Bohemian Rhapsody

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A Night at the Opera Album Listing
"Good Company" (Track 10)	"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Track 11)	"God Save the Queen" (Track 12)
Live Killers Album Listing
"Brighton Rock" (Track 16)	"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Track 17)	"Tie Your Mother Down" (Track 18)
Live Magic Album Listing
"Is This the World We Created...?" (Track 8)	"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Track 9)	"Hammer to Fall" (Track 10)

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song written by Freddie Mercury, originally recorded by the band Queen for their 1975 album A Night at the Opera. The song is a parody of a Rock Opera and has a very unusual musical structure for a piece of popular music. Its three different sections have no chorus but both a cappella and heavy metal arrangements. Despite this, it was released as a single and became a huge commercial success, marking a decisive point in Queen's career and setting them on the way to become one of the world's biggest bands. The single was accompanied by what is generally cited as a groundbreaking "promotional video", which helped establish the visual language of the modern music video. The song was included in all Queen's subsequent live concert performances, and still enjoys great popularity all over the world.

Recording

The song was recorded over three weeks by the band and producer Roy Thomas Baker, beginning on August 24, 1975 at Rockfield Studio 1 near Monmouth. Further recording was done at SARM (East), Scorpion, Wessex and Roundhouse studios. According to some band members, Mercury had worked out the entire song in his head and directed the band through the song.

The multi-part vocal harmonies took 84 hours to complete#redirect . Since the studios of the time only offered 24-track analogue tape, it was necessary for May, Mercury and Taylor to overdub themselves many times, and "bounce" these down to successive submixes. In the end, eighth generation tapes were being used. The band claimed these had passed over the recording heads so many times that the normally opaque tapes could be seen through, as the oxide layer was beginning to wear off. The various sections of tape containing the desired submixes would have to be cut with razor blades and reassembled together in the correct sequence using adhesive tape, a process known as splicing.

When they first heard the song, record company executives requested that the middle section of the song be cut. This was due to fears that the song was twice the normal length of a single — radio stations would not play the song, and other record labels would object to it getting double the airplay.

A backing track of the grand piano (Mercury), bass guitar (Deacon) and drums (Taylor) was recorded first. The song itself was primarily composed on Mercury's Yamaha baby grand piano. The band used many unique instruments to produce the song, including a Fender Precision Electric Bass, May's Red Special electric guitar, Ludwig Drums, timpani and even a Paiste Gong. Mercury used a Bechstein "Concert" Grand Piano, the same he'd later play in both the promotional video and the UK Tour.

Release

When Mercury wanted to release the single in 1975, it had been suggested to him that, at 5 minutes and 55 seconds, it was far too long and would thus never be a hit. But Mercury gave a copy of the single to friend and London DJ, Kenny Everett, informing him that it was for him personally, and that he must never play it on air. The reverse psychology worked and Everett ended up playing it on the air, up to fourteen times in the same day. From then on, every major radio station played the song in full. The track proved popular and was released with "I'm In Love With My Car" as the B-side.

Song structure

Nearly six minutes in length. Bohemian Rhapsody is composed of six very distinct sections as follows - introduction, ballad, guitar solo, opera, rock, and an outro.

Introduction (0:00-0:48)

The song begins with a four-part harmony a cappella introduction, which is entirely multitrack recordings of Mercury. The lyrics question whether life is "real" or "just fantasy" before concluding that there can be "no escape from reality." After 15 seconds, the grand piano enters, and Mercury's solo voice alternates with the chorus. The narrator introduces himself as "just a poor boy" but declares that he "need[s] no sympathy" because nothing matters.

