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.

Queen at the Movies

Two classic 1980s cult movies featured soundtracks from Queen. Let's look back at the band's contributions to Flash Gordon and Highlander...

It wouldn’t be quite right to say "there can be only one" – in fact, Queen made two movie soundtracks, both of them in the 80s, and both of them for science fiction films. The genre suited Queen’s music. Their hard rock edge could easily give way to a lighter, even operatic sound, and after years of proclaiming proudly that they never used synthesisers, by the 80s, Queen had embraced the more challenging noises that could be produced electronically to great effect.

In fact, Queen songs have been hijacked wholesale by a number of genres. Films with a gooey centre use the gospel element of Somebody To Love (Ella Enchanted and Happy Feet, for instance) while We Will Rock You turns up in adventure films with rousing crowd scenes; in particular, it’s used to great effect in the gleefully anachronistic A Knight’s Tale. There are loads of examples – some of my favourites are Don't Stop Me Now in Shaun of the Dead, We Are The Champions in High Fidelity and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody in Wayne’s World. But only Flash Gordon (1980) and Highlander (1986) boasted a series of songs by the band. Here’s a look back at both of them.

Flash Gordon

Queen were a perfect fit for this film, for the simple reason that both the script and the band were tongue-in-cheek. The producer, Dino De Laurentiis, asked Queen to produce a soundtrack over which they were given complete control. They came up with a great theme song that pretty much everyone around the world recognises, and they also made some amazing incidental music that still turns up in movies today.

Flash Gordon is an iconic hero. He started life as a comic strip back in 1934 and was played by Buster Crabbe in a number of serial films from 1936 to 1940 that were fast, fun and thrilling. By the time he was revived, to be played by Sam J Jones in 1980, he was a cultural icon, representing everything good about America – brave, adventurous, handsome, great at sport, and always going to get the girl. This film version didn’t mess with any of those assumptions, and instead turned the whole thing up to 11, going large on the spectacle of meteor storms, space flight and crash-landings on strange planets.

Everything was just so huge that Sam J Jones is often accused of getting a bit lost amongst it, but there’s something solid and grounded about his performance. He doesn’t ham it up or beat his chest in manliness, which is a relief in a film that includes some of the most bombastic actors to be found. Brian Blessed turns up with his enormous voice, a spiky golden helmet and a pair of wings, and blasts his way through the script in such memorable fashion that he was instantly recognisable when he reprised his role as Prince Vultan in Family Guy episode Road To Germany in 2008. Topol played Dr Hans Zarkov with enthusiasm, and Melody J Anderson was an excellent Dale Arden, particularly when she got to share the screen with the magnificently creepy Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless.

Such performances suited Queen’s music. Some of the best moments in the film are when the incidental pieces chime in perfectly with the grandeur of the actor – for instance, to the sound of Vultan’s Theme (written by Freddie Mercury) Brian Blessed flies through the sky with his Hawk Men and says, “Who wants to live forever?” before giving a barrel laugh and screaming, "Dive!" to join the attack against Ming’s forces. Does that sound manic? It is. But it’s also loads of fun to watch.

With the success of Star Wars and Superman as its model, De Laurentiis may have thought he was on to a winner, and yet Flash Gordon was only a modest success worldwide (it did great business in the UK though) upon release. Over the years it’s become a cult classic and has seeped into public consciousness, to the extent where films such as Ted and Blades Of Glory can reference it without losing the audience. The music is a huge part of that notoriety. One of the first times that a rock band was asked to compose and perform a score for a high-budget production, it showed how a great marriage of sound and vision could come from allowing the artists to retain control of what they do best – writing music.

Highlander

Okay, so it’s a cheat to claim that Queen did the whole soundtrack for Highlander. In fact, the original orchestral score was composed by Michael Kamen, who also did amazing scores for films such as Brazil and Die Hard. Queen contributed a number of complete songs to the film and they fit perfectly with Kamen’s score to give Highlander a hard edge when it is needed, and quiet moments of sadness in juxtaposition.

Highlander was written by Gregory Widen, who sold the script when he was still an undergraduate in the Screenwriting program at UCLA. Based on the idea that immortal warriors have been fighting through the ages in order to claim an unspecified ‘prize’ (well, until the end of the movie, at least), Christopher Lambert plays Connor MacLeod, born in the Scottish Highlands and educated by Egyptian immortal Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, played by Sean Connery. Yes – they did set a film in the Highlands and then cast Sean Connery as an Egyptian, but they also cast the wonderful Clancy Brown as The Kurgan, so it’s not all bad. The Kurgan, much like Ming the Merciless, is a villain you can enjoy. He’s horrifying to look at, and yet he has a great sense of dark humour that’s evident in his leer and his sheer pleasure in blaspheming and generally terrorising people.

One of the strongest musical moments of the film revolves around The Kurgan; he kidnaps MacLeod’s girlfriend (played with attitude by Roxanne Hart) and bundles her into a car, playing chicken with oncoming traffic and mocking her screams. The scene starts with the song Don’t Lose Your Head and then morphs into an ironic version of New York, New York that The Kurgan sings along to. With the fast-paced cutting and the blinding lights of the traffic, it’s a riot on the senses.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s the use of Who Wants To Live Forever? (this time not being screamed out by Brian Blessed, which would ruin the mood somewhat) to represent the dual edge of the sword of immortality. MacLeod must continue to fight, but watch all those mortals he loves die. The soft, haunting music is used to great effect as he realises this.

The film shares another similarity with Flash Gordon; it also wasn’t well received in the US upon release, and did better in the European markets initially until it gained cult status. Highlander has spawned four sequels so far along with live-action and animated television series; many of these stuck to one of the great strengths of Highlander and used Queen’s music. Currently, a reboot of the original has been languishing in development since 2008, with Ryan Reynolds confirmed to play MacLeod since 2012.

Both Flash Gordon and Highlander would not be the recognisable and enduring films that they are without the musical input of Queen. They’re just like the band – the critics may not have ever loved them, but the audience does. Whenever I switch channels and come across Vultan swooping for victory, or see MacLeod running along the beach at full sprint, I end up watching to the end. And whenever a Queen song comes on the radio I end up singing along. In this age where recognition is the thing we’re all striving for, isn’t that as good as it gets?

Original source for content of this post: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/24979/queen-in-the-movies#ixzz2Q3whRqdI

Queen: News Of The World

...the last of the classic-period Queen albums?

Queen's varied palette of styles was none more apparent than on their sixth studio album, News Of The World, recorded over summer 1977 at various locations in London. Released at a time when punk was breaking across the UK music scene (prompting the delicious exchange when Freddie Mercury met Sid Vicious: "ah, Mr. Ferocious, how are you?"), the album showed the group, for many the ultimate in musicianship, both out-of-kilter, yet strangely in step with the times.

In step was the football-terrace proto-rap “We Will Rock You”, the anthemic Mercury special “We Are The Champions” and the full-on assault of the Roger Taylor/Mercury duet “Sheer Heart Attack”. Out of kilter with the times was the ornate, fussy balladry of John Deacon’s “Spread Your Wings” or Mercury’s bluesy “My Melancholy Blues”. Elsewhere, the heavily strutting “Get Down Make Love” acts as something of a bridge between the earlier “Seven Seas Of Rhye” and the “Another Ones Bites The Dust” funk-isms that lay ahead.

News Of The World was the last of the classic-period Queen albums, and heralded a spell in the relative doldrums before 1980's The Game. The album was a huge hit in America, something the group could never take for granted; and went four times platinum, largely as a result of their lengthy tour with Thin Lizzy earlier in the year. What News Of The World demonstrates perfectly is Queen’s unerringly ability to sound absolutely like no-other group – even when parodying other musical styles.

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'We Are The Champions' Named The Most Patriotic Pop Song

Rockers Queen have been crowned top of the patriotic pops in a survey of 100,000 music fans.

The band's anthem We Are the Champions was named number one by fans who were asked what song made them proud to be British.

The track, which got to number two in 1977, picked up 13,000 votes in the survey carried out among users of the Lucky Voice karaoke website.

It was followed by the Oasis hit Wonderwall which was nominated by 11,000 karaoke singers and then Let It Be by The Beatles which got 10,000 votes.

Elton John's Candle In The Wind and London Calling by The Clash rounded off the top five.

Lucky Voice boss Nick Thistleton said: "It seems the great British public are quite a sentimental crowd, with so many people opting for solid ballads over rock anthems. But you can't beat the feel good factor of We Are the Champions - especially when sung with your mates at high volume.

"We need all the help we can get this summer to give the UK a massive boost and we urge everyone out there to get into the patriotic spirit, show their support and help by singing our way to success."

Source of original article: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Finally: Robots Perform "Bohemian Rhapsody"

The Poor Bots, From a Poor Family

No one—not even robots—can resist “Bohemian Rhapsody.” These robotic heads come from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology’s Center for Intelligent Robotics, where they were created to entertain the elderly through song. The performance gets more complex—and more bizarre—as the song goes on, and the bots are surprisingly good at conveying that certain feeling of despair. (Enjoy, elderly!) By far the hardest thing to understand, though, is why four heads would stop at the exact moment when everybody head-bangs to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Talk about a missed opportunity.

Sheer Heart Attack - The Third Album

In early 1974, Queen had their first hit with ‘The Seven Seas of Rhye,’ ‘ Queen II’ was No.5 in the UK chart and the band were supporting Mott The Hoople on tour in North America. Everything was going swimmingly.  John Deacon finally gave up on his MSc in Electronics, Roger and Freddie packed up their clothes stall at Kensington Market for good and Brian quit teaching believing that Queen’s future was going to be a successful one.

The band were due to record their third album and headline their first American tour, however,  this was not to be as Brian collapsed after a show in New York on May 12th 1974. He had contracted hepatitis from a dirty needle whilst having inoculations. Queen returned to England in turmoil. The tour with Hoople was cut short,  their own tour of America cancelled and their guitarist ordered to bed for six weeks,  told that he ‘may never recover completely.’  Fortunately, he did.

Despite the tribulations, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ was a major breakthrough for Queen and became another classic. They all agreed that they had dished up a little too much for people to swallow on Queen II so they ditched the progressive themes, the fantasy and decided to make an album that wasn’t so over the top.  As a result, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ is far more accessible and years later Roger Taylor claimed that it was his personal favourite Queen record.

Brian was still ill when the band began work on their new album at Rockfield Studios in Wales. He would be frequently sick and his stomach was causing him a lot of pain until it was discovered that he had a duodenal ulcer and needed urgent attention.  For almost three months Queen had to carry on recording the album without him, leaving gaps for guitars and harmonies.

Brian May more than made up for his absence with the opening track he penned called ‘Brighton Rock’ which contains a dazzling three minute harmonious guitar solo zooming from left to right speakers like tennis ball plus some fantastic percussion from Roger.

Apart from the title and the setting, it has no connection with the Graham Green novel.  Freddie sings the parts of both Jimmy and Jenny, the young lovers who meet at the seaside.  ‘Oh rock of ages do not crumble love is breathing still.’  The rock certainly hasn’t crumbled, 37 years on, the song is still sounds fantastic.  If you listen very closely to the opening you can hear someone whistling ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’, which was the last song sung at the end of ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ on Queen II, giving both albums a sense of continuity.

Now we all know and love ‘Killer Queen.’ Written by Freddie it’s the tale of a high class call girl, ‘I’m trying to say that classy people can be whores as well’, said Freddie in 1974.  Queen were on the whole, considered a heavy rock band, ‘Killer Queen’ showed another side to their capabilities and their sensibilities which had more of a mainstream appeal.

“People are used to hard rock, energy music from Queen, yet with this single, you almost expect Noel Coward to sing it.  It’s one of those bowler hat, black suspender numbers – not that Noel Coward would wear that.” Freddie Mercury, 1974.

According to May, the original backing vocals were more abrasive, which he disliked so they all went back into the studio again to give them a sweeter touch and the guitar solo in ‘Killer Queen’ is the one which he would most like to be remembered for.

‘Killer Queen’ was released as a single whilst the band were working on the rest of the album and reached No. 2 in the UK and No 12 in the USA, their first hit across the Atlantic.  Sadly another classic performance on Top of the Pops and rave reviews couldn’t knock  cheeky cockney David Essex off the top slot and give them their first number one.

‘Tenement Funster’ is another excellent song by Roger Taylor. As usual it contains themes of youth and rebellion and is perhaps semi-biographical.  Roger’s hair was a disgrace, he liked cars and up until recently he and Freddie had been sharing a flat, maybe their rock and roll 45s enraged the neighbours next door.

Although it can be interpreted in many ways,   ‘Flick of the Wrist’ is Freddie’s first pop at Queen’s then manager, Norman Sheffield.  Tensions were mounting at the time of recording between the band and Trident.  Queen were only getting paid sixty pounds per week (that’s £334.20 in today’s money, split four ways) despite the fact they were selling out concerts and had a hit single across the world.   ‘It’s a rip off’, ‘baby you’ve been had’ , ‘sacrifice your leisure days, let me squeeze you til you’ve dried’ When Queen finally parted company with Trident the following year, Freddie would write an even more explicit and vicious ‘sequel’  dedicated to his old manager called ‘Death On Two Legs.’   ‘Flick of the Wrist’  was picked as the Double A side to ‘Killer Queen.’  Queen performed both songs exclusively for a BBC Session in 1974, included on this Deluxe Edition.

‘Lily of the Valley,’ also written by Freddie, takes us back to Rhye and worlds he created on ‘Queen’ and ‘Queen II’  for the very last time.  As the King of Rhye loses his throne, never ending war spreads across the land,  this is the closing chapter of the story and farewell Mercury’s fantasy influenced lyrics.

Side one closes with ‘Now I’m Here’ which was recorded in the last weeks of the album – written by Brian May whilst in hospital.  It reflects upon the experiences of Queen’s American tour supporting Mott The Hoople.  ‘It blew me away – I was bowled over by the amazing aura which surrounds rock music in America.’   The song was their third top twenty hit, peaking at No. 12 in the UK with ‘Lily of the Valley’ on the ‘B’ side.

‘In The Lap Of The Gods’ opens what was then Side Two with Queen throwing everything they had in their power at the listening ear -  operatic grand harmonies, screams, rolling timpani plus piano and guitar arpeggios which then change direction and settles into a dreamy, love song sung with Freddie’s distorted vocals and Roger Taylor’s famously feminine screams.   In an interview in 1977,  Mercury described the song as  Cecil B DeMille meets Walt Disney and stated that the song was the prelude to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with its changes of tempo and different styles.

‘Stone Cold Crazy’ was originally a song that Freddie performed in his band Wreckage in the late Sixties, but the rest of the Queen took it over, reshaped it and all share writing credits for the first time.  The result is quite phenomenal, two minutes of frenetic, unstoppable rock, that simply doesn’t let you up for air.  Queen’s heaviest rock song of all.   It was also a Grammy Award winning hit for Metallica in 1992 as the Double A Side of ‘Enter Sandman.’  Naturally their version included a few ‘F words’ and it wasn’t until I saw James Hetfield’s appearance at ‘The Freddie Mercury Tribute’ with Queen that it dawned on me what ‘playing on my slide trombone on a rainy afternoon’ actually meant and it’s not a pretty sight, especially the thought of that hairy monster Hetfield playing on his!

‘Dear Friends’, written by Brian, is the perfect antidote to its manic predecessor.  This is a moving, yet uplifting sort of lullaby which deals with the death of a loved one. ‘She Makes Me (Storm trooper in Stilettos), another Brian composition  features an altogether more paranoid, nightmarish vision of America at its climax, unlike the raucous ‘Now I’m Here.’   The subtitle was Roger’s suggestion.  May’s songs on this album are up and down, much like his spirits whilst sitting in hospital not knowing what his future may hold with hepatitis and a stomach ulcer.  

‘Sheer Heart Attack’ is the album where John Deacon finally wrote a song by himself.  Hoorey! ‘Misfire.’ Actively encouraged by the rest of the band to write more as early as Queen II, John came up with this simple little song and played most of the guitars on the track.   John was always more of a Motown kind of guy which reflected in his own compositions.  ‘Misfire’ is a catchy first attempt at a pop song.   As time went on and John’s writing skills improved, he would go on to compose some of Queen’s biggest hits – ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’ ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and ‘I Want To Break Free’ – but it all started here with ‘Misfire.’

‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’ is Freddie’s homage to vaudeville with a bit of ragtime thrown in, complete with double bass, jangle piano and ukulele.

‘In The Lap Of The God’s Revisited’ is Queen’s first anthem and again influenced by Freddie’s love of musicals. It’s the last song of the show, the one that gets you off your seat, waving your hands in time.

‘In the Lap of the Gods’ is sung from the perspective of a failure, ‘It’s so easy, but I can’t do it.’ It’s an uncertain anthem. By contrast, Freddie’s subsequent showstopper, ‘We Are The Champions’ is triumphant. Yet without the lessons they learnt on ‘Sheer Heart Attack,’ (the change of direction, the maturity of their writing and the chart success) Queen might not have become Champions at all, just another band who had a few hits in the early 1970’s then disappeared into the ether or rock and roll.

Queen were still bubbling under. They had one more crack at the whip to make it really big. The next album would be make or break.

‘Sheer Heart Attack’ was released on 8th November 1974 and reached Number 2 in the UK Charts and features more classic artwork.  The striking picture on the cover was taken by Mick Rock who happily rubbed the band in Vaseline then drenched them with water to get the sweaty look.   It also looks as if they’d got through gallons of fake tan – did fake tan exist in 1974?

(Oh and incidentally,  the song “Sheer Heart Attack’ doesn’t actually appear on this album.  It was recorded, but felt incomplete so the song went, but the name stayed.  It finally appeared on NEWS OF THE WORLD in 1977. )

Album review written by Rhys Thomas