Bohemian Rhapsody
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"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song written by rock-pianist/vocalist Freddie Mercury, originally recorded by the band Queen for their 1975 album A Night at the Opera. It was primarily composed on Freddie's Yamaha baby grand piano. The song has a somewhat unusual musical form for a piece of pop music, with three very different sections, no chorus, and both a capella and heavy metal sections. However, it was released as a single, and became a huge commercial success. This was a decisive point in Queen's career, setting them on the way to become one of Britain's biggest rock groups. 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 in many parts of the world. It is touted by many as the most popular song in 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 Studios near Monmouth. Further recording was done at North London's Scorpio and SARM Studios. According to some band members, Freddie had worked out the entire song in his head and directed the band through the song.
A backing track of grand piano (Mercury), bass guitar (Deacon) and drums (Taylor) was recorded first.
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 — radio stations would not play the song, and other record labels would object to it getting double the airplay.
Their equipment consisted on:
- Bechstein D 9 ft 2 in Concert Grand Piano, the same Freddie used for the video and the UK tour.
- Fender Precision Electric Bass
- Red Special Electric Guitar
- Ludwig Drums
- Paiste Gong
Structure and analysis
Introduction (0:00 to 3:03)
The song, almost six minutes in length, begins with a four-part harmony a cappella introduction, which are entirely multitrack recordings of Freddie Mercury. The grand piano enters halfway through this intro (this section appears to be based on the chorus of a piece by Mercury's former band, Ibex), and the vocals change from harmony to a moving solo by Mercury. A roughly 30-second guitar solo by Queen guitarist Brian May serves as a transition from the introduction to the operatic part.
The "opera section" (3:03 to 4:08)
An abrupt key change from E flat major 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.
"Hard Rock" section (4:08 to 4:52)
This 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. After double tracked vocals by Mercury over the top of the guitar, there are three ascending guitar runs, which May described as something he had to "battle with" when performing the song live.
Outro (4:52 to 5:55)
After Mercury plays ascending octaves of notes from a B-flat-seven chord, the song then returns to the tempo and form of the slow section. A guitar accompanies the lyrics "ooh yeah, ooh yeah", to give the effect of trumpets. This was done by playing the guitar through an amp designed by Deacon. The song progressively becomes quieter through Mercury's lyrics "anyway the wind blows" until finally closing with the barely audible sound of a gong.
The sections may appear separate, but there are numerous lyrical and musical motifs that they share. For instance, there are melodic motifs that occur in the ballad which foreshadow parts of the operatic section.
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.
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. 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 "first ever music promo video"
The "Bohemian Rhapsody" video is often cited as "the first ever music promo video". Taken literally, this statement is unlikely to be true: certainly, prior to 1975, many bands (including Queen themselves and especially ABBA) had made promotional clips to accompany their single releases. (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 generic dancers.
Popularity
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is the only single to have been UK Christmas Number 1 twice (in a single recording), first in 1975/1976, 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. The song initially reached #9 in the United States in 1976.
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 also topped VH1's "100 Greatest Songs from the Past 25 Years" list. 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.
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. This re-release hit #2 in the US in 1992.
The track was not initially intended as a single release due to the length. However, Mercury's friend Kenny Everett (a Capital Radio 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.
Trivia
- Queen fans and also Brian May often colloquially refer to the song as "Bo Rhap" (or "Bo Rap").
- 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 a short piano solo played by Mercury (Freddie would occasionally open the song with an improvised set of arpeggios before playing the signature piano riff). 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'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 Brian and/or Freddie. 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, pyro would go off and the band would play right through to the end of the track.
- 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 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 an 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.
Cover versions
- In a unique colloboration 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.
- The officers in the Royal Navy made a spoof of it while patrolling the Indian Ocean.
- Newark, NJ-native band The Fugees covered the song in their 1994 album "Blunted on Reality" with singer Lauryn Hill performing the lyrics, over a 3/4 marching beat and keyboard harmonics, giving the album a more low tempo. The lyrics are transformed to depict the agony of a young black man in the ghetto, after he has executed another gang member.
- Molotov covered the song for the 1997 album "Tributo a QUEEN: Los Grandes Del Rock En Español". This cover mixes Spanish and English lyrics and they 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, transfering it to another context and using Mexico City slang.
- The X Factor runners-up in the UK, G4, released a cover of the song as their debut single, 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 replacement of the guitars with an orchestral arrangement.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic covered a high-speed polka version of the song in his 1993 album Alapalooza.
- 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.
- Constantine Maroulis covered the song for the Hollywood Records tribute CD Killer Queen. The cast of We Will Rock You (musical) Las Vegas did the background vocal harmonies.
- Russell Watson sings this song on his album Reprise.
- The Flaming Lips also covered the song for the Killer Queen tribute album.
- 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. It reached number 44 in the UK charts. The cover version was produced by Brian May. John Deacon, known for his inability to sing, provided some backing vocals.
- Rolf Harris covered the song in the mid 1990s, along with many other 70s rock classic including Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven".
- 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.
- 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.
- A high school steel drum band located in Pittsburgh, PA, performed Bohemian Rhapsody as the song for their indoor band competitions. The song sounds as though it were the actual song although it is being performed on the steel drums.
- Chapter 6, an a cappella band, performs the song on their second album Chapter 6 live.
- Faye Wong covered this song in Scenic Tour 1998-99 Concert along with background singers.
- The drum and bugle corps Carolina Crown did a version of this song for their 2004 tour.
- We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It covered it on the "What's The Point" 12" single.
- USD A Capella did a cover: (purevolume.com/USDacapella).
- Rockapella, an acapella band, did a version of Bohemian Rhapsody.
- The BBC News Readers did a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody on BBC Children In Need 2005.
- Montserrat Caballé covered it alongside Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson in her 1997 album "Friends for Life".
- In October 2005, Too Much Spare Time Productions released Zero Wing Rhapsody, a flash parody derived from both Queen's song and All Your Base Are Belong to Us. This parody achieved great praise because it used original graphics, as opposed to the plethora of regurgitated parodies using the original AYBABTU sprites.
- In 2005, the song was covered by Jack Tuesday & the Hundred Dollar Bills, at their live performance in Dover Massachusetts. It can be heard on their album "Live in Dover", which experienced limited release but received high praise.
- 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.
- Phish had a Bohemian Rhapsody cover.
- It was covered by The Braids as a dance song.
- It was covered by Brian May's friend Patrick Moore for BBC's Comic Relief charity/telethon.
- Dream Theater covered the hard rock part in the "The Big Medley" track from their A Change of Seasons album.
- 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.
- 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.
- American band, Ours fronted by singer Jimmy Gnecco (who also recorded a song with Brian May for the Spider-man 2 Soundtrack) has performed a cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody at a number of live shows during 2001-2004.
References
- Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1 (2002) DVD
- Blake, Mark (Editor) (2005). MOJO Classic Queen Special Edition. EMAP Metro Limited.
External links
- Songfacts
- Lyrics
- The Royal Legend (detailed musical analysis)