Ballad (0:48-2:36)

The grand piano continues, and the vocals change from harmony to an impassioned solo performance by Mercury. The narrator explains that he has "just killed a man," and with that act thrown his life away. After Taylor's drums enter (1:19), the narrator makes the first of several invocations to his "mama," explaining his regret over "mak[ing] you cry" and urging her to "carry on as if nothing really matters." As the ballad proceeds, the narrator shows how tired and beat down he is by his actions (as May enters on guitar and mimics the upper range of the piano 1:50). May sends "shivers down my spine" by scratching the strings on the other side of the bridge. The narrator bids the world goodbye and prepares to "face the truth" admitting "I don't want to die / I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all."

Guitar solo (2:36-3:02)

As Mercury sings the rising line "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all," the band builds in intensity, leading up to a guitar solo by May that serves as a segue from ballad to opera. May's solo continues to build intensity, but the entire band cuts out abruptly at 3:02 except for quiet quaver chords on the piano. In live performance, all the members of Queen would run offstage at this moment and allow the entire operatic section to play from the recording.

Opera (3:02-4:07)

A rapid series of time signature changes and key changes from E flat major to F minor to A major introduces a pseudo-operatic midsection, which contains the bulk of the elaborate vocal multitracking. The dynamics vary greatly from bar to bar, from a single Mercury voice and solo piano, to a multi-voice choir. The choir effect was created by having Mercury, May and Taylor sing separate low, mid and high sections at least three times. The band used the bell effect for lyrics "Magnifico" and "Let me go". Also, on "Let him go", Taylor singing the top section carries his note on further after the rest of the "choir" have stopped singing. Lyrical references in this passage include Scaramouche, the fandango, Galileo, "bismillah," and Beelzebub, as rival factions fight over the narrator's soul.

Hard Rock (4:07-4:55)

The operatic section leads (with the voices singing "for me" on a block B-flat major chord, topped by a remarkable sustained high B-flat falsetto from Taylor) into an aggressive hard rock musical interlude with a guitar riff that was written by Mercury. During group singalongs (including the famous scene in Wayne's World), it is traditional to headbang during this passage. At 4:14, a double-tracked Mercury sings angry lyrics addressed to an unspecified "you," accusing him/her of betrayal and abuse and insisting "can't do this to me, baby." There follow three ascending guitar runs, which May described as something he had to "battle with" when performing the song live. The third guitar run is then imitated by Mercury on the piano.

Outro (4:55-5:55)

After Mercury plays ascending octaves of notes from the Bb mixolydian scale, the song then returns to the tempo and form of the introduction. A guitar accompanies the chorus' "ooh yeah, ooh yeah", to give the effect of trumpets. This was done by playing the guitar through an amp designed by Deacon, affectionately nicknamed the "Deacy Amp". The song progressively becomes quieter while Mercury again sings "nothing really matters." The final line, "any way the wind blows," is followed by the barely audible sound of a gong.

Possible song meanings

Bohemian Rhapsody's meaning has been a controversy since it was written. When first listened to it sounds strongly like the story of a young man, most likely a "poor boy" who has killed someone for a various reason, robbery or possibly a gang related incident, and now faces a trial and eventually is condemned to death. Upon closer inspection and interpretation, however, more theories come into play.

Some say it is about a young man contemplating and finally committing suicide, where the "trial" scene is his inner struggle of his willingness to live and his longing to die. The man he just put a gun against and shot, obviously being himself. The verse "I don't want to die" antagonizes this version, but "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all" directly afterwards and "Nothing really matters" supports it.

The use of the word "Bismillah" (Arabic for "In the name of God") raises another theory similar to the first; an Arabian trial. The verse "So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye" also supports this theory of ancient Arab justice.

However, it is likely that all these interpretations are overblown. Freddie Mercury once told his friend Kenny Everett, the same DJ responsible for airing the song up to fourteen times a day, that it was just "random rhyming nonsense." Regardless, even if there is no meaning at all, "Bohemian Rhapsody" remains one of the most compelling and mysterious songs in Rock and Roll.

