To start off with, that song was written by John Deacon and he's a very happily married man with about four children. I don't know where you've got that message from, it's got nothing to do with gay people at all. It's basically about everybody, it's just somebody who has a very tough life and he just wants to break free from whatever problems he's got. It's got nothing to do with the gay thing.

I thought up the name Queen early on. It couldn't have been King; it doesn't have the same ring or aura as Queen.

I had no idea how to do that, because I was either above or below everybody. I was either towering above as Clapton the guitar virtuoso, or cringing on the floor, because if you took away my guitar and my musical career, then I was nothing.

I am, and always will be, a blues guitarist.

Sometimes people ask songwriters what a song means, not realizing if they had more words to explain it they would've used them in the song.

My identity shifted when I got into recovery. That's who I am now, and it actually gives me greater pleasure to have that identity than to be a musician or anything else, because it keeps me in a manageable size. When I'm down on the ground with my disease-which I'm happy to have-it gets me in tune. It gives me a spiritual anchor. Don't ask me to explain.