Robert Charles Powell

When Death Is NOT Theoretical Robert Charles Powell

2nd ed -- with an Addendum & now an Index -- 40% longer than 1st ed. "Baby boomers" dealing with death - especially death "definitely on the calendar" - feel free to choose from an array of "hymns" beyond "Amazing Grace," and have been tending to look especially to one music group - "Queen" - as a source of funeral songs. The focus of this book -- including theological overtones -- is on three aspects: (1) the apparently seven-year period, from mid 1984 to late 1991, when Freddie Mercury (1946-1991), the extraordinarily talented frontman of the versatile music group "Queen," actively dealt with dying while performing, (2) the thirteen-year period before that when Queen already handled the double theme of "facing death head-on" and of "affirming life while fully aware of death", plus (3) the effect of this very public dying and this persistent, quiet awareness of death both on Mercury's bandmates and on the group's "baby boomer" fans as they became faced with death. Most considerations of Queen and its musical catalogue have been by journalists, but Dr. Powell approaches these questions as an historian and clinician, analyzing fifty-some songs and mobilizing extensive amounts of data to support his conclusions. Endnotes suggest answers to several long-puzzling questions about Queen and the music group's work - for example, the probable Zarathustrian origin of Freddie Mercury's name, the probable role of irony and sarcasm in Queen's music, and the probable origins of the title to their first real hit, "The Seven Seas of Rhye". Addendum endnotes suggest answers to several other long-puzzling questions -- such as the probable actual impact of Queen's anti-suicide messages, the Zarathustrian aspects of "Who Wants to Live Forever?" plus the probable reason why "Mad the Swine" appeared 20 years after written.