Snippets of SnapDragon

Hi! And welcome to the latest addition to my Desert Island Picks.

In case you missed my little advertisement, I’ve decided to award ten–yes, only ten—top albums of my life.

And when I say ‘album’, I mean the entire album, friends. The whole record. Not some compilation or mix tape. I put in the CD, crank up the volume on quality speakers, and let the artist’s creation come to life.

You know. How it was intended.

All right. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let us continue!

. . .

#6: Made in Heaven by Queen (1995)

Oh, my dear friends. I don’t even know where to begin with this one.

(takes a deep breath)

It’s probably no surprise by now that I don’t pray.

But while I may not subscribe to a set of beliefs, I do believe in magic:

The Magic of Rock n’ Roll.

Yes. I. do.

. . .

You probably also know that I’m a Classic Rock Girl at heart. I grew up listening to it on the radio, and much to my friends’ confusion, dedicated my adolescence to buying Beatles’ CDs and memorabilia.

Queen, for whatever reason, was always on the periphery. Bohemian Rhapsody played on the station–as it still does–and I thought, “Yeah, man. Good stuff.”

And that was the end of it.

Well, July 2015 was the time of Our Sweet Wedding. And we had the amazing good fortune to honeymoon across Europe for four weeks. (It’s okay; you can hate me. I kind of do.)

And on the plane ride over, after scrolling through the viewing options on the seat in front of him, My Sweet Husband found a documentary on Freddie Mercury.

He watched. He enjoyed. And the magic unfolded.

Because a little over a week later, as we strolled along Lake Geneva in the gorgeous city of Montreux, Switzerland, we happened upon the statue of Freddie himself. Yep: the one on the album cover.*

He called to us.

And we listened.

. . .

All right. I could go on. But I will get to the music!

This is the only album on my list that I’ve discovered in recent years. (All of the others have been staples of mine for at least a decade.)

But it absolutely deserves it. It’s that good.

Released after Freddie’s death, this album was heart-breakingly pieced together by Brian, John, and Roger.

It’s 100% haunting, beautiful, and moving.

It’s also an album that is difficult to describe. So, well, I’ll leave it to you, Dear Listener.

May Freddie bless you.

. . .

Favorite Track: “Mother Love” (I have no words for how incredible this song is.)

. . .

Stay tuned for Snap’s #5!

SnapDragon is an educator, writer, artist, and occasional root-beer-drinker.

Follow her Two-Bit Musings and more on Snippets of SnapDragon.

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* For the sake of brevity, I’m leaving out a lot of really cool Queen-related details about our time in Montreux. There’s a Queen museum nestled inside a casino**–which again–we just happened to discover. It turns out that Queen recorded many albums there. I could go on and on (and maybe I will in a future post!) but I really encourage you to look up more about Queen and their special connection to Montreux. Oh, and you should definitely go there.

** Yep. The casino that was rebuilt after the fire, which inspired Deep Purple’s Smoke On the Water. Have I mentioned I love Rock N’ Roll?