{"id":60563,"date":"2016-11-07T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=60563"},"modified":"2016-11-07T14:27:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:27:00","slug":"freddie-mercury-the-dostoyevsky-of-rock-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/11\/07\/freddie-mercury-the-dostoyevsky-of-rock-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Freddie Mercury \u2013 The Dostoyevsky Of Rock Music"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge\u00a0<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
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Freddie Mercury emerged as a popular singer when Elvis, Mick Jagger, Ian Gillan, John Lennon, Barry Gibb, Mike Love etc dominated the music world. When he entered the Rock Music Industry, it was not multicultural and the Anglo American media giants predominantly controlled it.\u00a0 During that era,\u00a0 \u00a0a non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants)\u00a0\u00a0 had no chance to become a rock star.\u00a0 Although prolonged and laborious work of black American musicians like Chuck Barry, Little Richards, Ray Charles, and Quincy Jones had made some progress and opened some doors in early sixties and early seventies the rock music industry was highly exclusive.<\/div>\n
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Freddie Mercury was the first major rock star who had an Asian origin.\u00a0 Regardless of his origin, Freddie conquered the music world and became the best of the best. His vocal prowess and flamboyant performances were incomprehensible. Freddy will be remembered as a talented vocalist of any generation. He could sing anything from hard rock to opera, from blues to metal. He was an artist with many talents. Freddie Mercury was an accomplished pianist, lyricist, stage performer and a composer.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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When I\u2019m dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance.<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0Freddie Mercury<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Freddie\u2019s songs conveyed deep philosophical and psychological messages. He sang about his inner solitude and sometimes his dual individuality and the emotional divergences. He thought that his Indian, origin obstructed him to become a great star and he changed his real name Farookh Bulsara in to a numinous pseudonym. As Salman Rushdie once stated Freddie Mercury deliberately concealed his identity and became a nowhere man from nowhere land. Freddie Mercury had a lifetime struggle to establish his identity. He had a cast of thousands and a man with thousand faces. Describing himself in an interview Freddie stated\u00a0Deep down inside I am a very emotional person, a person of real extremes, and often that\u2019s destructive to myself and others.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n
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Freddy Mercury had a problem with his appearance. Freddie was not happy with his dental esthetics.\u00a0 He was extremely troubled by his protruding teeth. Freddy Mercury knew that in the music industry a lot of emphasis placed on body weight, size, and appearance. Therefore he grew mustache in order to hide the overbite.\u00a0 When he laughed in public Freddy took extra efforts to cover his teeth with the hand. He himself admitted that it was affecting his appearance. In an interview he once stated<\/div>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t like the way my teeth protrude. I\u2019m going to have them done, but I just haven\u2019t had the time. Apart from that- I\u2019m perfect.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Freddie Mercury\u2019s biographers say that he did not want to correct his teeth, because he feared that the timbre of his voice would have been affected by the OMF Surgery. To overcome his negative self image Freddy presented himself as a Prince or a King sometimes wearing a crown on the stage. His sex addiction could have had a link with this negative self-picture.<\/div>\n
Following words come with a melody when Freddy sang the Princes of The Universe<\/div>\n
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I am immortal<\/em><\/div>\n
I have inside me blood of kings<\/em><\/div>\n
I have no rival<\/em><\/div>\n
No man can be my equal<\/em><\/div>\n
Take me to the future of you all<\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0I\u2019m a man that will go far<\/em><\/div>\n
Fly the moon and reach for the stars<\/em><\/div>\n
With my sword and head held high<\/em><\/div>\n
Got to pass the test first time, yeah<\/em><\/div>\n
I know that people talk about me<\/em><\/div>\n
I hear it every day<\/em><\/div>\n
But I can prove them wrong \u2019cause I\u2019m right first time<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
His songs carried underlying meanings and Mercury\u2019s allusions to his own controversial life. Freddie Mercury was a follower of a religion named Zoroastrianism that is one of the world\u2019s oldest and most exclusive religions founded by the prophet Zoroaster in 600 B.C. His songs touched the mysticism of religion to magic and some theological terms from Zoroastrianism.<\/div>\n