The promotional video

The video for the single was directed by Bruce Gowers, using ideas from the band members themselves. It was created for the sole purpose of allowing the band to be on tour and appear "live" on the BBC's Top of the Pops. Shot in just over four hours on the band's rehearsal stage, it cost only £4500 to produce, using an outside broadcast truck owned by one of the band's managers. This was a very small sum compared to the multi-million dollar industry music videos have become.

All the special effects were done during the recording. The effect of having the face zooming away was accomplished by simply pointing the camera at a monitor, thus giving visual feedback (pictured below), a visual glare which is analogous to audio feedback. In the original version of the video an apparent editing glitch led to the piano part briefly being double-tracked out of sync with itself, but this was corrected in later releases.

The "Bohemian Rhapsody" video is often cited as "the first ever music promo video." Although this statement is not true — prior to 1975, many bands (including Queen themselves) had made promotional clips to accompany their single releases — no band had used a promotional clip to support their single in such a way. (It is true that the majority of these were recorded on film as opposed to video tape; however, this technical detail made little difference to their effectiveness, especially as most modern music videos are shot on film.)

However, the "Bohemian Rhapsody" video did start a major trend in the music industry; following its success, it became a regular practice for record companies to produce promo videos for their artists' single releases. These videos could then be shown on TV music shows such as the BBC's Top of The Pops, without the need for the artist to appear in person. Prior to this, if the artist was not available, Top of the Pops would generally show dancers such as Pan's People performing a routine to the song. A promo video allowed the artist to have their music broadcast and accompanied by their own choice of visuals, rather than the BBC's.

Popularity

In 1977 only two years after its release it was named 'The Best Single Of The Last 25 Years' by BPI.

The song consistently ranks highly in media reader polls of "the best singles of all-time". In 2002, it came first in the Guinness Hit Singles poll of the greatest UK singles of all-time, as well as coming 10th in a BBC World Service poll to find the world's favourite song. In 2000 it came second to "Imagine" by John Lennon in a Channel 4 television poll of The 100 Best Number 1s. It has been in the top 5 of the Dutch annual "Top 100 Aller Tijden" ("All-Time Top 100 Singles") since 1977, reaching #1 many times; in the annual "Top 2000" (maintained since 1999) it has, as of 2004, been #1 every year.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is the only single to have been UK Christmas Number 1 twice (in a single recording), first in 1975/1976 for 9 weeks, and then in 1991/1992 (as a double-A single with "These Are The Days Of Our Lives") following the death of Mercury for a further 5 weeks. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was placed third in the official list of the best-selling singles in the UK issued in 2002. It has the fourth longest total of weeks at #1 in the UK. The song initially reached #9 in the United States in 1976.

The song enjoyed renewed popularity in 1992 as part of the soundtrack to the film Wayne's World. In connection with this, a new video was released, intercutting excerpts from the film with footage from the original Queen video, along with some live footage of the band. The final scene of the video was notable, where a 1974 photo of the band members (from the cover of the Queen II album) "morphs" into an identically-posed 1985 photo. This re-release hit #2 in the US in 1992.

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Live performances

Queen did not feel able to recreate the song's elaborate harmony vocals live on stage. When performing it in concert, they would omit the song's a capella introduction entirely, beginning with the opening notes of the ballad. Over the years, Mercury tried various ways of introducing the song. During the Jazz and Live Killers tours, and very rarely after that if audience participation was great, Mercury would sing the opening vocals to the song Mustapha before Bohemian Rhapsody, assuming the band had not performed Mustapha in its entirety already. During the Hot Space tour, and occasionally at other times, Mercury would do a piano improvisation that would end with the first notes of the song.

For the middle "opera section", the band on the A Night at the Opera tour avoided it and would go into a medley by segueing into another song altogether (for instance, "Killer Queen", then to "The March of the Black Queen") and then go back to Bohemian Rhapsody for the ending ballad section. On all subsequent tours from A Day at the Races to this very day, the band would leave the stage after Brian May's guitar solo on the ballad section of track and play a tape of the studio version of the opera section and use the opera section as a costume change for May and/or Mercury. When the backing tape of the opera section was near completion, the band would pick up on the "heavy rock" section playing to the "for me" part and after the last "for me" hit, pyrotechnics would go off and the band would play right through to the end of the track.

