Queen: Who Wants To Live Forever Meaning

Song Released: 1986

Who Wants To Live Forever Lyrics

There’s no time for us
There’s no place for us
What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away
From us

Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever....?

There’s no chance for us
It’s all decided for us
This world has...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Jan 28th 2006 !⃝

   "There's no time for us...There's no chance for us"
   
   The transient nature of life and a seemingly harsh fate that controls everything. There is a sense of doom and hopelessness, even despair at the beginning of this song.
   
   The harshness of living forever - immortality is not to be prized, but is a burden. Therefore: make the most of what time you do have, and do not wish for more.
   
   "But touch my tears..."
   However, love makes any life worth living, and is worth the hurt and the pain - even if you know you will lose that love.
   
   This is when the song blossoms - but even when singing of this joy of love, there is an underlying sadness and grieving.
   
   Perhaps there is a hint that you cannot have one love in your life if that is taken away from you - "who dares to love forever/When that love must die" could mean both who dares to love the same person forever or, who would dare to love again?
   
   Also, being with the one you love can feel like forever - in a good way - in that the moment seems to stretch into eternity...
2. anonymous

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   Jul 29th 2023 !⃝

   
   What a powerful and beautiful song, something like I haven’t heard before. I thought of my deceased son and wept knowing that it truly was his time to go. Freddie’s performance was awe shaking. No can replicate what he did in his short life. A genius! Hope it’s good for you over there Freddie
3. anonymous

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   Apr 28th 2020 !⃝

   The first time I heard this song it moved me to floods of tears. I was on holiday in Kent in Margate, 1995 with my family in a hotel room and I had just purchased the A kind of magic album along with The Freddie Mercury Tribute concert book and was listening to A kind of magic cd on a portable CD Walkman through headphones while reading the Freddie Mercury tribute and the messages from the stars about what a loss Freddie's passing was, The awareness of HIV and AIDS and also about what a long painful end he had my eyes were already watering pretty bad and then friends will be friends the previous song to this one ends and this one starts and I just felt so overcome with emotion and tears were beginning to stream Down my face so I ran into the bathroom and tried to make myself stop crying which took a while after trying to think of something that I found funny at the time which was doing impersonations of a classmate I was at school with at the time in the mirror. The rest of my family were in the same hotel room as me and so I couldn't let them know that a CD had got to me on such a deep level as I thought at the time that the song had been made just months before Freddie had died from the AIDS virus and it was another one of his goodbye songs but even if it wasn't , it is still very emotionally moving and heartbreaking especially when listening to for the first time and the other concepts are still almost as heartbreaking.
4. anonymous

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   Mar 14th 2020 !⃝

   It was written in 1986, exclusively for the movie ”Highlander”. Brian did not know anything about Freddie’s health then yet. Freddie himself knew about being HIV positive, but had no diagnosis of AIDS yet. Words just happen to fit what happened to Freddie in the end, 5 yrs after release of the song. Freddie said he wanted to enjoy his life to the fullest, and did not care how long he lived. And he certainly had fulfilled that. Too bad he searched for his soulmate so long, and did “everything with everyone” to cause his demise way too soon.
5. anonymous

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   Mar 14th 2020 !⃝

   It was written in 1986, exclusively for the movie ”Highlander”. Brian did not know anything about Freddie’s health then yet. Freddie himself knew about being HIV positive, but not had no diagnosis of AIDS yet. Words just happen to fit what happened to Freddie in the end, 5 yrs after release of the song. Freddie said he wanted to enjoy his life to the fullest, and did not care how long he lived. And he certainly had fulfilled that. Too bad he searched for his soulmate so long, and did “everything with everyone” to cause his demise way too soon.
6. anonymous

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   Jan 11th 2020 !⃝

   “Who wants to live forever“ was written by Brian May even though the composer is listed as QUEEN. This is documented in a video interview with Brian May.
7. anonymous

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   Jan 19th 2019 !⃝

   “It’s all decided for us.
   This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.”
   
   My interpretation is that each of us only has this present moment.
   
   And the one sweet moment “set aside for us” is the moment of our death. The moment we are born that death moment is at some point in the future. None of us knows when, but it is there. And each of us will experience it.
8. anonymous

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   Dec 17th 2018 !⃝

   Who Wants To Live Forever by Queen is a very clear lyrics. Searched for the songs. I agree, I noticed it too. The optimistic lyrics came from movie West Side Story and one of the soundtrack was titled Somewhere. Yeah, direct opposites.
   
   - The person who made the comment on the song Iris and Wish You Were Here recently
9. anonymous

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   Dec 16th 2018 !⃝

   Do you notice that the song starts with “There is no place for us, there is no time for us.” There is a song from West Side Story that starts “There’s a place for us” and later “There’s a time for us”. Direct opposites. I wonder if they got the idea for the song from Westside story. Just a thought.
10. anonymous

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    Feb 13th 2018 !⃝

    The "one sweet moment set aside for us" I sense means passing over at the time of our death.
11. anonymous

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    Feb 14th 2016 !⃝

    The song is not about aids and Freddy told his band in 1990 not 89. 1990 was when he had to face the truth about it and for the record the is about living forever while the ones you that you love die while you don't and how would you feel if you have the gift of immortality and your family and friends don't you would want to think about that.
12. anonymous

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    Apr 10th 2014 !⃝

    It will have a different meaning and effect on everyone. It's still a boss song.
13. anonymous

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    Apr 1st 2013 !⃝

    If you watch the body language and eye contact of the dvd of the concert and when he says "We'll be together until we bloody well die, I know it" But who can read minds?
14. anonymous

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    Sep 12th 2012 !⃝

    It is for Highlander but I think that it probably had to do with also the many funerals Freddie and many gay men went to before people realized what aids was. There was a period of time when healthy young men died mysteriously. There were a lot of funnerals and no real answers. Freddy probably knew his fate was going towards death than living. Or if not it is ironic looking back. At the peak of a career or at least party time for him with sex, drugs and rock n roll and there was probably fear. But the lyrics were tailored for the movie. They make sense for the movie but are at least ironic with the knowledge he died of AIDs. Ironic when you understand the time that he probably went to many funerals of people he loved. That gay men like him were dying but he was not dead with them. It is hard to survive when people you love die young. So we can only say it is ironic that it can fit other meanings but we cannot really say bc there was not a good AIDs test and we do not know when he contracted it/ when he knew.
15. anonymous

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    Jul 14th 2012 !⃝

    I just wanted to say that anonymous is an encyclopedia on Queen. Well done. I will keep coming back if I need to learn something more; I have been a Queen fan for so many years, but you can always learn more.
    
    Cheers
    lilith
16. anonymous

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    Apr 20th 2010 !⃝

    You people try to interpret songs that the title says the meaning to Brian was just making it up coming back from the highlander. (and for the people who say it was AIDS according to Brian and Roger Freddie didn't tell the other three he had AIDS until 1990 or 89 and this song was writen ten years earlier by Brian)

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