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Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of the rock band Queen and he was the driving force behind the group. With Freddy, the rock band Queen composed songs that drew inspiration from many different genres of music and they achieved a gigantic success. He gave the band a distinctive characteristic of music and the vocal harmonies. His singing was inimitable and exceptional. No one could sing like Freddy Mercury and to give a first-rate stage performance. Even today, Freddie is still regarded as the most excellent male vocalist who made a deep impact on his fans.<\/div>\n
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His songs had most diverse kind of lyrics and it was a mixture of music, ideas and philosophies of Rene Descartes Jean Jack Russo, Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Little Richard and \u00a0Jimi Hendrix. Most of his songs were inspired by magic and fantasy. But he spoke of deep philosophy through \u00a0his music.<\/div>\n
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In the song, My fairy King Freddie Mercury comes with a classic prose and poetry that narrates a fantasy land. Although the situation imagined and it does not correspond with reality, it expresses the desire and aims of the singer to detach from the realism.<\/div>\n
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In the land where horses born with eagle wings<\/em><\/div>\n
And honey bees have lost their stings<\/em><\/div>\n
There\u2019s singing forever to you<\/em><\/div>\n
Lions den with fallow deer<\/em><\/div>\n
And rivers made from wines so clear<\/em><\/div>\n
Flow on and on forever<\/em><\/div>\n
Dragons fly like sparrows thru\u2019 the air<\/em><\/div>\n
And baby lambs where Samson dares<\/em><\/div>\n
To go on \u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In 1984, Mercury made his music video \u2018I Want to Break Free\u2019 that was an outcry and emotional catharsis.\u00a0 In this video Mercury dresses as a woman but keeps his moustache, which symbolizes his identity predicament, \u00a0\u00a0isolation and ostracism despite the preservation of masculinity. Freddie Mercury kept a mystique about his image. Mercury once said of himself:\u00a0When I\u2019m performing I\u2019m an extrovert, yet inside I\u2019m a completely different man.<\/em><\/div>\n
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I Want to Break Free<\/em>\u00a0corresponds to Freddy\u2019s masculine and feminine personalities.\u00a0 Inside him, there were distinctive anima and animus. (Psychologist Carl Jung postulates that each individual has both masculine and feminine components of the psyche. For a male, the feminine component is the anima, and for a female, it is the animus. The Anima and Animus are deeply rooted subconscious Archetypal symbols, which fundamentally are identical on a collective level). In the early days of his musical career, Freddy dressed like a transsexual \u2013 someone like Boy George. \u00a0\u00a0Freddie Mercury publicly spoke of his sexuality and admitted that he was a bisexual.<\/div>\n
Freddie Mercury s elation could be notified in the hit song\u00a0The Show Must Go On,\u00a0<\/em>where he recounts his inner feelings.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies<\/em><\/div>\n
Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die<\/em><\/div>\n
I can fly, my friends\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0<\/em>Freddie\u2019s dual personality was captured in the song Great Pretender.\u00a0 This is a form Jungian explanation of the persona -The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious\u201d (1928) \u00a0\u00a0Two Essays on Analytical Psychology by Carl Jung.\u00a0 Jung describes the persona as a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. Freddie Mercury \u00a0summarized the Jungian words thus.<\/div>\n
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Oh yes, I\u2019m the great pretender<\/em><\/div>\n
Just laughing and gay like a clown<\/em><\/div>\n
I seem to be what I\u2019m not you see<\/em><\/div>\n
I\u2019m wearing my heart like a crown<\/em><\/div>\n
Pretending that you\u2019re still around<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In the early days Freddy\u2019s mother Jer Bulsara was not happy about her son\u2019s interest towards music and she saw Freddy\u2019s song writing as a waste of time.\u00a0\u00a0 He was sent to a boarding school in Mumbai and Freddy was homesick.\u00a0 \u00a0When Freddie was 16, the family moved to Britain and he pursued his life long career as a musician. In his song\u00a0Mother love<\/em>\u00a0Freddy talked about maternal affection hence.<\/div>\n
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I don\u2019t want to sleep with you<\/div>\n
I don\u2019t need the passion too<\/div>\n
I don\u2019t want a stormy affair<\/div>\n
To make me feel my life is heading somewhere<\/div>\n
All I want is the comfort and care<\/div>\n
Just to know that my woman gives me sweet \u2013 Mother love<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Freddie\u2019s unrivaled song\u00a0living on my own<\/em>\u00a0gives a picture of a desperado opposing the Victorian society. Freddy always became a controversial character who acted on his fantasies and instincts. In addition, he openly challenged the hypocrisy of the Victorian society. He was the modern day Oscar Wild who faced harsh remarks of the tabloid newspapers. He described his passion and emotional soreness in graceful lyrics. His disheartening song\u00a0Living on my own<\/em>\u00a0is a living testimony of Freddy\u2019s emotional twinge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Sometimes I feel I\u2019m gonna break down and cry<\/em><\/div>\n
