Did Freddie Mercury know about his HIV diagnosis in 1986 already?

So you hate gays now too?

Well, a cursory reading of the lyrics (yay) lead to nothing of the sort.

It's the most trite of their songs, I'd say.

For reference:

"Another red letter day,
So the pound has dropped and the children are creating,
The other half ran away,
Taking all the cash and leaving you with the lumber,
Got a pain in the chest,
Doctors on strike what you need is a rest

It's not easy love, but you've got friends you can trust,
Friends will be friends,
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention,
Friends will be friends,
When you're through with life and all hope is lost,
Hold out your hand cos friends will be friends right till the end

Now it's a beautiful day,
The postman delivered a letter from your lover,
Only a phone call away,
You tried to track him down but somebody stole his number,
As a matter of fact,
You're getting used to life without him in your way

It's so easy now, cos you got friends you can trust,
Friends will be friends,
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention,
Friends will be friends,
When you're through with life and all hope is lost,
Hold out your hand cos friends will be friends (right till the end) "

Lyrics by Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, apparently.

More the hand of John, I reckons.

So John knew about Freddie's HIV before Freddie did?!

Great thread!

This is the best that ILM has to offer today.

I gather Passantino got banned.

Pour one out etc. etc.

Reason?

Blog this thread, Nick. Blog it.

Dom got temp banned for going a bit over the line with the snark. I think he'll be back on Monday.

The thread question seems weird and pointless, I mean I can sort-of vaguely see how some of the lyrics could be construed in that way, but I don't see why it's important or interesting.

Remember who posted it.

it's an interesting thought

How did Dom get banned but gabbneb didn't

^^^ ilx mod policy inconsistency in action

gabbneb better at owning you? xp

arbitrary and inconsistent bannings are an important part of creating order. and we need order in this society or we'd have people saying what they actually think. and you and i both know that we can't have that.

So John knew about Freddie's HIV before Freddie did?!

where do you think Freddie got it?

this is a really fantastic thread, thanks for everything

I may have told this story here before; it left a mark on me. Once when I worked with people with AIDS I went up to say goodbye for the week to a patient who hadn't left his room all day. He was early in his diagnosis and was asymptomatic. He said he felt hot, so I thought I'd take his temperature before I clocked out. It was 106. We called the ambulance and sent him to the hospital. I only worked weekends; when I came back next week, he was dead. Everyone else in the house was badly shaken. That week, two other patients would die, gutting the house's population. It was horrible.

41,000 American men and women dead and 71,000 diagnosed before then-president Reagan would deign to so much as say the word "AIDS" in public, and when he did, he made sure to bundle in the same sort of moralizing that had helped things to progress as they had: "...let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons." The stance of his administration on AIDS is his true legacy: ignorance, callous indifference, open cruelty. May God curse, and history judge, those who ignored or abetted the crisis as it grew while so many died frightened and ostracized, and let me never forget my friends whose deaths need not have come so soon.

That was a surprisingly poignant post for an otherwise inconsequential thread. Thank you.

Seconded.

i still think the original post was the best.

That was a surprisingly poignant post for an otherwise inconsequential thread. Thank you.

-- filthy dylan, Saturday, August 30, 2008 6:24 PM (Yesterday)

i still stand by my comment, and would like to add that my comments on this thread are pretty fucking great too.

Yes, dear.