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Bohemian Rhapsody

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pyrococcal (talk | contribs) at 10:25, 29 August 2005 (→Recording: re-wrote this a bit to make it more technically accurate. Some wiki links for the recording terms would be a help though). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song written by Freddie Mercury, originally recorded by his band Queen for their 1975 album A Night at the Opera. The song has a somewhat unusual musical form for a piece of pop music — despite this, it was released as a single, and was 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 also accompanied by what is generally cited as the first 'promotional video' in popular music. The song was included in all Queen's subsequent live concert performances, and still enjoys great popularity in many parts of the world.

File:Bohemian rhapsody single.jpg
Bohemian Rhapsody single cover

Lyrics and meaning

The title's "Bohemian" refers to the "easy come, easy go" "poor boy" character singing the song (a follower of bohemianism - "living a wandering or vagabond life"). A musical rhapsody is a "composition irregular in form and suggestive of improvisation", which applies to the song itself and not something in the song, so a literal interpretation is that the song title means "A rhapsody about a bohemian".

The lyrics set the stage with the theme "No escape from reality", then tell the story of "a poor boy" who is "easy come, easy go" and shoots a man dead. He tells his mama "I don't want to die. I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all." The court responds to his pleas witht "We will not let you go". The killer's reply, "Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me," is a refrain from start to end. Believing that things don't matter do not prevent them from mattering. There is indeed, "No escape from reality".

It has been suggested that the song references Freddie Mercury's struggle with AIDS. As Bohemian Rhapsody was first performed in 1975, roughly 6 years before the AIDS epidemic's 1981 start, these thoughts are incorrect. However, the song does contain many lyrics that reference death: "Mama, life had just begun, but now I've gone and thrown it all away", "Mama, ooohoo, didn't mean to make you cry, if I'm not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on... as if nothing really matters", "Too late, my time has come, sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time," "Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go, gotta leave you all behind, and face the truth", "Mama, ooohoo (anyway the wind blows) I don't wanna die! I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all!" and "So you think you can love me and leave me to die!".

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. These had passed over the recording heads so many times that they 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 the correct sequence using adhesive tape (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.

The song

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 is followed by a ballad, which is primarily Mercury's vocals over the piano/bass guitar/drums backing track. The piano part incorporates a distinctive figure in which Mercury employs "cross-handed" playing, keeping the bass notes ringing by use of the sustain pedal, and using his left hand to double-up on the treble notes.

The guitar enters during the second verse, with May playing a series of harmonies. After the lyric "shivers down my spine", May created a 'shiver' sound by playing the strings behind the bridge of his guitar. At the end of the second verse, the first guitar solo appears. This was created by May, and is melodically different from the verses, as he didn't like a guitar solo to be simply a repeat of the melody.

Now begins 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 a solo piano, to 84-part vocal choirs. The choir effect was created by having Mercury, May and Taylor sing separate low, mid and high sections three times. The band used the bell effect for lyrics "Magnifico" and "Let him 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.

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 section 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.

The song then returns to the ballad style. 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 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 was created for the sole purpose of allowing the band to be on tour and appear on the BBC's Top of the Pops. It was shot in just over four hours and cost only £4500 to produce, using an outside broadcast truck owned by one of the band's managers. Shot on the band's rehearsal stage, it was designed to show the band performing live.

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.

The video for the single was directed by Bruce Gowers, using ideas from the band themselves.

It was not the first time a band had made a promo, but differed in being shot entirely on videotape as opposed to film. It is therefore widely regarded as the first real music video (although most modern music videos are shot on film anyway). 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.

Popularity

"Bohemian Rhapsody" 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.

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 2003 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.

The track 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

  • Queen fans 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 acapella introduction entirely, beginning with the first ballad verse. For the middle 'opera section', the band would either medley into another song altogether (for instance, Killer Queen), or leave the stage, and play a tape of the studio version. When either backing tape or medley were complete, they would then continue Bohemian Rhapsody from the 'heavy rock' section through to the end.
  • 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 the 1970s, 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]
  • The name Beelzebub, the name of 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 has remarkable similarities or references to Albert Camus' existential novel The Stranger. However, it is not documented that this was done purposely.

Cover versions

References

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