Bohemian Rhapsody
"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.
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. 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 â€" 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.
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.
[Unconventional Queen Hit Still Rocks After 30 Years - David Chiu - The New York Times] |
A screenshot of Freddie Mercury singing the "opera section" from the 1975 music 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 £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, 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." This assertion is incorrect. Many bands (including Queen, and
the Beatles earlier on) had made promotional clips to accompany their single releases.
It wasn't until after the success of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" video that it became 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. A promo video also allowed the artist to have their music broadcast and accompanied by their own choice of visuals, rather than dancers such as
Pan's People performing a routine to the song.
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, until
2005, 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.
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.
* 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 is frequently shown on
YouTube; often with splicing in images from other things (such as
Neon Genesis Evangelion).
* The song stayed at number one in the British charts for 9 weeks - the longest stay since 1957 - during 1975-1976, and returned again for another 5 weeks during 1991-1992.
* "
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, except for the ninth, in the
Qur'an begins with the usual formula of 'bismillah' [which means] (In the name of Allah)." [
1] 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. This was likely due to either illness or simply being worn out from touring.
* According to the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is one of the
500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.*The song was ranked #163 on
Rolling Stone's list of
the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
*The
Jones Soda Company has a drink named "Bohemian Raspberry."
*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.
*A very popular
Flash homage, called
Titanium Rhapsody, is "performed" by the cast of
Mega Man 7.
*The melody from the ballad portion of "Bohemian Rhapsody" appears at 6:31 in the
Dream Theater song "Octavarium".
*
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".
* In 1995 the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra covered the song as part of "Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Play Queen"
*
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, and released a studio version as a b-side.
* 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).
* 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
Rock Star: INXS 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
Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen. 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.
* An acapella version of the song is sung by the group
Rockapella, who also do covers to Karma Police by Radiohead, and many other songs.
*
The Swingle Singers have covered the song in SSAATTBB a capella, as can be heard on their album
Live in Japan. Although a capella, flanging effects can be heard in several places.
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.
*
Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1 (2002) DVD
*Blake, Mark (Editor) (2005).
MOJO Classic Queen Special Edition. EMAP Metro Limited.
*
List of songs in English labeled the best ever*
List of songs that have been considered among the greatest ever*
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*
Queen Museum:
The Blue Bohemian Rhapsody (incl.
Record Collector article, June 1993)
*
Songfacts* At Budapest, 1986
