bohemian rhapsody

Origins and name

Very little has been said about the song's title, except that (according to what Brian May told a magazine some months ago and published in his website) Mercury came up with it later in the recording process. As confirmed in a 2004 BBC Documentary about the song, which included the aforementioned demo and interviews with producer Roy Thomas Baker, early tapes from Mercury rehearsing the piano parts were simply labelled "Fred's thing".

Mercury composed the song in an upright piano he had in his London flat. According to Reinhold Mack in a 2000 interview about The Game, when he asked Mercury how he had written the song, Mercury described the process as having a germinal idea, polishing it, then adding and taking out bits until it was exactly as he wanted it.

Recording

The song was recorded over three weeks by the band and producer Roy Thomas Baker. Recording began at Rockfield Studio 1 near Monmouth on August 24, 1975, after a 3-week rehearsal period in Herefordshire.^[1] During the making of the track, a further four studios -- Roundhouse, SARM (East), Scorpion, and Wessex -- were used.^[1] According to some band members, Mercury had worked out the entire song in his head and directed the band through the song.

May, Mercury, and Taylor sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs.^[2] 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.^[1] The tapes had passed over the recording heads so many times the normally opaque tapes could be seen through, as the oxide layer was beginning to wear off.^[3] 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.

A backing track of the grand piano (Mercury), bass guitar (Deacon) and drums (Taylor) was recorded first. 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 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 it was finished it was the most expensive single ever made and remains one of the most elaborate recordings in music history.^[1]

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. Everett did just the opposite, playing the song 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.^[1]

Song structure

The song is nearly six minutes in length and is composed of six distinct sections - introduction, ballad, guitar solo, opera, rock, and an outro.

Introduction (0:00-0:48)

The song begins with close four-part harmony a cappella introduction in B-flat, 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: chromatic side-slipping on "easy come, easy go" highlight the dream-like atmosphere. The end of this section is marked by the bass entrance and the familiar cross-handed piano vamp in B-flat.

Ballad (0:48-2:36)

The grand piano continues the 2-bar vamp in B-flat. Deacon's bass guitar enters playing the first note, 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. The chromatic bass line at the end of brings about a modulation to E-flat. Here Taylor's drums enter (1:19), and the narrator makes the first of several invocations to his "mama" in the new key, reusing the original theme. The narrator explains his regret over "mak[ing] you cry" and urging mama to "carry on" as if "nothing really matters." A truncated phrase connects to a repeat of the vamp in B-flat. As the ballad proceeds into its second verse, 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." Another chromatic bass descent brings a modulation to the key of A, and the "Opera" section.

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 the song's first highlight: a guitar solo by May that serves as the segue from ballad to opera. May's solo continues to build intensity, but, once the bass line completes its descent establishing the new key, the entire band cuts out abruptly at 3:02 except for quiet quaver chords on the piano: the "opera" has begun. In live performances, the stage would go dark and all the members of the band would walk offstage and allow the entire opera section to play from the recording.

Opera (3:02-4:07)

A rapid series of rhythmic and harmonic changes (E flat major to F minor to A major, among others) introduces a pseudo-operatic midsection, which contains the bulk of the elaborate vocal multitracking, depicting the narrator's "descent into hell". While the underlying pulse of the song is maintained, 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 May, Mercury, and Taylor sing their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs.^[2] 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, Figaro, "Bismillah," and Beelzebub, as rival factions fight over the narrator's soul. The introduction is recalled with the chromatic inflection on "I'm just a poor boy...easy come, easy go." The section concludes with a full choral treatment of the lyric, "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me."

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 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 the film 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 follows 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 effect was achieved 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 to me..." The final line, "any way the wind blows," is followed by the barely audible sound of a gong.

Promotional video

The video for the single was directed by Bruce Gowers, using ideas from the band members themselves. It was created to allow the band to be on tour and appear "live" on the BBC's Top of the Pops.^[4] Shot in just over four hours on the band's rehearsal stage, it cost £4500 to produce,^[1] 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) had made promotional clips to accompany their single releases.

However, 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. The video has been widely hailed as the first true pop promo, launching the MTV age.^[2]

The famous image of Mercury with his hands crossed over his chest was originally from the Queen II album cover, and was shot by rock photographer Mick Rock, inspired by a 1934 photograph of Marlene Dietrich smoking a cigarette with her hands held up and the exact same lighting.

Popularity

In 1977, only two years after its release, "Bohemian Rhapsody" was named 'The Best Single Of The Last 25 Years' by BPI.^[2]

"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. The song stayed at number one on the British charts for nine weeks – the longest stay since 1957, and another five weeks during 1991-1992. It has the fourth longest total of weeks at #1 on the UK singles chart. It is also the only UK single ever to sell a million copies on two separate occasions and is placed third in the official list of the best-selling singles in the United Kingdom.

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 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.

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.

As of 2004 "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the second most played song on British radio.^[5]

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.^[6] Beginning with the A Day at the Races tour, the band have left 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, using the opportunity 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.

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.

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 took 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.

Selected cover versions

• Fuzzbox - 12" singles What's The Point (1987) and Self! (1989). This a cappella version was one of the first covers of "Bohemian Rhapsody".
• Bad News - album Bad News (1987). The spoof rock band created for the UK Channel 4 TV series The Comic Strip Presents... and released Bohemian Rhapsody also as a single. It reached number 44 in the UK Singles Chart. The cover version was produced by Brian May. John Deacon, known for his reluctance to sing, provided some backing vocals.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic - album Alapalooza (1993). A high-speed polka version of the song, renamed "Bohemian Polka".
• Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - album Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Play Queen (1995).
• The Braids - High School High soundtrack album (1996). The bay area duo recorded an R&B version of this song for the soundtrack to the Jon Lovitz movie High School High. It was produced by Third Eye Blind's lead singer Stephan Jenkins and was also released as a single.
• Montserrat Caballé - album Friends for Life (1997). Duet with Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson.
• The California Guitar Trio does an instrumental version on the album Rocks the West (2000).
• The Flaming Lips - album Killer Queen (2005). The cover was also performed live.
• G4 - album G4 (2005). The band, The X Factor runners-up in the UK, released a version of the song as their debut single, reaching #9 in the UK Singles Chart.
• Mnozil Brass - DVD Seven (2005), features the Austrian brass ensemble, singing and playing in their own comedic style.
• Australian gypsy-fusion band Monsieur Camembert have performed the song live, and a recording of it appears on their self-titled double album.
• Pop-Classical vocalist Russell Watson covers Bohemian Rhapsody on his third album Reprise (2003)

• Rolf Harris did a version in the style of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" complete with wobble board

See also

• List of songs in English labeled the best ever
• List of songs that have been considered among the greatest ever

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} An Invitation To The Opera (english) pp. 1. Sound On Sound, October 1995. Retrieved on 2006-08-16.
2. ^ ^a b c d The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody (english) pp. 1. The British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved on 2006-08-16.
3. ^ Queen: A Night at the Opera. The Surround Mix (english) pp. 1. Sound On Sound, June 2002. Retrieved on 2006-08-16.
4. ^ Queen - The Royal Legend - A Night at the Opera (english) pp. 1. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
5. ^ ClassicBands.com. The 100 Most Played Songs (english) pp. 1. Retrieved on 2006-08-17.
6. ^ "Queen Hyde Park Medley". 4:45-4:50. Retrieved from YouTube.

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
• Bohemian Rhapsody at Google Video
• Live performance at Budapest, 1986 at YouTube.