But it's hard to miss the meaning of a song like, 'I Want to Break Free,' which they did in drag, and a song like “Bicycle Race,” a thinly veiled allusion to bisexuality. Of course, Mercury's sexual identity was never overtly stated. Queen and Freddie Mercury are famous for their ability to blend high art and operatic culture and rock music together, so you get this very liminal masking of identities in Queen. Look at the original video for “We Are the Champions.” Freddie Mercury is in a harlequin outfit, a commedia dell'arte character. That was what the carnival was meant to do: You put on a mask for a period of a time.

Mikhail Bakhtin has the most famous definition of the carnivalesque as temporary suspension of hierarchy, so you get these inversions of high and low culture, old and young, male and female identities. It's very much in keeping with notions of the spectacle and atmosphere of the carnivalesque that sporting events-and political rallies, for that matter-depend on creating. And then as the song becomes a staple at sporting events, it gets sort of inverted as a heteronormative anthem and those homosexual connotations get lost. It includes lyrics like, 'I've done my sentence but committed no crime,' and 'we mean to go on and on and on,' these thinly veiled allusions to Freddie Mercury's semi-closeted lifestyle. But, of course, it's done to carry a message of homosexual liberation. But then it really makes an image for itself in the sports world because you have this very powerful unison chorus-a hyper-masculine chorus that has this defiant notion of mastery and conquest. 'We Are the Champions' first comes out in 1977. He's in backlighting and you see him in profile, and then he reveals himself. Ken McLeod: It's very much a rock star moment, isn't it? He's using a song that's quintessentially associated with rock stardom. Spencer Kornhaber: What did you make of Trump’s arrival at the RNC to “We Are the Champions”? This conversation has been edited and condensed. He teaches music history and culture at the University of Toronto. I spoke with Ken McLeod, the author of We are the Champions: The Politics of Sports and Popular Music, for his thoughts on Trump’s use of one of the all-time great (and gayest) sports anthems.

Trump using the song in such a splashy manner is remarkable-because it announces victory before it has been obtained, because a thoroughly British work is being used to “Make America Great Again,” and because of the obvious contradiction between the GOP’s stance on LGBT rights and the fact that the Mercury is a queer icon. The band’s living members have condemned Trump’s use of the song, saying they don’t like their music being used for campaigning, and indeed “We Are the Champions” doesn’t appear to have been a staple of any previous major presidential bids.

We are the champions video