Wednesday 20th March 2024

Che Victor posts:

“IS IT A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?”

Why is the song called ’Bohemian Rhapsody’?

Why does it last exactly 5 minutes and 55 seconds?

What is this song really about?

Why did the Queen movie premiere on October 31?

The movie premiered on October 31 because the single was first heard on October 31, 1975. It’s titled that way because a ’Rhapsody’ is a free-form musical piece composed of different parts and themes that seem unrelated to each other.

The word ’rhapsody’ comes from Greek and means ’assembled parts of a song.’

The word ’bohemian’ refers to a region in the Czech Republic called Bohemia, where Faust, the protagonist of Goethe’s work of the same name, was born. In Goethe’s work, Faust was an elderly and intelligent man who knew everything except the mystery of life. Unable to comprehend it, he decides to poison himself.

At that moment, church bells ring, and he goes outside. When he returns to his room, he finds a dog that transforms into a kind of man. It’s the devil, Mephistopheles. He promises Faust a full life without misery in exchange for his soul. Faust agrees, rejuvenates, and becomes arrogant. He meets Gretchen and has a child. His wife and child die. Faust travels through time and space and feels powerful. When he becomes old again, he feels miserable once more. Since he didn’t break the pact with the devil, angels contend for his soul.

This work is essential to understanding ’Bohemian Rhapsody.’

The song is about Freddie Mercury himself. Being a rhapsody, it has 7 different parts:
1st and 2nd acts - A Capella
3rd act - Ballad
4th act - Guitar solo
5th act - Opera
6th act - Rock
7th act - ’Coda’ or final act

The song talks about a poor boy questioning if this life is real or if his distorted imagination is living another reality. He says that even if he stops living, the wind will keep blowing without his existence. So, he makes a deal with the devil and sells his soul.

Upon making this decision, he rushes to tell his mother and says...

“Mama, I just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he’s dead. Threw my life away. If I’m not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters...”
The man he kills is himself, Freddie Mercury.
If he doesn’t fulfill the pact with the devil, he will die immediately.

He says goodbye to his loved ones, and his mother breaks into tears amid desperate crying that comes from Brian May’s guitar notes. Freddie, terrified, cries out, “Mama, I don’t want to die,” and the operatic part begins. Freddie finds himself in an astral plane where he sees himself: “I see a little silhouetto of a man”... “Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?”

Scaramouche is an “escaramuza,” a skirmish between armies with horseback riders (4 horsemen of the Apocalypse of evil fighting against the forces of good for Freddie’s soul), and he continues, saying, “Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me.”

This phrase appears in the Bible, specifically in Job 37 when it says, “the thunder and lightning frighten me: my heart pounds in my chest.” Seeing his son so scared by the decision he has made, Freddie’s mother begs to save him from the pact with Mephistopheles. “He’s just a poor boy...” “Spare him his life from this monstrosity.” “Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?” Her pleas are heard, and angels descend to battle the forces of evil. “Bismillah” (an Arabic word meaning “In the name of God”) is the first word in the holy book of Muslims, the Quran. So, God Himself appears and shouts, “We will not let you go.”

In the face of such a confrontation between good and evil, Freddie fears for his mother’s life and says, “Mama mia, mama mia, let me go.” They shout again from the sky that they won’t abandon him, and Freddie cries, “No, no, no, no, no,” and says, “Beelzebub (the Lord of Darkness) has a devil put aside for me.” Freddie pays homage here to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach when he sings... “Figaro, Magnifico,” referring to Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” considered the greatest opera of all time, and to Bach’s “Magnificat.”

The operatic part ends, and the rockier part bursts in. The devil, angry and betrayed by Freddie not keeping the pact, says, “So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die?”

It’s chilling how the Lord of Evil feels powerless against a human being, against repentance and love.

Having lost the battle, the devil departs, and we reach the final act or ’coda’ where Freddie is free, and that feeling comforts him. The gong that closes the song sounds. The gong is an instrument used in China and East Asian cultures to heal people under the influence of evil spirits.

It lasts for 5:55 minutes. Freddie liked astrology, and in numerology, 555 is associated with death, not physical but spiritual, the end of something where angels will safeguard you. 555 is related to God and the divine, an ending that will lead to a new beginning.

And the song plays on Halloween eve for the first time. A holiday called ’Samhain’ by the Celts to celebrate the transition and opening to the other world.

The Celts believed that the world of the living and the dead were closely connected, and on the Day of the Dead, both worlds would unite, allowing spirits to cross over.

Nothing in ’Bohemian Rhapsody’ is coincidental.

Everything is carefully crafted and has a meaning that goes beyond being just a song.

It has been voted worldwide as the greatest song of all time.

This song marked a radical change in Queen, as if they had truly made a pact with the devil, changing their lives forever and making them immortal...

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

(Tom: I reposted this on Facebook and received a comprehensive rebuttal of it.)

