Today’s song is ,’Love of My Life’. This song is by the British rock band ‘Queen’ from their 1975 album ‘A Night at The Opera’. The ballad was written by the late Freddie Mercury. After Queen performed the song in South America in 1981, the version from their live album ‘Live Killers’ reached Number 1 in the singles chart in Argentina and Brazil, and stayed in the charts in Argentina for an entire year.
Freddie Mercury wrote it on the piano and guitar first, and Brian May rearranged the song for an acoustic 12-string guitar for live performances, also lowering the key by a minor third. May contributed occasional guitar phrases to the original recording and played the swooping harp glissandos by pasting together multiple takes of single chords. The song is an example of Mercury's familiarity with rubato phrasing, showcasing his classical piano influences, notably by Chopin and Beethoven.
During the voyage of the space shuttle Columbia (STS-107) Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, asked to play the song. The song was played in the shuttle and Ramon said: "A special good morning to my wife, Rona, the love of my life."] Ramon died in the ‘Columbia disaster’ shortly thereafter, during its return to the atmosphere in 2003.
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There are so many aesthetic and tangible things that have been the love of my life that it would take a full day to name them all. First and foremost is my love of music, song and dance, along with art and all manner of creative imagery, whether it be painted, sculpted, or carved in bronze, stone or any other metal or material. This would be closely followed by my love of books and in particular history books and biographies. I love my daily newspaper and am a highly political animal. As for television programmes, my favourite would be David Attenborough’s 'Blue Planet' and any Nature programme.
I used to love walking in the meadows and across the moorlands during earlier years when I was more mobile and greatly miss such outings today. I love our allotment and the peace and tranquillity it affords me and Sheila as we spend time among the flowers, trees, plants, birds, all creatures, vegetables and fresh air. I love our own home-grown potatoes and Sheila’s soda bread and arraignment of heavenly jams and other cooked treats on daily offer to my palate.
About pleasures of the flesh and the heart, I love my wife, Sheila most of all but will never disguise (to even her good self), my love of the female form and most appealing of bodies. In body physical traits, my preferential love is for black hair, brown eyes, and shapely legs. In the area of personal attributes, I love strong-minded women who are honest and open in expression; and I am happier even still if they are prepared to jump in puddles alongside me and are prepared on occasions to recognise that some things are better left ‘unsaid’. My ideal woman, Sheila, she has provided the degree of mental, physical, emotional and spiritual bond that I require to be both independent and happily interdependent.
The activities I love and have loved in my life when I could perform them were playing football, dancing, singing, horse riding, relaxation exercises and talking on any mutually agreeable subject with present company. All these things/people/creatures and pastimes have been my life’s loves, with my wife Sheila being the absolute ‘Love of my Life’.
I jointly dedicate my song today to four Facebook friends. The first two people this song is dedicated to are classical music lovers and pianists, Jovanka Banjac from Vienna, Austria and Bill Whitfield from Summerville, South Carolina, U.S.A. Jovanka’s skill as a classical pianist is clearly observable in her masterful twenty-minute recital of Mozart’s Sonata on her Facebook page of October 11th, 2019, and much of Bill's wonderful piano playing can be heard on 'Spotify'. Both Jovanka and Bill share with me my love of classical piano music and they will no doubt appreciate the Chopin and Beethoven connection of Freddie Mercury's song construction.
I also jointly dedicate my song today to Facebook friends, Fay Bailey who lives in Ocala, Florida and Enda O’Driscoll of Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. It is the birthday of Fay and Enda today. Fay shares with me our love of animals and I love Enda’s wit and dry humour as illustrated in many of her Facebook page entries. Have a super birthday.
I thank all four of you for being my Facebook friends. Love and peace Bill xxx