Bohemian Rhapsody: the story on HearLore

Bohemian Rhapsody

Freddie Mercury began developing the song in the late 1960s while playing parts of it on a piano. One early piece known as The Cowboy Song contained lyrics that ended up in the final version produced years later, specifically Mama just killed a man. Producer Roy Thomas Baker recalled how Mercury once played the opening ballad section on the piano for him in his flat. He played the beginning on the piano then stopped and said And this is where the opera section comes in! Then they went out to eat dinner. Guitarist Brian May stated that the band thought Mercury's blueprint for the song was intriguing and original worthy of work. According to May much of Queen's material was written in the studio but this song was all in Freddie's mind before they started. Queen spent a month rehearsing at Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey in mid-1975. Recording began on the 24th of August 1975 at Rockfield Studio 1 near Monmouth South Wales after a three-week rehearsal at Penrhos Court near Kington Herefordshire. During the making of the track four additional studios Roundhouse Sarm Studios Scorpio Sound and Wessex Sound Studios were used. Mercury used a C. Bechstein concert grand piano which he played in the promotional video and the UK tour. The piano was allegedly the same one Paul McCartney had used to record the Beatles' song Hey Jude as well as the same one Rick Wakeman used on David Bowie's 1971 album Hunky Dory.

Recording Logistics

The entire piece took three weeks to record and in some sections featured 180 overdubs. In multiple interviews May recalled how Mercury's vocal overdubs were so exquisitely precise that he would create a natural phasing effect. Since the studios of the time only offered 24-track analogue tape it was necessary for the three to overdub themselves many times and bounce these down to successive sub-mixes. In the end eighth-generation tapes were used. The various sections of tape containing the desired sub-mixes had to be spliced cut and assembled in the correct sequence. May recalled placing a tape in front of the light and being able to see through it as the tape had been used so many times. Baker said Every time Freddie came up with another Galileo I would add another piece of tape to the reel. Baker recalls that they kept wearing out the tape which meant having to do transfers. May stated that his better material stems from this way of working in which he thought of the tune before playing it: The fingers tend to be predictable unless being led by the brain. According to Baker the end of the song was much heavier because it was one of the first mixes to be done with automation. If you really listen to it the ballad starts off clean and as the opera section gets louder and louder the vocals get more and more distorted. You can still hear this on the CD. They are clearly distorted.

When was Bohemian Rhapsody recorded?

Recording began on the 24th of August 1975 at Rockfield Studio 1 near Monmouth South Wales after a three-week rehearsal at Penrhos Court near Kington Herefordshire. The entire piece took three weeks to record and in some sections featured 180 overdubs.

How many times did Bohemian Rhapsody reach number one in the UK?

Bohemian Rhapsody became the 1975 UK Christmas number one holding the top position for nine weeks. It is also the only single to have been Christmas number one twice with the same version when re-released as a double A-side single with These Are the Days of Our Lives in 1991 staying at number one for five weeks.

Who directed the music video for Bohemian Rhapsody?

The video was directed by Bruce Gowers who had directed a video of the band's 1974 performance at the Rainbow Theatre in London. It was recorded by cameraman Barry Dodd and assistant director/floor manager Jim McCutcheon.

What happened to Bohemian Rhapsody in 1992?

In 1992 the song enjoyed renewed popularity in the United States after being featured in a scene in the film Wayne's World where the titular character and his friends headbang in a car to the hard rock part near the end of the song. The song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart after 16 years reaching number two behind Kris Kross's Jump and spending 17 weeks on the chart.

How did critics react to Bohemian Rhapsody upon release?

Promotional Video Innovation

The band used Trillion a subsidiary of Trident Studios their former management company and recording studio. They hired one of their trucks and got it to Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire where the band were rehearsing for their tour. The video was directed by Bruce Gowers who had directed a video of the band's 1974 performance at the Rainbow Theatre in London and was recorded by cameraman Barry Dodd and assistant director/floor manager Jim McCutcheon. The video was recorded in just four hours on the 10th of November 1975 at a cost of £4,500. Gowers reported that the band was involved in the discussion of the video and the result and was a co-operative to that extent but there was only one leader. The video opens with a shot of the four band members standing in diamond formation with their heads tilted back in near darkness as they sing the a cappella part. The lights fade up and the shots cross-fade into close-ups of Mercury. The composition of the shot is the same as Mick Rock's cover photograph for their second album Queen II. The photo inspired by a photograph of actress Marlene Dietrich was the band's favourite image of themselves. The video then fades into them playing their instruments. In the opera section of the video the scene reverts to the Queen II standing positions after which they perform once again on stage during the hard rock segment. In the closing seconds of the video Roger Taylor is depicted stripped to the waist striking the tam-tam in the manner of the trademark of the Rank Organisation's Gongman familiar in the UK as the opening of all Rank film productions. All of the special effects were achieved during the recording rather than editing. The visual effect of Mercury's face cascading away during the echoed lines Magnifico and Let me go was accomplished by pointing the camera at a monitor giving visual feedback a glare analogous to audio feedback. The honeycomb illusion was created using a shaped lens. The video was edited within five hours because it was due to be broadcast the same week in which it was taped. The video was sent to the BBC as soon as it was completed and aired for the first time on Top of the Pops in November 1975.

