Who knew that the most staunch amongst Queen enthusiasts could bask in the most endearing tribute to the late lead singer, Freddie Mercury, in the latest animated music video for “Love Me Like There Is No Tomorrow”. The video which was released Thursday, September 5th marks what would have been the revered singer Mercury’s 73rd birthday. “Love Me Like There Is No Tomorrow” was a single from Mercury’s 1985 solo debut album, Mr. Bad Guy.
The video tells a surreal tale of two white blood cells falling in love. It opens with one being enamored to find one sitting alone ready for an embrace. While the feelings are mutual, things quickly turn somber. One of the white blood cells reveals to the other that they have been diagnosed with AIDS. With time, unfortunately, limited they encourage each other to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and do as the song says “Love Me Like There Is No Tomorrow”. The impact of the video hits close to home being that Mercury passed away due to complications from AIDS on November 24th, 1991, at the age of 45.
As reported in Rolling Stone the music video “…directed by Esteban Bravo and Beth David, the duo behind the Oscar-winning short film In a Heartbeat. It pays tribute to The Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity founded after Mercury’s death by Queen members Brian May, Roger Taylor and manager Jim Beach.”
The aforementioned duo behind the music video for “Love Me Like There Is No Tomorrow” expressed how they wanted to approach telling a story that was relevant to Mercury but not directly about him. They acknowledged the severity of the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s and its impact on the LGBT community so they expressed how it was an obligation to handle this with care.
“It is a love story between two white blood cells, one of which has become infected by the virus,” the directors added. “This perspective gave us a more direct visual representation of our conflict, which allowed us to explore the more nuanced struggles the characters face in their relationship with each other, their perceptions of themselves, and society’s perception, bias, and neglect of them.”
“Love Me Like There Is No Tomorrow” will be included on Mercury’s forthcoming boxset titled Never Boring due to be released October 11th.
To watch the video for “Love Me Like There Is No Tomorrow” stream below, via YouTube.