“The Queen version was put together as a ‘virtual’ live track, using Freddie’s spectacular vocal as the central thread,” added May. In 1995, the remaining members of Queen re-worked “I Was Born to Love You” for the Made in Heaven album, adding new instrumental parts to the original vocals, and transforming the disco-influenced track into a hit rock song. May agreed with Mercury’s evaluation and said he was “obsessed” with creating a new Queen version of the former song after Mercury’s death in November 1991. He said they were both very personal songs, full of strong emotions. Mercury said writing about love was “actually limitless” and he believed that two of his most treasured love songs – “I Was Born to Love You” and “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow” – were from his 1985 solo album Mr. I like an audience to respond like that.”
I didn’t have to tell them: they just automatically knew their role. “Wherever we did ‘Love of My Life,’ the crowd instinctively knew that they had to sing it,” said Mercury. The pair transformed the song for live versions, with Mercury often just singing solo with May playing a 12-string guitar. The studio version reflected Mercury’s classical music influences and featured May on harp (“I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to force him to play until his fingers drop off!’” Mercury later joked). “It’s fair to say she was the love of Freddie’s life,” said May. It is believed to be about his former lover Mary Austin. One of his most haunting break-up songs was “Love of My Life,” from the album Night at the Opera. I just want to put myself across in my songs in the best way I can,” Mercury said, quoted in the book Freddie Mercury: A Life in His Own Words. I think that’s my natural gift, so that’s all I want to do in my songs. “I go through torture and pain in terms of love. Although there are more famous Queen love songs, “Funny How Love Is” captures the innocence and optimism of the band at the start of their journey. “Funny How Love Is” was sung in demanding high-register vocals, which was the reason Mercury declined to sing the song in live shows.
“That album was when we first really got into production, and went completely over the top,” commented Taylor. It started out, in the first five takes, as a piano-led acoustic song, and evolved into a “wall of sound” track via Mercury’s friend and producer Robin Cable. “Funny How Love Is,” though, was a sunny, optimistic reflection on how love is omnipresent (“love is anywhere you’re bound to be”). Mercury’s attitude to writing about love changed over the years, from the optimism of “Funny How Love Is” (from their second album Queen II) to the mid-1980s, when he was writing edgy songs about love being dangerous and referring in interviews to his own love life as similar to a game of Russian roulette.
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