My first childhood memories are of my brother, Chris, and I teaming up with Todd and Wade (our same-aged next-door neighbors) to battle Darth Vader and the Empire, wage war against the opposing yard with “dirt clods” (handfuls of packed, drying Oklahoma mud), or engaging in our favorite pastime; reenacting Flash Gordon. Not the comic or black-and-white serial from the 1930’s, but the full-on camp of the 1980 film with Sam Jones. “Fans” would be too conservative a description. We were rabid, addicted Flash Gordon zealots. If we weren’t watching it (time registers much differently at that age, but it seemed it was on HBO every day), we were turning swing sets into space ships, sand boxes into alien swamp pits, and big wheels into rocket cycles. Offers to ride along on shopping trips were declined, excursions to the park or zoo were bailed on, and quite a few meals were even missed solely for the sake of being able to once again join forces to destroy the evil Mungo minions and their ruthless, alien tyrant of a leader, Ming the Merciless.
It’s interesting that we never chose one of us to play Ming. He was always just an invisible evil. At that age, too young to yet know all the injustice and cruelty in the real world, Ming was the worst thing my naive, still-forming mind could conjure. Anyone who wanted to kill innocent people and damage the earth MUST be an insane, goatee-sporting alien from light-years away. Everybody on earth was one of the “good guys”, everywhere I could go was safe, and all was right with the world – the “world” being my one little block in Jenks, America. And as for Ming, why worry? We’ve got Flash on our side.
My dad bought us the Flash Gordon soundtrack, written and performed by Queen, on vinyl (which I still have) and transferred a copy to cassette tape so we could rock out to it in the car. This started a trend which later included the soundtracks for Star Wars and a couple of the Rocky movies. But this is truly the first album I ever owned or remember hearing.
I always eagerly anticipated a part in the song “Hero” - the thunderous, impacting tom hits when the band comes in full-force. Not having ever seen a drum kit, I thought they had to be hammers hitting metal. My pulse surged every time I heard those bombastic impacts. I felt electrified, exhilarated, and a little frightened all in the same moment. Thus began my love of enormous rock drum sounds.
The soundtrack is peppered with sound clips from the movie, which is engaging on so many completely different levels. Awkward, annoying, thrilling, laughable, yet inspiring the voice-overs may be, but the music just plain rocks. Queen was killer, and Brian May is a genius. No, really. The guy has an astrophysics PHD. Look it up. His composing and guitar skills are out of this world (pun intended), and a couple of the songs represented here are among Queen's best in my opinion.
This album is awesome. For sentimental reasons as well as audio content, it will always be a fave of mine.
Don't own it yet? Listen and buy it here:
