This programme contains some strong language
NEEDLE CRACKLES
# Is this the real life...? #
We were suddenly in a sort of golden place.
# Is this just fantasy...? #
We were sort of getting off on how far can we take this?
It's nearly 30 years old and still one of the world's best loved songs.
# Scaramouch, Scaramouch... #
It's the biggest single of the century.
# Thunderbolt and lightning... #
I never heard anything like it.
For the first time ever, this is the full story behind Bohemian Rhapsody.
We're on a journey of discovery back to the studio with the band.
The man who put it together is going to take it apart.
I've lost it.
OK, I've lost another Galileo.
# Will not let you go! Let me go!... #
We're going to find out how they made THAT video.
And you get this feedback that trails across.
# No, no, no, no
# Oh, mama mia, mama mia... # Mama mia, let me go.
And we'll be asking
some of the greatest literary minds in the country
what the song is all about.
Beelzebub does seem to make some sense!
# Me-e-e-e... #
# Dun-dun-dun! #
Great stuff!
"Mama, I killed a man."
Wow! OK, I'm there! What happened?
"Nothing happened! We all went off singing nonsense.
"Scaramouch, can you do the fandango?" No!
It hurts me now, when I hear the song, it hurts.
# Any way the wind blows... #
1975.
History is made as the Americans and Russians meet in space.
Saigon falls and Vietnam is finally over.
At home, unemployment hits the one million mark
as Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to lead the Tory Party.
Jaws is a box-office smash.
And Queen release the single that will catapult them to stardom
and provide inspiration for a new generation of rockers.
# So you think you can love me and leave me to die?
# Oh, baby-y-y... #
Axl Rose performed the song at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert
after the singer's death in 1991.
He was joined by a host of stars who'd grown up with Queen.
# Your mommy and your daddy gonna plague me till I die... #
1975, I was working in a factory in Sheffield
and daydreaming about wanting to be in a band
that could produce material of the quality of Bohemian Rhapsody.
# All your love tonight... #
I was obsessed with getting all the music that band put out.
It was a huge part of my whole growing up.
# Whoa, yeah! #
Even the band of the moment owe a huge debt to Queen.
Bohemian Rhapsody is the Holy Grail.
There's only that. There's nothing else anywhere near it.
If you ask anybody, "Honestly, do you like Bohemian Rhapsody?"
if they say no, they're lying.
The release of Bohemian Rhapsody defied all logic.
It was a song that broke all the rules.
For a start, it was six minutes long...
..and it had an opera section.
# I see a little silhouetto of a man
# Scaramouch, Scaramouch Will you do the fandango...? #
Nothing like it had been heard before
and there's been nothing like it since. But people loved it.
It went to number one and stayed there for nine weeks.
# Magnifico-o-o-o... #
But Queen weren't a new band.
It had taken them almost five years to get there.
The year before, they'd had their first success
with Seven Seas Of Rhye.
Long lost from the BBC archive,
this Top Of The Pops performance was videoed by a fan.
Freddie's distinctive style was taking shape even then.
# Seven seas of Rhye... #
They always were different
to everybody else that was around at the time.
They always projected this image of
being the big, huge rock stars
even when they hadn't got two ha'pennies to rub together.
Queen even turned to women's fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.
I was well known as doing theatrical-type women's outfits,
and I think it showed quite an extraordinary sense of thought
that they came to me.
But it wasn't just the rock star look that Queen were perfecting.
Their unique sound was also beginning to take shape...
..thanks to their producer, Roy Thomas Baker.
Working with Queen meant, be pure definition,
you were working out of the zone.
Being told by Freddie and the guys,
"Queen II - we've got nothing to lose,
"just put anything in there,
"any idea you come up with, just give it a go."
# Once upon a time an old man told me a fable
# When the piper is gone and the soup is cold... #
# She keeps her Moet et Chandon in a pretty cabinet... #
Queen camped it up even more for their third single, Killer Queen,
which went to number two in 1974.
# For Khrushchev and Kennedy
# At any time, an invitation you can't decline... #
By now, they should have been enjoying
the trappings of a rock star lifestyle,
but they were only being paid £200 a week between them.
# She's a killer queen Gunpowder, gelatin... #
Freddie was making demands, various things he wanted,
and we explained to him that the money wasn't there yet.
It would be there.
We could see it coming.
If the sales were like they were reported to be, it would flow.
But no matter how much Freddie stamped his feet,
there was no money,
so Queen turned to Elton John's manager, John Reid.
There was a kind of stalemate
between them and the Sheffield brothers.
Nothing to do with me.
All I was concerned with was how to get it sorted out,
how to let them move forward
and let everybody walk away without losing face.
So that's what I did.
At that time, Freddie lived here, on Holland Road in Kensington, London.
It was here that he wrote most of Bohemian Rhapsody.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY PLAYS ON A PIANO
Freddie invited me round to his flat in Holland Road.
I went round and when I went in, the thing that struck me first
was that Freddie was listening
to the Liza Minnelli Cabaret soundtrack.
At that time, I thought, "This is a rock group."
This music didn't kind of fit.
Then he showed me the flat. In the bedroom, there was an upright piano
with candle arms on it, which was his headboard.
And he said that sometimes during the night,
he would think of something musical and flip it back and play it.
He was double jointed. His hands could bend back completely.
I think that's where some of the passages
from Bohemian Rhapsody started.
Playing it backwards.
MUSIC: Sweet Lady by Queen
In the summer of 1975,
Queen left London for Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, South Wales.
30 years later, they're back.
It's the first time they've visited
since they recorded Bohemian Rhapsody.
I think there was a lot of stress
and we were very worried about the management situation.
We were away from home, away from our kids and our families.
We had young children. It's not ideal.
We'd just signed up with John Reid, who was Elton's manager,
and John had said, "OK, boys, I'll take care of the business,
"you just make the best album you've ever made."
So there was that feeling.
It was like, "We have to go in here and kill."
I actually remember driving here,
thinking, "I think I'm going the right way,"
and playing Sheer Heart Attack, thinking,
"That was the last one we did. Oh, God, that's good, isn't it?
"It's going to be hard to make a better one than that."
Welcome back after all these years. Thank you.
Must be like a walk down memory lane.
This is where the seeds for Bohemian Rhapsody were sown.
Queen spent two weeks here recording backing tracks
for what was to become the most expensive record ever made -
A Night At The Opera.
# Yesterday my life was in ruins... #
It's a poignant trip for Queen.
This is where their journey from mediocre domestic success
to international stardom really began.
# Got a feeling I should be doing all right... #
The control room.
Yes, this does actually trigger some memories for me, I've got to say.
It's a bit plush.
I think in our day, I remember there was no acoustic treatment.
This is the Bohemian Rhapsody backing track for me.
I can distinctly remember being here and seeing you guys go through it.
Our backing tracks were always either bass, guitar and drums
or bass, piano and drums.
This one would be Roger, Freddie and John.
They're putting down the backing track
and there's lots of spaces in it for the operatic bits.
Lots of gaps and Freddie conducting.
Shall we have a look in the studio? Yeah.
Here, for the very first time, you can hear Freddie Mercury rehearsing
the piano parts for what producer Roy Thomas Baker calls Fred's Thing.
These outtakes from the original recording sessions at Rockfield
have never been heard before.
Take one of mark two version of Fred's Thing.
PIANO MUSIC FOR BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
MUSIC STOPS Fuck!
Still too slow! No, that's nice! That's nice.
Bit slower, though.
He just said, "Look, I've got this very strange thing.
"You have to be patient when we do it cos there'll be lots of gaps."
As soon as we'd mapped it out,
we all understood what was happening
but it was a bit confusing at first.
It's sort of coming back a bit. Hmm.
I think the piano WAS about there. I think it was.
Like that. Yeah, more like that than like that.
You were over there, but there was no partition for the drums.
Yeah, that's right. It was just all in one room.
Yeah. That was the drum kit.
Yeah. Nine AC30s, of course,
but I don't think I would have had the nine in here.
We were still saving up for the one, weren't we?
Yeah! I think most likely I would have had three.
I remember the first time I heard the melody,
the main sort of melody, I loved the melody. Yeah.
A lot of our stuff was done, written in the studio,
but this was an exception. Really, as Roger says,
it was all in Freddie's mind before we started.
Freddie was a great person to be in a band with really because,
one, he was such a great... rhythmic, rhythmic piano player,
and it made the backing tracks very easy to do.
They sort of... It all knitted together. They swung well.
His bony fingers would whack it out.
The backing tracks, if you listen to them now, are immaculate!
Freddie and Roger and John are just absolutely together.
It's totally live, totally real. There's a feel there.
PERCUSSIVE MUSIC PLAYS
As soon as you hit an E flat chord on here,
you think of Freddie. I do, anyway.
It's nearly 20 years since Queen played together.
This performance at Wembley in 1986 saw them bow out on top.
No-one could sell tickets faster.
But if it hadn't been for the success of Bohemian Rhapsody,
they might never have got there.
So what's so special about the song that made Queen?
To find out, we have to speak to the man who put it all together.
Capitol Records, Hollywood, Los Angeles -
home to some of the most important recordings in the history of music.
Nearly 30 years after he delivered the finished track to EMI,
Roy Thomas Baker has come here to take Bohemian Rhapsody apart.
# Galileo... # I've lost it.
OK, I've lost another Galileo.
There's another Galileo missing.
This is the original 24-track tape in its original box.
It's now so fragile
that it has to be baked in an oven before it can be played
or it will disintegrate.
And here's Freddie's doodles on the sleeve notes,
which he did at the time Bohemian Rhapsody was recording.
# Thunderbolt and lightning, Very, very frightening me... #
The original mix, when we were doing it manually,
it was a case of I was sitting approximately here,
controlling the drums, bass, piano, guitars.
Then, about here was Freddie, and he had control over the vocals.
He'd be switching vocals on and off and doing it that way.
Let me push up the...
# This time tomorrow
# Carry on, carry on
# As if nothing really matters... #
So this is the piano.
This is the piano solo.
This was actually done live by Freddie as we were doing the track.
So when you listen to the piano tracks,
you can just about hear some of the drums in the background
because it was all done in one room, it wasn't done in a separate room.
We put covers over the piano to try and deaden down the sound
of the other instruments.
But the bass, you can hear the bass in the background,
you can hear the drums.
The drums...
..then.
This is the drums on their own.
DRUM TRACK PLAYS
# Scaramouch, Scaramouch Will you do the fandango?
# Thunderbolt and light... #
Now John, who was on bass, we spread the bass over three channels.
BASS GUITAR PLAYS
We had the...drums and bass together and piano.
DRUMS, BASS AND PIANO OF BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
VOCALS ADDED
This is the solo from Brian.
That was also recorded on one track.
It wasn't done on multiple tracks, it was just one track.
I wanted to make a little tune
that would be a sort of counterpart to the main melody.
I didn't want to just play the melody.
It could all have been so different, couldn't it?
I can remember singing it to Freddie
and him going, "Yeah, that would be good."
I think, certainly my best stuff is born that way.
It's much better for me to hear it in my head and then try and play it
than sit down with a guitar and let the fingers do it.
The fingers tend to be a little...predictable
unless they're being led by the brain.
We were sort of getting off on the...on how far can we take this
and how big can we make this?
"Let's make a wall of sound that really is a wall,
"that starts down there and goes right up."
So, really, we were quite interested
in seeing how far you could actually go
before it became totally ridiculous,
or the limits of the technology stopped you.
OK, this is the little Galileo section,
which is between high vocal from Roger and low from Freddie.
So, this is Roger's track first.
# Galileo, Galileo
# Galileo Figaro... #
We used to joke about pliers under the frock.
We were lucky. We had a very good chemistry when it came to vocals.
I mean, Brian could get down quite low.
Fred had this incredibly powerful voice through the middle
and I was very good on all the high stuff.
So we all sang every part.
Also, now you're about to hear the opera section.
Only the vocals, no backing track at all.
# 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! Will not let you go!
# Let me go-o-o-o No, no, no, no, no, no, no
# Oh, mama mia, mama mia
# Mama mia, let me go
# Beelzebub has a devil put aside
# For me-e-e, for me-e-e, for meeee
# 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... #
John volunteered not to sing. I don't think he liked his own vocals.
