The crowd at Wembley were enchanted the moment Freddie Mercury sat down at his Steinway piano and started playing the famous ballad section to Bohemian Rhapsody. Queen’s performance at Live Aid 85 reaffirmed their place in Britain’s music history and helped turn a corner from uncertain times for the band. Bohemian Rhapsody became what was not only emblematic of Queen’s unforgettable legacy but also took on an identity of its own. I am here to examine the context and musical theory behind Bohemian Rhapsody’s success.

The release of Sheer Heart Attack and its hit single Killer Queen gave Queen the freedom to explore new ideas including song structures, abandoning the sure-fire verse/chorus formula and adopting something entirely radical: a rhapsody- an amalgamation of contrasting episodes each befitted with different ideas and structure; ‘a miniature operatic- rhapsodic- symphonic- tone- poem’[1] that fits into one coherent piece. Some even see a resemblance to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey – a template of storytelling that goes back to ancient Greek myths. Each of these phases can be attached chronologically to each section of the song; the eerie a capella harmony at the start sets the inner conflict in ‘Refusal of the Call’, the piano ballad of an emotional ‘Road of Trials’, Brian May’s guitar solo descending into ‘the Abyss’ of operatic demons and the recapitulation of the ballad motif at the end of his epic journey. Queen’s experimentation of structure was a digression from conformity that helped Bohemian Rhapsody stand apart from other radio hits just as the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations and the Beatles’ A Day in the Life had done.

The inclusion of an operatic section is no doubt unusual and hard to forget, but perhaps when we consider Queen’s identity this decision does not seem so surprising after all. By the mid-70s Queen had established itself as an icon of glam rock, embracing their extravagant, sexualized image both on and off stage. Bohemian Rhapsody’s fusing of rock and opera, two traditionally mutually exclusive genres with mutually exclusive audiences, is a reflection of this: ‘an analogous rejection of traditional cultural boundaries surrounding sexual orientation, gender and class’. There is actually also more than meets the eye when it comes to similarities between opera and rock. Vocal virtuosity, whether it is screaming or extreme octave leaps, and a preference for upper register singers, are consistent in both. Freddie Mercury’s vocal range and diverse timbre were perfectly suited to expressing the emotional tension in both operatic and rock elements in Bohemian Rhapsody. Lyrics such as ‘Silhouetto’, ‘Scaramouche’, ‘Fandango’, ‘Gallileo’, ‘Figaro’ and ‘Magnifico’ are a clear nod to the Italian tradition of opera. Paired with falsetto dialogue, homophonic chorus and fragmented phraseology, Freddie’s ‘mock opera’ is finally complete. Roger Taylor said that  as they added more to the song it became more and more ‘outlandish and ridiculous’ but that he always liked ‘the core of the song’ which was the verse ‘Mama, just killed a man…’. Kudos to Mercury’s band members for believing in his arrangement.

Bohemian Rhapsody’s presence on the charts, and more importantly its originality, was in part due to its music video: a first of its kind, a promotional tool made using a video outside broadcast track, normally used for sport at the time. ‘You might go to Top of the Pops but nobody had videos. Especially as a marketing tool for the single on video.’[2]  The frame of the video was inspired by an image from Shanghai Express, a 1932 film by von Sterberg, with actress Marlene Dietrich’s arms crossed and looking straight into camera in black and white. Queen’s album cover Queen II uses the same pose and same black background for chromatic contrast. Mick Rock, photographer of that photo: ‘It was the perfect image for Queen; fascinating, mysterious, classic… I believe to have been the only one who understood the dualism that was in their music: the light and shadow, white and black. There was always tension between these two poles. The result was strong and involving, like in dramatic opera.’ The setting was on a stage as if Queen were performing live, reinforcing Queen ‘s status as a live band. It also included special effects that matched the music, for example the cascading echoes with a ‘zooming’ effect produced using prism lenses. Before the recent biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, the song also featured more subtly, but no less memorably, in Spheeris’ Wayne’s World. The famous ‘head-banging’ scene helped promote the band’s music to audience across the pond and Bohemian Rhapsody subsequently rose to no.2 on Billboard.

The members of Queen were all classically trained in music. They paid an extraordinary amount of attention to detail in their writing and implemented lots of technical skills inspired by classical music. Tonal ambiguity and syllabic melody in the first a capella section creates a suspenseful mood. Mercury uses rhythmic tricks and line clichés to seamlessly transition between the polarizing sections. He also uses multiple motifs to maintain cohesiveness, such as the Bohemian motif that uses chromatic movement around the Bflat tonic key to build tension and the memorable cascading motif on ‘magnifico’ and ‘go’. The functional harmony used in Bohemian Rhapsody also offers a great insight into the sheer brilliance of Queen’s writing. There are examples of the Circle of Fifths of being used and complicated but nicely executed key modulations. Just as powerful, the triplets or ‘shuffle’ in the ‘head-banging’ section create drive and momentum. In the subtlety of Queen’s writing too, such as the sneaky change in the drums part from quadruple time to triplets to pre-empt the aforementioned section, the members manage to show off flashes of virtuosity without disrupting the purpose of the narrative, from Mercury’s cross-hands technique to May’s solo runs.

As meticulous as their writing can be, much is owed to Queen’s production method and creative persistence. They were not to first to experiment with sounds in the studio and play around with special effects such as a flanger, echo effect, panning (in ‘little high’ little low’), the ‘bells effect’ (on ‘magnifico’) and overdrive (Deacon’s specialised amp that made the guitars sound like trumpets). The members of Queen were huge fans of the Beatles and acknowledged them not only for musical inspiration but for production methods. The difference is that Queen had the benefit of experience and another decade’s worth of technological innovation. Much of the distinctive bombastic sound of Bohemian Rhapsody comes from a technique developed by Phil Spector in the 60s called the ‘Wall of Sound’. To create this wall of sound Queen tirelessly overdubbed their tracks again and again. May describes one instance where the bass guitar was overdubbed three times: once direct from the guitar, one from the amp, and one ‘out of the speaker into the room to get a bit of ambiance’. In the digital age of sound production it is perhaps difficult to appreciate just as ridiculous a feat it was to bounce 180 tracks onto a two-inch tape and how much foresight it required. To help battle this all tracks were played along to Freddie’s guiding vocals and his piano part; in other words the entire 5 minute 55 second song was already mapped out in utmost detail in Mercury’s head before a single note was sung.

For the producers the almost-6 minutes track was far beyond what was considered radio-friendly. ‘When they played me ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ my reaction was, ‘What the f***’s this? Are you mad?’” recalls EMI executive Paul Watts.[3] Well, thank god Queen were adamant in refusing to cut down despite heavy opposition, so that now we can enjoy Bohemian Rhapsody in all its fantastical glory.

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[1] Service, T. (2009, December 8). Bohemian Rhapsody: Mama, we’ve killed a song. Retrieved November 16, 2018, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/dec/08/bohemian-rhapsody-karaoke-hit

[2] Queen. (2002). Inside the Rhapsody. ‘Greatest Video Hits 1’ .

[3] Chiu, D. (2018, October 30). ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ movie fact vs fiction: how events and people in movie differ from what really happened. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://ultimateclassicrock.com/queen-bohemian-rhapsody-movie-fact-vs-fiction/