On the 2005/2006 Queen + Paul Rodgers tours, a live performance recording of Mercury would play on video screens doing the vocals and piano for the first segment, while the other musicians played along and Paul Rodgers sat out. The middle operatic section was left to the studio tape, with a video tribute to Freddie Mercury being played on a screen behind the stage. The band went backstage, and the arena would be completely dark. When the hard rock section kicked in, the lights came back up to the full band onstage, including Rodgers, who took lead vocals for the hard rock section. The taped Mercury and Rodgers made the closing into a duet, with Rodgers allowing the audience to sing the final "Nothing really matters to me" while the taped Mercury taking a bow for the crowd. Rodgers would then repeat the line, and the final line was delivered with one final shot of Freddie Mercury smiling at the audience before the arena went black.

Trivia

• Queen fans, and also Brian May, often colloquially refer to the song as "Bo Rhap" (or "Bo Rap").
• The song makes reference to the novel and play Scaramouche.
• The title does not appear anywhere within the words of the song.
• The song is the only UK single ever to sell a million copies on two separate occasions.
• The song is the only UK single ever to be Christmas number one single twice, and therefore number 1 at least once in four different calendar years - 1975, 1976, 1991 and 1992.
• The song stayed at number one in the British charts (Queen's first of six) for 9 weeks - the longest stay since 1957 - during 1975-1976, and returned again for another 5 weeks during 1991-1992.
• In the USA, the song peaked at number 9 in 1976, but after the death of Freddie Mercury and the popularity of the film Wayne's World, the song peaked at number two in 1992.
• "Mamma Mia" by ABBA was the song that knocked Bohemian Rhapsody off the number one spot in Britain on 31st January 1976. It is one of the very few cases - and possibly the most famous - in which a song is knocked off the number one spot by a song whose title can be found in the lyric of the first song ("Bohemian Rhapsody" contains the lyric "mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia, let me go").
• The song uses the Arabic word "Bismillah". "Every Surah, exept for the ninth, in the Qur'an begins with the usual formula of 'bismillah' [which means] (In the name of Allah)." [link] It is argued that this is a possible reason that the Iranian government allowed this song to be a part of a small selection of permissible Western pop music in 2004.
• The name Beelzebub, a god worshipped in the Philistine city of Ekron, is referred to once in the lyrics. It is also an alternate name for Satan or the Devil in Christian writings.
• The song and its video were affectionately parodied in a 2000 television ad for Mountain Dew soft drink that aired during Super Bowl XXXIV.
• Session 14 of the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop is also named "Bohemian Rhapsody".
• In one of the episodes of the TV miniseries Dinotopia, a character cheats on a poem project by using the first part of the song as his entire project. The inhabitants, having never heard the song before, are amazed at the sound of it.
• The song was on Wayne's World on cassette and lip-synched by the cast of the cable part of the movie. If you look at one of the scenes, while it was just Mike Myers & Dana Carvey, Dana forgot his lines badly lip-synching "anyone can see", luckily it fits as the character "Garth" is often trying to fit in in a situation where others are comfortable, and he is not.
• The song, like much of Queen's work, changed slightly with the times. During the original A Night at the Opera tour, the song's performance was fairly close to the album version (with the exception of the missing introduction and operatic sections, deemed impossible to do onstage). By the early 1980s, Brian May's guitar work on the song had adopted a decidedly-funk feeling to it, as can be heard on the Queen On Fire - Live At The Bowl album, and Mercury had changed the vocals slightly. On the Live at Wembley '86 DVD, Mercury takes the high notes down some, and doesn't sustain the lines as much, instead opting to wait, then quickly sing many of the lines. This may have been due to his smoking, or it may have been an early sign of his illness manifesting itself. The new vocal style Mercury had given the song enabled the audience a chance to sing "Nothing really matters to me" at the end of the song--Mercury had generally not provided a "sing-along" part of "Bohemian Rhapsody", as he had in several other Queen songs.
• According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is one of the [500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.]
• The Jones Soda Company has a drink named "Bohemian Raspberry."
• Bohemian Rhapsody was butchered and rewritten for TmsT's Zero Wing Rhapsody flash, a parody.
• In the Father Ted episode "The Mainland," the characters are trapped in a cave with the flamboyant Father Noel (Graham Norton) and forced to sit through his horrible, tuneless rendition of the opera section.

