Charity urges Queen fans to help fight Aids

The Mercury Phoenix Trust, launched in 1992 to fight the disease worldwide, is today calling on fans and others to ‘Be Freddie For A Day’ on what would be the group’s 40th anniversary.

It comes amid a host of moves to mark the occasion, with a final instalment of the band’s remastered and reissued albums released.

And Queen fans have voted the chorus of their mega-hit Don’t Stop Me Now as the band’s best ever lyric in a poll.

One in five fans favoured the line “Don’t stop me now, I’m having such a good time, I’m having a ball” to celebrate the band’s four decades, which coincides with what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday.

Coming in second in the HMV poll of 3,000 Queen fans was the lyric from The Show Must Go On – “My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies, fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die. I can fly my friends.”

Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, said: “Whilst you’d imagine there might be more obvious choices, we shouldn’t be too surprised that a lyric from Don’t Stop Me Now is a clear favourite among fans – it’s such a feel-good, life-affirming song.”