My cultural awakening: The Queen’s song helped me liberate myself from communist Cuba queen

TThroughout my childhood and teenage years growing up in Cuba in the 1980s, Fidel Castro’s presence, his overt influence on politics, was everywhere—on posters, on walls, in speeches that could last four hours straight. It was difficult to escape the feeling of political and personal siege.

I was raised to believe in communism, and have done so for a long time. I even applied twice to join the Young Communist League, but was rejected because I was not “militant” enough: code for not reporting on others. My friends had been expelled from university or imprisoned for speaking too freely, and my family included members of the military and police, so I had to be careful not to put them in danger. But amid this stifling conformity, something else began to take hold.

When I was 13, my first girlfriend’s father, a sailor, was bringing back LPs from overseas. Through those records, I discovered rock and roll. In Cuba at that time, this was not easy. Western music arrived years late, circulating hand-in-hand through the black market for copied and reproduced cassette tapes.

By the time I reached my fourth year of high school, music had become an obsession. Four or five of us made an unspoken agreement to look for him wherever we could. We held listening sessions at each other’s homes, and gathered at the Arts Center every Saturday night, where local bands played or recorded rock music from the speakers. It wasn’t without risks: I know people who went to prison just for listening to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Long hair, bracelets, and necklaces—any sign of “Western leanings”—could land you in the back of a truck at night.

I was 15 years old in 1986, living in a one-bedroom apartment in Havana that I shared with my mother, grandmother, aunt, and cousin, when I discovered Queen’s Song of the Prophet. I’ve heard of the band, but never really listened to them properly. A friend had gotten me “A Night at the Opera” and photographed the liner with the lyrics included. I listened to it on a mono cassette player with one speaker, which is hardly ideal for an album so carefully crafted.

However, from the opening remarks, it stopped me. The song starts off gently, with soft guitar chords, before turning into something more passionate. Then Freddie Mercury’s voice arrives: possessed, prophetic, as if rallying an invisible crowd; His voice had this beautiful urgency, singing about a vision he had.

Then came the moment that changed everything. Brian May’s delay effect doubles Mercury’s voice – “Now I know, now I know” – so it echoes in on itself, ghost-like and disembodied. Even through that little speaker, it was otherworldly. For eight minutes, the noise of Havana disappeared. In that cramped apartment, surrounded by family and surveillance, a crack opened.

What moved me was not just the sound, but what it represented. A Night at the Opera was Queen’s first album after a falling out with their management. They were given creative freedom. Until then, my world was bound by “socialism or death,” words still painted on the walls of Havana. Suddenly, I also felt free to imagine something different. The inspiration for the song, written by Brian May, was a fever dream he had while recovering from illness. In a way, the track became a personal respite for me.

I didn’t become a maverick right away. But I kept the kernel of rebellion inside me. Rock music took me back to the late 1980s, through the fear of conscription, and through the brutal 1990s when my friends drowned trying to leave Cuba on homemade boats. I continued to study English and ran a successful, but risky, black market translation business (if I got caught, I would have ended up in prison unless I could get out of it with a bribe). This work also included city tours, not only in English but also in French and German. I eventually made my way to the UK in 1997: I met my (now ex-) British wife in Havana and we were married for over two decades. It was the early years of New Labour, and being in a relationship with a Brit made moving here easier. I now live in London, am a writer, teacher and cycling coach, and have grown-up children.

And I still listen to the Prophet’s song. It opened my ears not only to rock music, but to genres like jazz. Most importantly, it sparked my curiosity, and the idea that life could be lived in a non-conformist way. And in the midst of all this noise, it was the only thing that got in the way.