Nowhere to go nothing to do with my time<\/em><\/div>\n
I get lonely so lonely living on my own<\/em><\/div>\n
Sometimes I feel I\u2019m always walking too fast<\/em><\/div>\n
And everything is coming down on me down on me<\/em><\/div>\n
I go crazy oh so crazy living on my own<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Freddie Mercury\u2019s powerful ballad Who Wants to Live Forever was the soundtrack to the motion picture Highlander directed by Russell Mulcahy and staring Christopher Lambert depicting the fictional character Connor MacLeod. In this song-\u00a0Who Wants to Live Forever<\/em>\u00a0Freddie\u2019s voice reverberates in a high falsetto and creates a magnificent melody registering his phonetic abilities perpetually.\u00a0 Who Wants to Live Forever made Freddy as the \u00a0\u00a0best singer of all time. He was well known for his powerful vocal competency and was able to roar through a metal tune.<\/div>\n
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There\u2019s no chance for us<\/em><\/div>\n
It\u2019s all decided for us<\/em><\/div>\n
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us<\/em><\/div>\n
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Who wants to live forever<\/em><\/div>\n
Who wants to live forever<\/em><\/div>\n
Who dares to love forever<\/em><\/div>\n
When love must die<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
His musical hit Bohemian Rhapsody carried a numerous metaphors and symbolism that transformed the band into a global phenomenon. Bohemian Rhapsody\u201d song was written by Freddy Mercury which had no chorus but consisted of \u00a0\u00a0six sections: introduction, ballad,\u00a0guitar solo, opera, rock and outro. Bohemian Rhapsody could be considered as an enigmatic philosophical song that was not decoded completely. Up-to-date Bohemian Rhapsody remains a puzzle.\u00a0 This song has fatalistic lyrics. Some argue that Bohemian Rhapsody echoes Mercury\u2019s personal traumas reveling the complexity of his inner mind. This song represents a self-explanatory portion of Freddy. Perhaps Bohemian Rhapsody could be the musical version of Albert Camus\u2019s novel The Stranger.<\/div>\n
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Albert Camus\u2019s novel\u00a0The Stranger<\/em>\u00a0involves a complex character named Meursault. For Camus, life has no rational meaning or order. As Albert Camus stated, the nakedness of man faced with the absurd was highlighted in his novel. Meursault\u2019s philosophy of absurdism, atheism, determinism, nihilism, and stoicism are well marked in Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody divulges a life and attitude, which possess no rational order.<\/div>\n
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Bohemian Rhapsody begins with the powerful vocals of Freddy, which describes the clashes between his inner fantasies and realities. He was born in Zanzibar to an Indian Parsi Family and raised in England. He was exposed to three different cultures and in each culture; his biopersona (biological component of his personality) was suppressed creating a colossal guilt in him.\u00a0 The society that he lived expected him to live an artificial life less then his expectations. Mercury felt trapped and found no escape.<\/div>\n
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Is this the real life<\/em><\/div>\n
Is this just fantasy<\/em><\/div>\n
Caught in a landslide<\/em><\/div>\n
No escape from reality<\/em><\/div>\n
Open your eyes<\/em><\/div>\n
Look up to the skies and see<\/em><\/div>\n
I\u2019m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy<\/em><\/div>\n
Because I\u2019m easy come, easy go,<\/em><\/div>\n
Little high, little low<\/em><\/div>\n
Anyway the wind blows, doesn\u2019t really matter to me \u2013 to me<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In the second part Freddy talks about a murder which could be treated as a metaphor. Metaphor and allegory were powerful literary and conceptual tools which often used by him to create melody, rhythm and philosophy.\u00a0Like Meursault he reaches self-knowledge by committing a murder.<\/div>\n
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Mama, just killed a man,<\/em><\/div>\n
Put a gun against his head,<\/em><\/div>\n
Pulled my trigger, now he\u2019s dead,<\/em><\/div>\n
Mama, life had just begun,<\/em><\/div>\n
But now I\u2019ve gone and thrown it all away<\/em><\/div>\n
Mama, ooo,<\/em><\/div>\n
Didn\u2019t mean to make you cry<\/em><\/div>\n
If I\u2019m not back again this time tomorrow<\/em><\/div>\n
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In the third section, Freddy talks about his destitution and hidden death wish contrary to his insensible desire to live. In Bohemian Rhapsody Camus\u2019s philosophy of the absurd is written in every line.<\/div>\n