He wasn't going to get an argument from any of us, including the band,
so, basically, it was the three guys,
it was Freddie, Brian and Roger who would sing.
This is going to be a rare scenario.
We're going to be playing the instrumentation
of the opera section without the opera.
Just purely the track,
and the track consists of drums, bass, Freddie on piano
and Roger's overdub of a timpani.
There's a few...stumbled notes here,
which obviously weren't supposed to be heard. Now you might hear them.
INSTRUMENTAL TRACK PLAYS
# So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye... #
The thing about Freddie was he was far more organised than he lets on.
He'd have little scraps of paper everywhere
with little things and Galileos here,
so it was all written down just on paper and pencil.
It seemed like it was a bit haphazard, but it wasn't.
There was times it wasn't easy, it was very, very hard,
but we didn't mind because we knew we were setting certain trends
that then eventually technology caught up with us,
so that was pretty good.
Four hours into their visit to Rockfield
and Brian and Roger can't resist striking up in the studio.
Yeah... That note without the bass.
Right, then. To the living quarters.
# Seaside whenever you stroll along with me
# I'm merely contemplating what you feel inside... #
This is Roy, this is...Freddie, I think.
And I think this is me.
Welcome to my luxurious apartment.
It wasn't just coming in to make Bohemian Rhapsody.
It was like we had to make the album which was gonna, I guess, save us.
If I'd realised Brian's room
was this much bigger than mine at the time...
There would have been hell to pay!
Yes, this was bigger than Roger's room, yeah.
# Fantastic, c'est la vie mesdames et messieurs... #
It really was a job of work.
I remember we utilised the various rooms
about what is basically an old farmyard.
# Duh, duh, do-do, do-do do, do, do, do, do... #
This is definitely not on a par with Brian's.
One of the key memories I have is
we were all sitting up one Saturday night with nothing better to do
than watch A Night At The Opera by the Marx Brothers.
We were big Marx Brothers fans.
I think it's a nicer room. Relatively opulent, his was.
Kitchen... It's got a door and everything!
We'd been thinking of things to call the album, etc, etc.
Then suddenly it was there right in front of us - A Night At The Opera.
# As a matter of fact So tres charmant, my dear
# Underneath the moonlight... #
This is in a rather sad state.
This is the desk, actually, Bohemian Rhapsody
and the rest of A Night At The Opera was recorded on.
Missing its guts, some of which are still in use in the studio.
I still enjoy hearing
A Night At The Opera as an album all the way through,
cos that's the way it was designed,
and Bohemian Rhapsody is the jewel in that crown, if you like.
# Sensational seaside rendezvous... #
Years before The Darkness were even born!
After two weeks, Queen left Rockfield and went to London,
where they finished Bohemian Rhapsody and the rest of the album.
You know something special's going on.
I've got this little phrase
where there are two feelings in your body -
you've got a feeling in your head and a feeling in your tummy.
The feeling in you head is the one
that fools you all the time and teases you.
But there's a feeling in the pit of your stomach that you know
when something's right or wrong, and this was just something fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic. Seminal.
When the album was finished, they had to decide on a single.
At six minutes long, though, Bohemian Rhapsody was a huge gamble.
# Is this the real life...? #
I remember Brian brought a rough mix of Bohemian Rhapsody
round to my flat in London.
He says, "This is going to be the new single."
And...he put it on.
And, I think as everybody else he must have played it to said,
"You ain't got a hope in hell of getting this played on radio!"
Seven minute long!
# I'm just a poor boy... #
I had an acetate of it and I played it to a couple of people,
one of whom was Elton John.
And I played it to him and he said,
"Are you fucking mad?"
But Queen had a powerful ally.
We invited Kenny Everett along, and he listened to it,
and he said, "That's wonderful, that's great!
"They should have a new position.
"It shouldn't be one, it should be a position above that, like half.
"And that's where it should be. It should be half."
And we gave him a copy and we said,
"Whatever you do, you can't play this." And he said,
"OK, I won't play it," and winked.
And them that following weekend, he played it, like, 14 times
on his radio, Capital, show.
The choice was made
but Queen were about to go on tour
and, anyway, they couldn't perform the opera section live,
so they had to make a video.
I have to say, the main reason we made it was cos
we didn't want to go on Top Of The Pops.
Not because we didn't like the programme,
but we didn't feel comfortable standing around sort of...miming
in a rather unfamiliar situation.
We wanted to make our own vehicle. Plus we knew we'd be on tour
and if it was in the charts, we wouldn't be able go in there anyway.
We were actually signed to a company called Trillion
that was an independent outside broadcast unit for sports for ITV.
And we suddenly thought, "Why don't we use one of their trucks,
"get their cameras into Elstree?"
where we were rehearsing, and we'd film it.
"We'll put it on this video tape stuff."
# Now I'm here, now I'm here... #
The band called in Bruce Gowers,
who directed a film of Queen's 1974 concert at London's Rainbow Theatre.
He didn't know then, but making the Bohemian Rhapsody video
would change his life forever.
He's now the director of America's biggest show, American Idol.
There was a call from the band, from Freddie and the group,
and we got together and talked about making a video,
which weren't called videos in those days,
it was called a pop promo.
We had the idea of bringing the cover of Queen II to life.
That was our favourite image of us.
# And the light of the night burned bright... #
This cover shot was taken by photographer Mick Rock
18 months before.
He'd been inspired by a picture of the actress Marlene Dietrich,
which he'd showed to Freddie.
He loved it immediately.
He then went and worked on the group and, OK, cool, Marlene Dietrich.
Freddie wanted to be Marlene
and he was determined that should go down.
The whole band was always involved
in the discussion and the end result
so it was a co-operative to that extent,
but there was but one leader.
Just sit there for a sec. Which one do you want?
Try being Freddie for the moment.
So how did they actually achieve the Bohemian Rhapsody look?
There. That's good.
How's that? Down again.
OK and up again. That's it.
We tracked down the team who shot the video.
Cameraman Barry Dodd and floor manager Jim McCutcheon
were sent to Elstree Studios to shoot the video.
They had no idea they were about to become part of pop music history.
They'd been in there rehearsing their tour.
And what a better to rehearse a tour than in a film studio
which is the size of a hangar and soundproofed,
where the roadies come in, build the stage,
build the lighting rig, build the sound rig?
But then they wanted to create a video
of one of the numbers that they'd done.
Get the boys in, shall we?
They had a very analytical approach to everything.
They knew exactly where we were going with what we were doing.
Take your positions, please.
Stand by with the smoke.
Here, using the Queen tribute band GaGa,
Barry and Jim show us how they did it.
I got to Elstree about 7.00 in the evening.
Everything was lit, everything was organised and ready to shoot.
We started shooting about 7.15.
Ready, Barry? I think so, James. Let's have a took at it.
Lose the top lights, please. Back lights up.
Let's have some smoke, please.
And roll the track, please.
Five, four, three, two, one, music.
# Is this the real life...? # Stand by, cross fade.
# ..Is this just fantasy?
# Caught in a landslide
# No escape from reality... # Cross fade. Up you come.
# ..Open your eyes... #
And we lit the four faces and we put the cameras on them.
That was all done beforehand
in one corner of this big studio, this big stage.
It was later that we got on to the rock and roll thing but
what a lot of people probably don't know is
it was all shot in the same area.
# I see a little silhouetto of a man
# Scaramouch, Scaramouch Will you do the fandango?
# Thunderbolt and lightning Very, very frightening me
# Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro... #
What we did to get the echo effect on the "magnifico",
we have a second camera looking at a monitor,
and you get feedback, just the same as audio feedback,
you get video feedback.
So the vision mixer just opens the fader as he sings that line
and you get this feedback that trails across.
# I'm just a poor boy... #
In those days, the technology was good,
but a lot of the effects, we had to create ourselves.
We used a thing like this.
This is similar to the one we used. It's a multi-facet lens.
We held this in front of the camera
to achieve the multiple images that we see.
# Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me... #
In those days, that was special effects. Sort of laughable now.
It was make it up as you go along.
# Spare him his life from this monstrosity... #
BRUCE GOWERS: We finished shooting around 10.30.
That was the choral element and the rock and roll element.
Then we all hightailed down to the pub.
When we came to edit, there was a rush to get it completed
because we were trying to get it aired, I think,
the week of shooting, on Top Of The Pops.
# No, no, no, no, no, no... #
So we cut it in maybe four hours, five hours, something like that.
And as soon as it was done, it was shipped off to the Beeb.
# For me, for me, for meeeee... #
Stop the tape, please.
I remember distinctly seeing the first rough cut that Bruce brought
to show us when we were on tour,
sitting around this little telly watching it.
We all laughed very heartily,
saying, "It's really funny, it's really great."
Slightly kitsch...
..but it seems to bring the song to life.
The video took less than four hours to film and cost just £4,500.
# Is this the real life?
# Is this just fantasy...? #
It aired on Top Of The Pops for the first time in November '75.
It was unforgettable, a seminal moment in music history.
I remember the Bohemian Rhapsody Queen thing being, like, a rarity.
Something that, "Oh, my God, stop everything! It's the Queen video!"
# I'm just a poor boy
# I need no sympathy... #
I remember watching the video
and thinking, "Oh, my God! What is this?!"
# A little high, little low
# Any way the wind blows... #
It just shocked people. "Wow, look at this!",
especially those multi-images
when the big choir was singing and all that.
Nobody had ever done anything like that before.
It was just brilliant.
The video turned Queen and Freddie Mercury into household names,
much to the delight of their families.
Well, it was completely a different thing for us to watch.
In those days, they used to perform live on Top Of The Pops,
but this video came out and everybody was excited about it.
And the way he sang, especially his costumes!
I remember when Freddie came to visit us
for a few days and stayed over.
We thought we'd take him to York for the day.
All we saw was a crowd of these schoolchildren
coming faster and faster towards us and in the end
we had to run the opposite way.
And then I realised, "My God, he's being recognised by just everybody!"
I went to the shops and I was very excited.
They were all round the shops, Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen.
I got one and I was so pleased with myself
that I'm buying my son's first number one record.
# Goodbye, everybody... #
We were in Southampton, playing a concert in our tour.
I remember my mother was there visiting.
I got a phone call in the morning saying we were number one.
I just remember going down to breakfast and going,
"Guess what, Mum. We're number one!"
It was great. It was fantastic!
Of course, it hurts me now when I hear the song. It hurts.
# Any way the wind blows... #
Bohemian Rhapsody went on to sell
more than two million copies in the UK alone.
It sold millions more all over the world.
It's highly collectable. Get your hands on one of these, though,
and you're sitting on a small fortune,
just like Queen's longest-serving roadie, Peter Hince.
This is number 195 and, yeah,
the most collectable record in the world, apparently. Very valuable.
What's it worth? I think it's about two and a half to three grand.
Given to me by my mate Fred.
Thank you, Fred. It'll probably buy a hearing aid which I'm sure,
after listening to all that bloody noise all those years,
I'll need quite soon, so thank you very much.
Some of the music press, however,
didn't think Bohemian Rhapsody was worth a single penny.
In Melody Maker, they decided the song had all the demented fury
of the Balham Amateur Operatic Society
performing The Pirates Of Penzance.
Meanwhile, in America the song only reached number nine in the charts.
Most people there didn't know what to make of it.
There's a sense with Bohemian Rhapsody,
it's almost the quintessential example
of the kind of thing that doesn't exactly go over well in America.
It may have captured the hearts of the record-buying public,
but it had also captured their imagination.
What on earth did it all mean?
"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
"I'm easy come, easy go A little high, a little low
"Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me."
So does anybody know what the lyrics are about?
We went to Oxford University
to ask some of the most brilliant literary minds in the country.
At the start, it says, "Is this the real life?
"Is this just fantasy?" Finding out what the fantasy is about and means
is one of the problems in understanding the whole thing.
The more you know about the personality of who wrote it...
..a man, I think, between cultures...
..between, if you like, selves, presiding over several selves
several kinds of sexual identities and proclivities and habits,
and also, Africa, India, London...
It's a story that no matter how many times you tell it to yourself,
you think, "What on earth is it about?"
You can listen to it over and over.
It's like a sweet lady woman because you try to fathom it...
But you'll never understand it.
