hit. After the AIDS epidemic hit America hard in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, the medical panic led to a swift uptake in homophobia. As the gay community suffered greatly with friends watching their friends get sick or die in conditions where their families or even hospital workers didn’t even want to touch them, the health crisis was undeniably worsened by prejudiced beliefs about gay men and conversations around the disease became undeniably impacted by homophobia.

Mercury started getting hit with accusations constantly. In 1986, he came home from a holiday and was swarmed in Heathrow by journalists claiming he’d had his blood tested, asking him over and over if he had AIDS. At the time, Mercury said he was “perfectly fit and healthy”, but the experience was scary enough that when he was diagnosed and began struggling, he told no one, not even the band, for a while.

Sick, scared and stressed about how the public would react – that was the Mercury in the studio making Miracle. And on the final song, the singer seems to ask the ultimate question of his life and career: ‘Was It All Worth It’.

“What is there left for me to do in this life / Did I achieve what I had set in my sights?” Mercury asks as his opening lyrics, and the song goes on like that. Knowing he was ill and getting iller, the song feels like the thoughts of a dying man. It feels like a deathbed song, but I’m saying that in a positive way. These are the words of a resolved man as he combs back through his life and his time in the band and concludes that yes, it was worth it in a track that beautifully defines Mercury and these last years.

“Was it all worth it yeah yeah, giving all my heart and soul / Staying up all night, was it all worth it. Ooh living breathing rock ‘n’ roll this never ending fight,” he sings, repeating the central question over and over before concluding, in plain English, “Yes it was a worthwhile experience.”