To celebrate what would have been the 65th birthday of Queen singer Freddie Mercury, Google has posted a live-action doodle set to the band’s 1978 hit ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’ On the search engine’s homepage, Google replaced its official logo with images of Mercury. While Mercury’s birthday was actually September 5, Google held the doodle in the US until today, so it wouldn’t conflict with Labor Day.
When users press the play in the middle of the doodle, a 98-second YouTube video pays tribute to the singer, who died in 1991 from AIDS-related bronchopnemonia. The video features a glittering Google logo behind Mercury and his Queen bandmates onstage.
The singer then becomes a shooting star leaping through the skies, and then lands in an old-fashioned video game. He then rides a tiger, drives a car and mans a spaceship. Mercury then returns to the stage for one last encore of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’
Jennifer Hom, who works on the Google Doodles, told NBC that the Doodle team spent about three months working on the Mercury tribute. They studied his old albums and video before deciding on ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’ They picked the song because it was a top-10 hit for Queen, and it was written by Mercury. It was also the first Queen song to be released on cassette tape.
Written by: Karen Benardello
