Bohemian Rhapsody

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Bohemian Rhapsody - 1975

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song written by Freddie Mercury, originally performed by Queen. The original version of the song can be found on the albums A Night at the Opera (1975), Greatest Hits (1981) and Classic Queen (1992). The song's title is so familiar and distinctive that it is often colloquially referred to as "Bo Rhap" (or "Bo Rap").

The song, almost six minutes in length, varies constantly in style between a sweet ballad, a pseudo-operatic midsection which features interplay between Mercury and a solo piano, and the rest of the band's harmonized, heavily layered vocals accompanied by the full band, leading into an aggressive hard rock section then back to a ballad style and finally closing on the sound of a gong.

Kenny Everett claimed that Mercury told him that the song "was just random, rhyming nonsense", and had no deeper meaning. However Brian May counter-claims that the song reflected Mercury's personality and approach to life.

The single was accompanied by a promotional video. It was not the first time a band had made a promo, but this differed in being shot entirely on videotape as opposed to film. It is therefore widely regarded as the first real music video. Ironically, the video was only made because Queen were unable to perform in person on the BBC's Top of the Pops.

The song enjoyed renewed popularity in 1992 as part of the soundtrack to the film Wayne's World.

It is the only single to have been UK Christmas Number 1 twice (in a single recording), first in 1975/6, and then in 1991/1992 (as a double-A single with "These Are the Days of Our Lives") following the death of Mercury. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was placed third in the official list of the best-selling singles in the UK issued in 2002.

It consistently ranks highly in media reader polls of "the best singles of all-time", and in 2002, came 10th in a BBC World Service poll to find the world's favourite song. In 2003 it came second to "Imagine" by John Lennon in a Channel 4 television poll of The 100 Best Number 1s.

The track was produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, and was not initially intended as a single release due to the length. However, Mercury's friend Kenny Everett (a BBC Radio 1 DJ at the time) played an advance copy on the radio several times; the track proved popular and was released with "I'm In Love With My Car" as the B-side.

The introduction to the song is based on the chorus of a piece by Mercury's former band, Ibex. Some claim that this first minute of "Bohemian Rhapsody" inspired the ending of the song "One Jump Ahead (reprise)" from the Disney animated film Aladdin: Both are sung by a poor boy character, and both have the words "to me" sung on the same notes in roughly the same inflection over the same cadence.

Trivia

• The song makes reference to the novel and play Scaramouche.
• List of songs where the title does not appear in the lyrics.

External link

• Lyrics
• An Article on the Song for Blender Magazine