The men of '39

Brian May's song '39 is a great classic Queen ballad, sung by him, with an acoustic guitar accompaniment, and a fun sci-fi fantasy storyline. The narrator is telling about how he and his fellow explorers left home one day, saying farewell to their loved ones, and when they returned after what for them was less than a year, they found that time had passed differently back home, such that the narrator meets not his beloved, but her daughter/son. I had only ever listened to this song at face value before, but tonight I am in another odd and somewhat pensive mood, and was glancing through pictures of recording artists at work in studios when this song came on. It struck me this time as a song about Queen, and other such artists. Brian, Roger and John are all about 60 years old now, roughly retirement age in any field, yet Queen(minus John, of course) just finished another tour. They are still living somewhat the lives of much younger men, rock stars, while the rest of the world is permitted to age as usual. By the time the rest of the world lets these men rest they will be quite old. It gets awkward to articulate this idea past this point without treading on uncertainty, since I don't know so much really about their lives now or then, but it seems to me that a rock star gets very little privacy, and they are unlikely to get to live openly among regular people, though having been in England for a bit I am not so sure if maybe the US and England differ on this a bit. Still, fans are fans. If you are a kid of Brian May, you probably do face some uneasy situations involving fans who want to get to your dad through you. You live on your guard as a matter of course. As a celebrity, you may find it hard to stop by a local grocery store anywhere, since someone might recognize you. And all this makes having a stable, normal marriage and family life very tough. No wonder John has receeded from view as much as possible. His kids actually seem to be able to use facebook relatively safely, even, since he is just a random guy with an electronics degree now. And no wonder Roger has had such a classic rocker's romantic history. The chaos of touring and all the rest is more like a continuation of adolescence and early adulthood. While you might get to be rather wise after going through something like what Queen experienced in losing Freddie, you are not so likely in that lifestyle to develop the sort of habits that make you attractive to your own age group later on. So Roger is dating someone closer to my age, instead, if the Internet is at all right. Of course Queen was not a heavy parties and drugs sort of band, part of why I can relate to these guys really; bands that did the wild parties and the alcohol left some rather impressive human wreckage in their wakes.