I had not heard the first two pieces of advice in this quote. Makes it all the more profound.

Some Call It Conspiracy Theory – Part 2

“Children from a very young age should be taught that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, that if you point your right hand to the East and your left to the West, your face will face North and your back will face South, that the direction of the water in a river is the direction towards the sea, that the Moon rises in the East and sets in the West, that if there is no moon there is a star that indicates the north and your latitude, that the more to the horizon you see the Polar Star, the closer you are to Ecuador, if you see a bird in the middle of the sea it is because there is land where it flies.

Respect and love for animals, trees, the earth and the elements that give us life.

Teach them all this before giving him a cell phone because the cell phone runs out and the signal is lost... wisdom is never lost.

Let’s not let them lose connection.”
~ Author Unknown

Art by Laron G. S. via Midjourney

(Tom: There is no equivalent of Polaris (the North Star) in the South, but to find your latitude if you are in the Southern hemisphere you can use a constellation called the Southern cross (illustrated on the flag of Australia) and two stars called the Southern Pointers.)

Imagine what the world would be like if more of us did such things.

“No Letting the Old Man In!”

That’s the response the admired nonagenarian actor Clint Eastwood gave to country singer Toby Keith when asked about his secret to staying active and vibrant at his age.

“Every day when I wake up, I don’t let the old man in. My secret has been the same since 1959: staying busy. I never let the old man into the house. I’ve had to drag him out because he was already comfortably settled, bothering me all the time, leaving no space for anything other than nostalgia.

You have to stay active, alive, happy, strong, and capable. It’s in us, in our intelligence, attitude, and mentality. We are young, regardless of our ID. We must learn to fight to not let the old man in.

That old man awaits us, stationed and tired by the side of the road to discourage us. I don’t let the old, critical, hostile, envious spirit in—the one that scrutinizes our past to tie us up with complaints and distant anxieties, or relived traumas and waves of pain.

You have to turn your back on the old murmurer, full of rage and complaints, lacking courage, denying himself that old age can be creative, determined, full of light and projection.

Aging can be pleasant and even fun if you know how to use your time, if you’re satisfied with what you’ve achieved, and if you still maintain enthusiasm,” adds Clint Eastwood, a legend with ten Oscar nominations, of which he has won four statues—all after crossing the threshold of sixty.

That’s called “not letting the old man into the house.”

These words resonated so deeply with country singer Toby Keith that they inspired him to compose the song “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” dedicated to the legendary actor.

This is NOT a joke. Just something to think about. You will appreciate the final statement.

There was a professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class.

One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter.

The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting Communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a communist regime.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked: “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?”

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line.

The young man said that it was no joke. “You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free food.

When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn they are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.”

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America and Canada. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/ Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare entitlements, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths:

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

If you see that all of this wonderful government “help” is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America and Canada, you might want to share this with your friends.

If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably not share this.

BUT, God help us all when the gate slams shut!

Quote for today: “The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living.”

A thought to remember, Marx said, “Remove one freedom per generation and soon you will have no freedom and no one would have noticed.”

I consider this a well written and accurate piece and commend it to you.

As I see it this intentional destruction, done with full complicity of the infiltrated Federal institutions, is best countered by the ordinary man and woman in the street starting at the local level to reclaim control over their school boards, local councils then building momentum from there to state governments and institutions that can nullify unconstitutional Federal regulations.

If you want to save The US of A, better start now! Get some mates together and strategise how you will take back your street, your suburb/town/city and state from the uniparty representatives that do not serve your interests.

(Tom: We presently have ring-side seats on the modern equivalent of “the fall of Rome”.

The writer states: “The rot has so deeply infested our nation that at least one congressman has admitted that there is no normal, procedural way to set things right.”

As I have said before: “As I see it this intentional destruction, done with full complicity of the infiltrated Federal institutions, is best countered by the ordinary man and woman in the street starting at the local level to reclaim control over their school boards, local councils then building momentum from there to state governments and institutions that can nullify unconstitutional Federal regulations.

If you want to save The US of A, better start now! Get some mates together and strategise how you will take back your street, your suburb/town/city and state from the uniparty representatives that do not serve your interests.”)

Until next time,
dream big dreams,
plan out how to achieve them,
be continually executing your plans,
enlist people to your causes,
travel and/or read widely, preferably both,
all the while observing what you observe
rather than thinking what you are told to think,
think well of your fellow man,
take time to help your fellow man,
he sorely needs it and it will help you too,
eat food that is good for your body,
exercise your body,
take time to destress,
and do the important things
that make a difference -
they are rarely the urgent ones!

Most of the content herein has been copied from someone else. Especially the images. My goodness some people are talented at creating aesthetics! The small bits that are of my creation are Copyright © 2014-2024 by Tom Grimshaw - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. Also for entertainment and educational purposes. All rights to the original works go to those that hold them, no copyright infringement intended. All material used falls under fair use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998). (For commentary, criticism, education and satire)

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