Critical Reception Evolution

The UK music papers reacted with bemusement recognising that the song was original and technically accomplished but they mostly remained indifferent. Pete Erskine of NME observed that It'll be interesting to see whether it'll be played in its entirety on the radio. It's performed extremely well but more in terms of production than anything else... Someone somewhere has decided that the boys' next release must sound epic. And it does. They sound extremely self-important. Allan Jones of Melody Maker was unimpressed describing the song as a superficially impressive pastiche of incongruous musical styles and that Queen contrived to approximate the demented fury of the Balham Amateur Operatic Society performing The Pirates of Penzance... Bohemian Rhapsody is full of drama passion and romance and sounds rather like one of those mini-opera affairs that Pete Townshend used to tack on to the end of Who albums before concluding The significance of the composition eludes me totally though I must admit to finding it horrifically fascinating. It's likely to be a hit of enormous proportions despite its length. Ray Fox-Cumming of Record Mirror was also left unmoved saying It has no immediate selling point whatsoever: among its many parts there's scarcely a shred of a tune and certainly no one line to latch onto. There's no denying that it's devilishly clever encompassing everything from bits of operatic harmonies to snatches that sound like Sparks and David Cassidy but in the end the whole adds up to less than the sum of its parts. He did however say that it was unthinkable that it wouldn't be a hit. The most positive review came from Sounds which called it impossibly disjointed and complex but a dazzlingly clever epic from the fevered mind of Freddie Mercury. Cash Box called it a softly sung ode to the prospect of moving on from staid ways with good singing and good production. Record World called it a majestic vocal performance that takes on operatic proportions.

Cultural Legacy And Impact

In 1976 when asked for his opinion on Bohemian Rhapsody the Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson praised the song as the most competitive thing that's come along in ages and a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer of artistic music. Producer Steve Levine said the track broke all sonic production barriers in a fashion similar to the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations 1966 which also consisted of disparate music sections recorded separately Phil Spector's Be My Baby 1963 and 10cc's I'm Not in Love 1975. Greg Lake whose song I Believe in Father Christmas was kept from number one in the UK by Bohemian Rhapsody when it was released in 1975 acknowledged that he was beaten by one of the greatest records ever made describing it as a once-in-a-lifetime recording. In 1992 the song enjoyed renewed popularity in the United States after being featured in a scene in the film Wayne's World in which the titular character and his friends headbang in a car to the hard rock part near the end of the song. The film's director Penelope Spheeris was hesitant to use the song as it did not entirely fit with the lead characters who were fans of less flamboyant hard rock and heavy metal. Mike Myers insisted that the song fit the scene. According to music scholar Theodore Gracyk by 1992 when the film was released even classic rock stations had stopped playing the almost six-minute song. Gracyk suggests that beginning the tape in the middle of the song after the lyrics which provide the song's narrative forces the film's audience to respond to its presence in the scene without the commentary of the lyrics. Helped by the song the soundtrack album of the film was a major hit. In connection with this a new video was released interspersing excerpts from the film with footage from the original Queen video along with some live footage of the band. Myers was horrified that the record company had mixed clips from Wayne's World with Queen's original video fearing that this would upset the band. He said they've just whizzed on a Picasso. He asked the record company to tell Queen that the video was not his idea and that he apologised to them. The band though sent a reply simply saying Thank you for using our song. This astonished Myers who responded Thank you for even letting me touch the hem of your garments! Made in Heaven video documentary Champions of the World.

Live Performance Adaptations

The a cappella opening was too complex to perform live so Mercury tried various ways to introduce the song. When Mustapha became a live favourite Mercury would often sub in that song's a cappella opening which was easier to reproduce live as it was only one voice, this combination features in their 1979 live album Live Killers. During their 1982 Hot Space Tour and occasionally at other times Mercury would do a piano improvisation generally the introduction to Death on Two Legs that ended with the first notes of the song. Often the preceding song would end and Mercury would sit at the piano say a quick word and start playing the ballad section. At Live Aid where Bohemian Rhapsody was their opening song Mercury commenced with the ballad section. Initially following the song's release the operatic middle section proved a problem for the band because of extensive multi-tracking it could not be performed on stage. The band did not have enough of a break between the Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera tours to find a way to make it work live so they split the song into three sections that were played throughout the night. At the beginning of the show the operatic section from the album would be played from tape as the introduction to the setlist. During this playback Mercury would appear briefly to sing live for the line I see a little sillhouetto of a man standing behind a white sheet in silhouette. As the song segued into the hard rock section the band would emerge on the smoke-filled stage, the playback would end at this point and the hard rock section would be performed live without the final ballad section which appeared later in the set before transitioning into the following song Ogre Battle. This entire segment would be omitted for the band's Christmas Eve 1975 broadcast at the Hammersmith Odeon instead being replaced by Now I'm Here. The opening and closing ballads were played as part of a medley with Killer Queen and March of the Black Queen taking the place of the operatic and hard rock sections. For the band's short Summer of '76 tour where the same medley was played it would be immediately preceded by You're My Best Friend.