Freddie Mercury’s 10-Minute Effort Will Leave You Stunned

Every artist has their own way of looking for inspiration for their next great project, and as the great Neil Young once explained, waiting for the right note or words to pour into one’s mind was like waiting for a rabbit to come out from its hole. One needed to take things easy and have patience before finding the right melody.

Freddie Mercury, however, maybe, was the complete opposite of that since he never liked waiting to have whatever he wanted. Like his witty personality, his mind also didn’t wait for ‘rabbits to come out’ and had melodies come over to him since he was always on a creative hunt to come up with the next hit.

The rocker’s mind was filled with creative expeditions and musical hurricanes as melodies flew around and tried topping one another to come out, and Mercury thrived in that fact. He never needed to wait before becoming inspired since all the elements he needed to create hits were in the depths of his mind.

So, when Queen needed a structure for their next album but had been coming up empty-handed and with nothing much to do, Freddie, with his witted will, was there to save the day. However, he wouldn’t compose his next piece in the safe confinements of a studio, and maybe, he wasn’t trying to come up with anything at all.

Mercury was in his bathtub, enjoying one of his usual nights in a luxurious Münich hotel, when he started hearing the distant chantings of a melody, calling the rocker out and inviting him to form a structure and form his next track.

As the tune started playing around his head, it didn’t take Freddie much to form a base off of it, and only in, what I can imagine, a matter of seconds, the rocker left his bathtub, got his bathrobe, and started running to his guitar so that he could write down the chords.

All these happened within 10 minutes, and it took Mercury only a few creative expeditions to pen down a U.S. Number 1 hit that dominated charts for weeks. What came out of Freddie’s bathtub chords was ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love,’ an ode to Elvis Presley, who Mercury held dear as a fellow rocker.

The song carried some of the vocal elements Elvis also loved using, and the rockabilly sound surely fascinated and appealed to the American audience, as the track went on to become Queen’s first U.S. Number 1 hit.

Mercury-penned ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ was light and fun and gave an average listener the feeling that Presley, who had passed away two years before the track saw its release, was still around and recording new hits that would sweep the music industry since the track surely helped Queen have all the spotlight.

So, it’s evident that Freddie never needed to wait long before melodies poured into his mind, and he created a chart-topping hit only in 10 minutes while taking a bath. After all, bathrooms can be quite the place if you’re looking for new ideas.