Sunday 27 June 2021

sleeping very soundly on a saturday morning i was dreaming i was al capone

Billed as Smile, the previous band of drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May under which the booking had originally been made, those two were joined by bass-player Mike Grose and Freddie Bulsara on lead vocals to perform publicly together for a charity fund-raising event at the City Hall of Truro in Cornwall on this day in 1970. Welcoming the singer, the group was convinced to change its name to Queen by a persuasive Mercury who also took that moment to redefine himself, inspired by the lyric, “Mother Mercury—look what they’ve done to me” for the draft that would become song “My Fairy King,” which would feature on their first eponymous record album. The ballad itself inspired by Robert Browning’s poem The Pied Piper, it quotes directly “and horses were born with eagles’ wings” and immediately preceding the lament, “Someone, someone has drained the colour from my wings / Broken my fairy circle ring / And shamed the king in all his pride / Changed the winds and wronged the tides.” The titular opening lines are from an early version of “Stone Cold Crazy” was among original material performed at the first gig, with a small show, under their new name, following in London on 18 July.