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The imaginary character of Albert Camus\u2019s novel\u00a0The Stranger<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Meursault was a social deviant. He was an absurd man. The struggle to find meaning where none exists is what Camus calls, the absurd.\u00a0 The absurd man will not commit suicide and he wants to live, without renouncing any of his incongruous hopes. The doomed character recounts in Bohemian Rhapsody reminds a nihilistic man that was narrated in Camus\u2019s novel\u00a0The Stranger.<\/em><\/div>\n
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Too late, my time has come,<\/em><\/div>\n
Sends shivers down my spine<\/em><\/div>\n
Body\u2019s aching all the time,<\/em><\/div>\n
Goodbye everybody \u2013 I\u2019ve got to go \u2013<\/em><\/div>\n
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth<\/em><\/div>\n
Mama, ooo \u2013<\/em><\/div>\n
I don\u2019t want to die,<\/em><\/div>\n
I sometimes wish I\u2019d never been born at all \u2013<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The Opera Section begins with a powerful\u00a0 vocal presentation. Freddy Mercury uses the name of a fictional character \u2013\u00a0Scaramouch<\/em>\u00a0that was created by Rafael Sabatini.<\/div>\n
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I see a little silhouetto of a man,<\/em><\/div>\n
Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the Fandango<\/em><\/div>\n
Thunderbolt and Lightning \u2013 very very frightening me-<\/em><\/div>\n
Gallileo, Gallileo,<\/em><\/div>\n
Gallileo, gallileo,<\/em><\/div>\n
Gallileo Figaro \u2013 Magnifico \u2013<\/em><\/div>\n
I\u2019m just a poor boy nobody loves me<\/em><\/div>\n
He\u2019s just a poor boy froma poor family<\/em><\/div>\n
Spare him his life from this monstrosity<\/em><\/div>\n
Easy come, easy go \u2013 will you let me go<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In the subsequent part, the singer utters a name Bismillah which means the God. It is a poetic phrase translated as in the name of the God, most gracious and most compassionate.<\/div>\n
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Bismillah! No, \u2013 we will not let you go \u2013 let him go \u2013<\/em><\/div>\n
Bismillah! We will not let you go \u2013 Let him go<\/em><\/div>\n
Bismillah! We will not let you go \u2013 Let him go<\/em><\/div>\n
Will not let you go \u2013 Let me go<\/em><\/div>\n
Will not let you go \u2013 Let me go<\/em><\/div>\n
No, no, no, no, no, no, no-<\/em><\/div>\n
Mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go \u2013<\/em><\/div>\n
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The final part of the song is the rock section. In this branch Freddy\u2019s emotional struggle and apathy is emphasized. However, he is ready to accept the consequences.<\/div>\n
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So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye<\/em><\/div>\n
So you think you can love me and leave me to die<\/em><\/div>\n
Oh Baby \u2013 Can\u2019t do this to me Baby<\/em><\/div>\n
Just gotta get out- just gotta get right outta here \u2013\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
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Nothing really matters<\/em><\/div>\n
Anyone can see<\/em><\/div>\n
Nothing really matters, nothing really matters \u2013 to me<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In Bohemian Rhapsody the meaninglessness of all endeavors are emphasized in the final line.\u00a0 According to the theory of Absurdism that was introduced by the French Algerian philosopher Albert Camus there is a fundamental disharmony that arises out of the co-presence of man and the universe. Man has a desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life, but the universe is indifferent and meaningless; the Absurd arises out of this conflict. Meursault was always aware of the meaninglessness of all endeavors in his life so as the nihilistic man of the Bohemian Rhapsody.<\/div>\n
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Freddie Mercury and the rock band Queen were revolutionary. In 1980, they preformed in South Africa ignoring the United Nations Cultural boycott. Although the members of the rock band Queen were widely criticized, they might have contributed something positive for the South African apartheid system to change. Similarly, \u00a0in 1986, they performed in Budapest. It was the period when the Communist block was about to disintegrate and the Eastern Europeans were embracing the Western type of Democracy.<\/div>\n
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Freddie Mercury could be regarded as the Fyodor Dostoyevsky of Rock Music who painted rock music with philosophy, fantasy and psychology. He sang about the inner human psyche and human freedom. The talented artist, accomplished musician and legendary showman Freddy Mercury died on the 24th\u00a0<\/sup>of November 1991 at the age of 45. He lived a relatively a short life, but he made a profound impact on music and culture<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge\u00a0 Freddie Mercury emerged as a popular singer when Elvis, Mick Jagger, Ian Gillan, John Lennon, Barry Gibb, Mike Love etc dominated the music world. When he entered the Rock Music Industry, it was not multicultural and the Anglo American media giants predominantly controlled it.\u00a0 During that era,\u00a0 \u00a0a non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-ruwan-m-jayatunge-m-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}