Freddie Mercury | Autograph draft lyrics to 'Love of My Life', c.1974-75

Freddie Mercury

Autograph manuscript working lyrics to 'Love of My Life',

with three pages of draft lyrics in pencil, including a near-complete version of the first two verses and two pages of fragmentary drafts (also including lines for 'Seaside Rendezvous'), and one page of vocal harmonies in blue ballpoint, all extensively revised, in total 4 pages, text on rectos only, on Midland Airways stationery with 1974 calendar (205 x 290mm), [1974-75]

"...I write songs that a lot of people have written before. It's all to do with love and emotion. I'm just a true romantic and I think everybody's written songs in that field, I just write it in my own way so they carry a different texture of whatever..." (Freddie Mercury: A Life, in his own Words)

The tender simplicity of 'Love of My Life' gives it a sensitive beauty quite different from the bombastic sound usually associated with early Queen. As Freddie accepts in the quote above, there is nothing original in writing about heart break, but the lyrics show his facility at writing songs of emotional truth and directness as well as baroque complexity and waspish camp. There is no need for the song to have been based on a specific relationship but this song has often been associated with Mary Austin - who was undoubtedly the great love of Freddie's life. John Reid, who was Queen's manager by the time this song was written, has said in interviews that Freddie told him that the song was written for his lover David Minns. In truth, however, the song's theme of wounded betrayal - "Love of my life, you've hurt me/ You've broken my heart / And now you leave me" - is not a neat fit with Freddie's treatment by either of these lovers. 

'Love of my Life' was written and recorded for A Night at the Opera (1975). It proved to be exceptionally well suited to live performance and a live version of the song was released as a single in 1979. It was a particular favourite in South America: the single remained in the charts in Argentina and Brazil for a year, and when the band toured South America in 1981 they found themselves playing to tens of thousands of fans fervently singing along to every word of the song. 

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