Yeah, and you'll never need to understand it.
The bottom line is you love it.
"Mama, just killed a man
"Put a gun against his head Pulled my trigger, now he's dead."
Just killed a man? No, you haven't.
Put a gun against his head? No.
What you've done is taken a nice sounding rhyme from a Beatles song -
"Got up outta bed Dragged a comb across my head..."
That's what you're doing. You're inhabiting a world of,
actually, in some ways, rather...
I did read somewhere that you were the only person that knew what
the song was about and you'd carry that secret to the grave.
I read that as well! Not true?
Well...I know what it means.
I don't think it's that difficult.
I think it's fairly self-explanatory.
There's just a bit of nonsense in the middle.
"Too late, my time has come
"Sends shivers down my spine
"Body's aching all the time Goodbye, everybody
"I've got to go."
Shivers, aching, all sorts of more or less sexual sensations going on.
Indeed, the structure of the lyrics traces a kind of sexual rhythm.
It ends up post-coitally, not in some nihilistic position,
but simply in a state of careless, indifferent, post-coital exhaustion.
"I see a little silhouetto of a man
"Scaramouch, Scaramouch Will you do the fandango?
"Thunderbolt and lightning Very, very frightening me
"Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo Galileo, Figaro, magnifico
"I'm just a poor boy Nobody loves me..."
"Scaramouch, Scaramouch. Do the fandango." Brilliant words!
Who'd use Scaramouch in a pop song?
Galileo. Renaissance scientist, astronomer.
There's no reason for Galileo to be here.
Figaro - The Marriage Of Figaro, perhaps. Mozart?
Magnifico - it's there because it sounds like Figaro,
which sounds like Galileo.
"Mama, I killed a man." Wow!
OK, I'm there. What happened?
"Nothing happened! We all went off singing nonsense!
"Scaramouch, can you do the fandango?" No!
"Easy come, easy go Will you let me go?
"Bismillah! No, we will not let him go!
"Let him go! Bismillah! We will not let him go! Let him go!
"Bismillah! We will not let him go!
"Let him go! Will not let you go!"
Here you have a grab-bag of cultural allusions that may link together.
We can make them link together,
but if we do, that says more about us than the song.
I think so. It may be just sound.
What would Freddie think of us saying all this about his poem?
He wouldn't mind. "Fuck off."
He'd be absolutely delighted that Oxford University
are talking about it. Fucking delighted!
Presenting A Night At The Opera, ladies and gentlemen, this is Queen!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
# We are what we are... #
As the world pondered the meaning behind Mercury's lyrics,
Queen crowned their year with their single and album at number one
and a Christmas Eve concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon.
I just loved this band. I thought they were terrific.
They were fantastic live!
They were amazing live!
They could really play and they were dynamic
and they had fabulous energy on stage.
# When you shook my hand... #
That fabulous year they had,
culminating in the Whistle Test special at Hammersmith Odeon.
Again, this is celebration time.
Now we're gonna do a nice, tasty little medley for you.
Just like the one we did the other day, yes.
We'll start with a segment from a number called Bohemian Rhapsody.
CROWD CHEER
# Mama... #
Bohemian Rhapsody stayed at number one
until the end of January the following year.
It was to take an extraordinary song from an extraordinary band
to knock it off the top.
# Mama mia
# Here I go again
# My, my, how can I resist you?
# Mama mia Does it show again...? #
We never suspected we'd nudge Queen off the top,
but to release Mama Mia was an obvious thing
because it had been such a big hit in other territories.
The fact that the words "mama mia"
are included in Bohemian Rhapsody as well...
..it's...just coincidence.
# Just one look and I can hear a bell ring... #
When I first heard Bohemian Rhapsody on the radio,
I thought it was pretty phenomenal and fantastic.
I loved it from the word go and so did Benny and the girls.
Bohemian Rhapsody went on to top virtually every relevant poll
and continues to do so to this day.
Queen picked up many other awards too.
Perhaps the most impressive was this one -
The Brits Special Award
for an outstanding contribution to British music, in 1990.
Thank you, good night.
The following year, after Freddie Mercury's death,
the single was released again.
And guess what...
16 years later, it's number one again, and here it is.