Cover versions

• Bad News, a spoof rock band created for the UK Channel 4 TV series The Comic Strip Presents... covered the song and released it as a single in 1987. It reached number 44 in the UK charts. The cover version was produced by Brian May. John Deacon, known for his reluctance to sing, provided some backing vocals.
• In a unique collaboration at 1992's Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, singers Elton John and Axl Rose shared the song's vocals, with the surviving members of Queen providing the instrumentation. The rendition, which was never released as a stand-alone audio track but did appear on the 2002 DVD re-release of the concert, invited substantial controversy given the allegedly homophobic sentiments expressed by Rose in the 1986 track, One in a Million, which was released on the EP G N' R Lies in 1988.
• Montserrat Caballé covered it alongside Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson in her 1997 album Friends for Life.
• It was covered by Brian May's friend Patrick Moore for BBC's Comic Relief charity/telethon.
• In 1987, Fuzzbox covered Bohemian Rhapsody on the "What's The Point" 12" single.
• English indie rock band Cud released a barely recognizable version of Bohemian Rhapsody on the 1990 compilation Alvin Lives (In Leeds): Anti-Poll Tax Trax.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic covered a high-speed polka version of the song in his 1993 album Alapalooza, renaming it "Bohemian Polka".
• Rolf Harris covered the song in the mid 1990s, along with many other 70s rock classics including Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven".
• Dream Theater covered the hard rock part in the "The Big Medley" track from their A Change of Seasons album, released in 1995.
• The Irish group DeDannan featured an instrumental Celtic-style version of the song under the title [Hibernian Rhapsody]. It was featured on a 1996 CD by the same name.
• Phish had a Bohemian Rhapsody cover.
• The Braids, a bay area duo, recorded an R&B version of this song for the soundtrack to the 1996 Jon Lovitz movie High School High. It was produced by Third Eye Blind's lead singer Stephan Jenkins and was released as a single, although it performed poorly on the charts.
• Molotov covered the song for the 1997 album Tributo a Queen: Los Grandes Del Rock En Español. This cover mixes Spanish and English lyrics that only loosely resemble the original ones. They did, however, leave the a capella section in the very beginning. The lyrics are an adaptation of the original, transferring it to another context and using Mexico City slang.
• Faye Wong covered this song in Scenic Tour 1998-99 Concert along with background singers.
• California Guitar Trio did a cover version of the song performed live on nothing but three acoustic guitars.
• The American band Ours, fronted by singer Jimmy Gnecco, has performed a cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody at a number of live shows during 2001-2004.
• In 2001, Apologetix covered Bohemian Rhapsody in its entirety under the title "Bethlemian Rhapsody" on their Keep the Change album. The lyrics were altered to tell the Biblical story of David and Goliath.
• Chapter 6, an a cappella band, performed the song on their second album Live.
• In 2002, the Dutch duo Bassie and Adriaan performed the song live with Paul de Leeuw for his show. The song was later on released as a single.
• Russell Watson sings this song on his album Reprise.
• The Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps used the song as the closer for its 2004 program "Bohemia." The inclusion of amplified vocals in the "Seasons of Love" portion of the program (fron Rent) was, and continues to be, controversial, but the "Bo Rap" section has met with continuing admiration and appreciation of one of the best brass lines and highest placement at the Drum Corps International World Championships (7th) in Crown's 16 year history.
• In 2004, [Mnozil Brass], an Austrian brass septet, did a cover version with the instrumental parts partly played in polka style, obviously referring to the music of the historical region of Bohemia.
• G4, The X Factor runners-up in the UK, released a cover of the song as their debut single in 2005, reaching #9 in the UK Singles Chart (it is also on their self-titled album). Some 'die-hard' fans of Queen felt the band had "butchered" the song, mainly because of the exclusion of large sections (and the exclusion of half a line here or there, which in some fans' opinions is worse) and replacement of the guitars with an orchestral arrangement.
• A Finnish one man a cappella rock band, Paska, has made a cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody, that appears on his 2005 album Women Are From Venus, Men From Anus.
• The BBC News Readers did a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody on BBC Children In Need 2005.
• Canadian singer Suzie McNeil performed an abbreviated version on the TV show to much acclaim, including praise from Brian May, in September 2005.
• For the finale of Rock Star: INXS, MiG Ayesa, born in the Philippines, raised in Australia and working in London also sang Bohemian Rhapsody, the same song he hesitantly gave up to Suzie McNeil only a few weeks prior. Ayesa had previously played the Freddie Mercury character in We Will Rock You, a musical based on the music of Queen.
• In October 2005, Andrew Kepple released [Zero Wing Rhapsody], a Flash parody derived from both Queen's song and All Your Base Are Belong To Us. This parody used original graphics, as opposed to the plethora of parodies that used the original AYBABTU sprites.
• Constantine Maroulis covered the song on April 12, 2005 in the fourth season of American Idol. His version was featured in the Hollywood Records tribute CD . The cast of Las Vegas' We Will Rock You musical did the background vocal harmonies. One year later, Kellie Pickler covered the song on April 11, 2006 for a Queen night performance in the fifth season.
• Riverside Community College performed a show based on this, and other Queen works, at the finals of Bands of America in Indianapolis in 2005.
• The Flaming Lips also covered the song for the Killer Queen tribute album and played it live.

Notes

Bohemian Rhapsody has been included on the VCAA (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority; Responsible for statewide testing and the delivery of the Victorian Certificate of Education - VCE.) 2006-2010 list of works approved for music analysis.

References

• Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1 (2002) DVD
• Blake, Mark (Editor) (2005). MOJO Classic Queen Special Edition. EMAP Metro Limited.

External links

• [The Royal Legend] - detailed musical analysis
• [The Complete Words] - lyrics
• [Queen Picture Hall] - single covers
• [Sound on Sound, October 1995] - interview with producer Roy Thomas Baker
• [Blender, February/March 2002]: The Greatest Songs Ever! Bohemian Rhapsody
• [The New York Times, December 27, 2005]: Unconventional Queen Hit Still Rocks After 30 Years
• [Queen Museum]: The Blue Bohemian Rhapsody (incl. Record Collector article, June 1993)
• [Songfacts]
• [}}}] at Google Video
• [}}}] at YouTube At Budapest, 1986

Queen
John Deacon | Brian May | Freddie Mercury | Roger Taylor
Discography
Studio albums: Queen | Queen II | Sheer Heart Attack | A Night at the Opera | A Day at the Races | News of the World | Jazz | The Game | Flash Gordon | Hot Space | The Works | A Kind of Magic | The Miracle | Innuendo | Made in Heaven
Live albums: Live Killers | Live Magic | Live at Wembley '86 | Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl | Return of the Champions
Compilations: Greatest Hits | At the Beeb | Greatest Hits II | Classic Queen | Queen Rocks | Greatest Hits III | Stone Cold Classics
Box sets: Greatest Hits I & II | The Crown Jewels |
DVDs
We Will Rock You | The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert | Greatest Video Hits 1 | Queen Live at Wembley Stadium | Greatest Video Hits 2 | Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl | Return of the Champions | Super Live in Japan
Musicals
We Will Rock You

 

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