Bohemian Rhapsody

Meaning of the song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, and what it is about

The British rock group Queen's 1975 single Bohemian Rhapsody was taken from their fourth studio album, A Night at the Opera. The song, which was composed by lead vocalist Freddie Mercury, is a six-minute symphony that features an opening, a ballad section, an operatic passage, a hard rock section, and a contemplative finale. It is unusual for not having a refraining chorus. Galileo is the astronomer called out in the song. The song length is 5 minutes and 55 seconds long.

One of the few progressive rock songs from the 1970s that was widely popular and appealed to a general audience

Here is the height of the 1970s, the grandest decade in rock. "Bohemian Rhapsody" has upto 200 vocal parts and covers rock, opera, heavy metal, and pop in only six minutes.

Even though it sounds sophisticated, recording it was a complete mess. Freddie Mercury simply began pounding down chords for his bandmates to follow after taping scraps of paper with his own peculiar musical notations to his keyboard.

He managed to put it all together flawlessly, singing about characters from plays like Scaramouche and killing men as allegories for destroying his heterosexual self-image. Queen had produced a song that perfectly captured the ludicrous tragedy and humour of human existence, even though recording equipment was so stressed by the tune that some recordings almost became transparent from the number of overdubs.

Mercury described "Bohemian Rhapsody" as a "mock opera" that was created by fusing three of his songs.

With pompous choruses, scathing recitative, and twisted Italian operatic phrases, the song covers aspects of opera. Scaramouche, the fandango, Galileo Galilei, Figaro, and Beelzebub are all mentioned in the lyrics, along with "Bismillah!"

The third-best-selling single of all time in the UK, "Bohemian Rhapsody" topped the UK Singles Chart for nine weeks (plus an additional five weeks after Mercury's passing in 1991). Over six million copies were sold globally, and it also reached the top of the charts in a number of other nations, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The song's 1976 peak in the US was at number nine, but after featuring in the 1992 movie Wayne's World, it rose to a new high of number two.

Lyrics of the song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide

No escape from reality

Open your eyes

Look up to the skies and see

I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy

Because I'm easy come, easy go

Little high, little low

Any way the wind blows

Doesn't really matter to me, to me

Mama, just killed a man

Put a gun against his head

Pulled my trigger, now he's dead

Mama, life had just begun

But now I've gone and thrown it all away

Mama, ooh

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, ooh (Any way the wind blows)

I don't wanna die

I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

I see a little silhouetto of a man

Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?

Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening me

(Galileo) Galileo

(Galileo) Galileo

Galileo Figaro

Magnifico-o-o-o-o

I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

He's just a poor boy from a poor family

Spare him his life from this monstrosity

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?

Bismillah! No, we will not let you go (Let him go!)

Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let him go!)

Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let me go!)

Will not let you go (Let me go!)

Never let you go (Never, never, never, never let me go)

Oh oh oh oh

No, no, no, no, no, no, no

Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia (Mamma mia, let me go)

Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?

So you think you can love me and leave me to die?

Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby

Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here

Ooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah

Nothing really matters

Anyone can see

Nothing really matters

Nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows