10 Facts You Might Not Know About Bohemian Rhapsody

The masterpiece that is Bohemian Rhapsody is closing in on being 40 years old (well alright it's 38 at the time of writing this). This six-minute long piece of artistry propelled Queen into one of the biggest bands in the world and Freddie Mercury became an overnight superstar. It's a song that most will know, and even love, although there is a lot of interesting history surrounding it. Here are some entertaining facts you possibly never knew about the song:

1) Does the piano solo sound familiar to you? Well, not so much the piano solo, but the piano it was played on - Freddie Mercury used exactly the same piano as Paul McCartney used to record Hey Jude.

2) The song wasn't quite as successful in the United States. The original in 1975 climbed no higher than No.9. However, its re-release in 1992 (as part of Wayne's World) saw it reach the heady heights of No.2. In fact, the only reason it failed to make No.1 was due to the not so world famous tune of "Jump" by KrissKross!

3) Whenever Queen performed Bohemian Rhapsody live they would actually use recordings of what they liked to call the "fiddly bits" of the song.

4) At 5 minutes and 55 seconds long many experts believe the song went on too much to be a hit. If we consider Hey Jude once again, that happened to be seven and a half minutes long!

5) Some of the more famous covers of the song have been performed by Elaine Page, G4 and who could forget the delightful renditions made by Rolf Harris and Weird Al' Yankovic!

6) Freddie Mercury was once asked what the song means. His answer, "it means whatever you want it to mean".

7) Freddie Mercury actually wrote the song on scraps of paper and old telephone directories.

8) Kenny Everett was the first DJ to play Bohemian Rhapsody on the radio.

9) The song spent a total of 9 consecutive weeks at number one in the UK after its original release in 1975. This, at the time, was the third longest ever a single had ever been at number one in the UK charts.

10) The opera parts of the song took over 70 hours to edit and add to the original parts of Bohemian Rhapsody. That is amazing for a piece of music that is just six minutes long.