Watch the First Ever Recorded Footage of Freddie Mercury From Back in 1964

There is no one out there quite like Freddie Mercury. He was a rock god, a vocal superstar that is unmatched still today, and we lost him far too soon. But before he was belting out the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody” on stage in front of thousands with his band Queen, he was once a young immigrant living in England.

Videos by American Songwriter

Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Stone Town, Sultanate of Zanzibar, in 1946. He attended various British boarding schools in India, where he spent most of his childhood, before returning to Zanzibar. However, Mercury and his family were forced to flee the state during the Zanzibar Revolution, settling in Middlesex, England. 

Mercury would study art in West London, both at Isleworth Polytechnic and Ealing Art College. He would live and study there for some time before graduating in 1969. And, of course, he would eventually form the band Queen in 1970 with Brian May and Roger Taylor. 

There isn’t much footage of Mercury from his younger years. However, a few years back, some footage of Mercury as a teenager in the early 1960s was unearthed and debuted to the world. Surprisingly, he seemed like just a normal young British kid. No sign of glitz and glamor quite yet, but his mannerisms were very much Mercury from the start.

Freddie Mercury Fans Might Getting Teary-Eyed Over This Footage of Him as a Teenager

Freddie Mercury was filmed in the above-embedded footage in 1964. Mercury was only 18 years old at the time, studying art at college. He can be seen with a group of friends, all smiles, walking around, dressed in the typical blouse and blazer that any young student at the time would be wearing.

The footage in question was filmed by one of Mercury’s friends at Isleworth Polytechnic (also known as West Thames College today) in West London during his first semester of school.

“Fred was charmingly shy, but also very engaging, and he desperately wanted to fit in,” said an alumni of the school, Adrian Morrish, who knew Mercury in his younger years. “He dressed weirdly in drainpipe trousers that weren’t quite long enough and middle-aged jackets that were slightly too small.”

It seems like as a young man, Freddie Mercury was no different than the rest of us; struggling to fit in and find his place in the world. He certainly managed to do that just a few years later.

Photo by Andre Csillag/Shutterstock