(Credits: Far Out / Picryl / Carl Lender)
Sat 29 November 2025 2:30, UK
As the 1990s dawned, a new musical horizon beckoned. Gone were the days of synths, new wave, and power pop – but unbeknownst to most of the world, one of the era’s finest rock legends, Freddie Mercury, was also about to say goodbye.
After the Queen frontman drew his final breath in late November 1991, there was an impression that never again would the musical universe hear a voice so seismic, so captivating, and so unmistakable as his. Yet despite the toll of his illness, it was the mark of Mercury that he aspired to devote his final months to giving one last farewell to his fans with a characteristic flourish.Â
However, as it happened, it was eventually left to Brian May to finish the job after Mercury tragically never lived to see it through. It was obvious at this time that the guitarist was both entirely stricken by grief and healing with catharsis through the process of the album Made in Heaven. Along the way, he clearly needed help from those around him, but in a perhaps strange turn of events, he unexpectedly found the most solace in Carole King.Â
This was not because the singer was hounding May in the studio or found herself so overcome by Mercury’s death that she felt she had to pitch in to honour his legacy. Instead, her guiding hand was much more spectral. Her sheer existence was enough to steer the rudderless guitarist on a path, with a few simple notes shining a light on bidding the frontman farewell.
‘Mother Love’ acted as the final track on the album, and also the final track that Mercury ever recorded. But he sadly only managed to lay down half of the vocals before he succumbed to his illness, and it sat stewing for over a year as no one could bear to listen to it. But eventually, May realised the time was right, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration involving King.Â
Way back in the day, the first recording Mercury ever made was a cover of ‘Goin’ Back’, the 1966 track King wrote for Dusty Springfield. In this sense, it was not only poetic that his first track became the mouthpiece of his very last, but it was almost as though ‘Mother Love’ and ‘Goin’ Back’ were meant to fit like a glove.
While one half of the song yearned for the comfort of childhood and infancy, the other looked back on the lost innocence that comes with adulthood and pined for it again. They were two very different songs, written in entirely different eras, but they were most definitely singing from the same hymn sheet.
As such, after May layered Mercury’s vocals from ‘Goin’ Back’ with clips of some of Queen’s most seismic performances, it was a patently poignant way of saying goodbye. But within this, it also captured a feeling as though Mercury was singing from the other side, that he was safe, and that he was finally free again.
That was bound to bring a lot of peace to all those who spun in his orbit, let alone the fans who had clamoured after his every word. Mercury may have left the world, but he wasn’t going to do it without one last hurrah. Because of this, King will always be linked as the springboard throughout his life that always sent him on his next journey.
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