What was I doing in 81? Not listening to Queen, that's for sure. I had a young family- and I was in Reddish, working with Graham Marshall- trying to get that dour, downcast, old cotton-spinning town to show a little enthusiasm for Jesus. We had a beautiful, late Victorian church- very Stones of Venice- a soaring, redbrick homage to the mill-owner's happy memories of his Italian honeymoon. It was dark, impossible to heat- and if ever a building suffered from depression that building did. Graham and I used to spend long mornings discussing the parish's financial crisis- meetings from which I generally came away with an incipient migraine. When I did listen to music it was probably Holly Near. We went to a Holly Near concert in Manchester- not well attended because she really hadn't made much of a name for herself in Britain. We were sitting in the front row and when she sang "For Me and My Gal" she tipped me a wink on the line, "The parson's waiting".
Holly was being a lesbian then. I believe she dropped it later. And my first wife was becoming one. She hasn't dropped it.