This is Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody at number one.
It sold an awful lot around the world.
I think as much again as it had done the first time.
I suppose I'm not gonna tell you I'm surprised.
It's a great track.
I'm sure it will have another lease of life in another few years!
In America, though,
it would take something other than Freddie Mercury's death
to send it to the top of the charts.
Queen's career there had nosedived
ever since they'd released a video which Americans just didn't get.
I remember Freddie saying,
"I suppose I'll have to fucking die before we're big in America again."
America had resisted from the days of I Want To Break Free video,
where we dressed up in drag, which was unforgivable.
# I want to break free
# I want to break free... #
But America's love affair with Queen was eventually rekindled
and Bohemian Rhapsody became a hit again thanks to Hollywood.
Remember this?
I think we'll go with a little Bohemian Rhapsody, gentlemen.
Good call!
I think that scene in that movie masculinised that song.
You know, I think it made it OK for people.
Even though the song was a hit the first time, it wasn't a number one.
But it became a much bigger deal when Wayne and Garth made it OK.
# Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me-e-e... #
I shot this thing probably for a good ten hours.
And did it over and over and over again.
# For me-e-e... #
And all the perfect energy came together at the perfect time.
# For meeeee... #
It's like we all got struck by lightning.
# Dun-dun-dun! #
Great stuff, love it!
I've been in that car, trust me,
with a couple of mates of mine in Sheffield, I have so been there!
It's classic!
When the heavy bit kicks in and their heads go up and down...
..I nearly wet my pants.
Mike was asking for aspirin because his head hurt so bad!
It's great hearing your own tracks on the radio.
If it happened and we were in the Winnebago on tour or something,
and it came on the radio, we'd all be head-banging to it,
and just sort of enjoying the moment.
I guess Wayne's World were closer to the mark than even they realised.
Hello, everybody. Feeling good?
Are you ready to rock?
AUDIENCE CHEER Ready to roll? OK, let's do it!
Even today, Queen's music lives on.
More than a million people have seen the band's musical We Will Rock You.
And the centrepiece of the show,
the one generations of Queen fans want to hear more than any other...
Why, do you really need to ask?!
# Mama
# Just killed a man... #
I was four years old and it was my mum's favourite song
and I thought it was brilliant.
# Held 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."
What can you say?! It's unique!
I think it was probably...
We wondered when it was going to finish, didn't we? Yes!
I was quite young, but I remember the video. Very cool video!
# Sends shivers down my spine
# Body's aching all the time... #
Goodbye, everybody.
I've got to go.
# Got to leave you all behind and face the truth... #
What I remember is Wayne's World and the two guys singing it in that
and I'll always remember that.
# Mama, oo-oo-ooh... #
Brilliant!
First time I heard it was on the Live At Wembley video in '86.
She was playing it and I walked in and I was like, whoa!
# I don't want to die
# I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all
# Scaramouch, Scaramouch Will you do the fandango?
# Very, very frightening me
# Galileo, Galileo
# 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 me go! # Will not let you go... #
Let me go. # Will not let you go. Never!
# Let me go-o-o-o-o-o! # No, no, no, no, no, no, no
# Oh, mama mia, mama mia... # Mama mia, let me go
# Beelzebub has a devil put aside 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? #
I've had moments thinking,
"Oh, God, I'll never get away from Bohemian Rhapsody,"
but when I hear the thing I still smile and I still feel proud,
and it doesn't really date.
# Just gotta get right outta here... #
You can't guess that something will grab the country,
and eventually a lot of other countries, as much as that did.
We were surprised at the longevity of the record...
..but delighted,
hence our infinite faith in the taste of the public.
And that's it. All you ever wanted to know about Bohemian Rhapsody,
and more, save for some choice words from the man who wrote it.
FREDDIE: As far as our music is concerned,
people should just listen to it and discard it.
That's what people do. Wait for the next one.
Bohemian Rhapsody always comes back,
but, as far as I'm concerned, all those days are over,
that era's over, that type of music is now over
and I don't wish to even think about it or write about it.
# Nothing really matters
# To-o-o-o meeeee
# Any way the wind blo-o-o-ws. #
That's it. I don't know any more chords!