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" Bohemian Rhapsody " is a song written by Freddie Mercury , originally recorded by the band Queen for their 1975 album '' A Night At The Opera ''. The song has a very unusual musical structure for a piece of Popular Music , with three very different sections, no chorus, and both A Capella and Heavy Metal sections. Despite this, it was released as a single, and became a huge commercial success, marking a decisive point in Queen's career, setting them on the way to become one of Britain's biggest rock groups. The single was accompanied by what is generally cited as a groundbreaking " Promotional Video ", which helped establish the visual language of the modern music video. The song was included in all Queen's subsequent live concert performances, and still enjoys great popularity in many parts of the world. It is touted by some as the most popular song in the world. RECORDING The song was recorded over three weeks by the band and producer Roy Thomas Baker , beginning on August 24 , 1975 at Rockfield Studios near Monmouth . Further recording was done at North London 's Scorpio and SARM Studios . According to some band members, Mercury had worked out the entire song in his head and directed the band through the song. The multi-part vocal harmonies took 84 hours to complete. Since the studios of the time only offered 24-track analogue tape, it was necessary for May, Mercury and Taylor to overdub themselves many times, and "bounce" these down to successive submixes. In the end, eighth generation tapes were being used. The band claimed these had passed over the recording heads so many times that the normally opaque tapes could be seen through, as the Oxide layer was beginning to wear off. The various sections of tape containing the desired submixes would have to be cut with razor blades and reassembled together in the correct sequence using adhesive tape, a process known as Splicing . When they first heard the song, record company executives requested that the middle section of the song be cut. This was due to fears that the song was twice the normal length of a single — radio stations would not play the song, and other record labels would object to it getting double the airplay. A backing track of grand piano (Mercury), bass guitar (Deacon) and drums (Taylor) was recorded first. The song itself was primarily composed on Mercury's Yamaha baby grand Piano . The band used many unique and unpopular instruments to produce the song, including a Fender Precision Electric Bass , May's Red Special electric guitar, Ludwig Drums, Timpani and even a Paiste Gong. Mercury used a Bechstein "Concert" Grand Piano, the same he'd later play in both the promotional video and the UK Tour. SONG STRUCTURE Introduction (0:00 to 3:03) The song, almost six minutes in length, begins with a four-part harmony A Cappella introduction, which are entirely Multitrack recordings of Freddie Mercury. The grand piano enters halfway through this intro (this section appears to be based on the chorus of a piece by Mercury's former band, Ibex ), and the vocals change from harmony to a moving solo by Mercury. A roughly 30-second guitar solo by Queen guitarist Brian May serves as a transition from the introduction to the operatic part. The "opera section" (3:03 to 4:08) An abrupt series of key changes from E Flat Major to F Minor to A Major introduces a pseudo- Opera tic midsection, which contains the bulk of the elaborate vocal Multitracking . The Dynamics vary greatly from bar to bar, from a single Mercury voice and solo Piano , to a multi-voice Choir . The choir effect was created by having Mercury, May and Taylor sing separate low, mid and high sections at least three times. The band used the Bell Effect for lyrics "Magnifico" and "Let me go." Also, on "Let him go", Taylor singing the top section carries his note on further after the rest of the "choir" have stopped singing. "Hard Rock" section (4:08 to 4:52) This operatic section leads (with the voices singing "for me" on a block B-flat major chord, topped by a remarkable sustained high B-flat Falsetto from Taylor), into an aggressive Hard Rock musical Interlude with a guitar riff that was written by Mercury. After double tracked vocals by Mercury over the top of the guitar, there are three ascending guitar runs, which May described as something he had to "battle with" when performing the song live. Outro (4:52 to 5:55) After Mercury plays ascending octaves of notes from a B-flat-seven Chord , the song then returns to the tempo and form of the slow section. A guitar accompanies the lyrics "ooh yeah, ooh yeah", to give the effect of trumpets. This was done by playing the guitar through an Amp designed by Deacon, affectionately nicknamed the " Deacy Amp ". The song progressively becomes quieter through Mercury's lyrics "anyway the wind blows" until finally closing with the barely audible sound of a gong. The sections may appear separate, but there are numerous lyrical and musical Motif s that they share. For instance, there are melodic motifs that occur in the ballad which foreshadow parts of the operatic section. LYRICS The lyrics are cryptic and accordingly difficult to interpret. The song appears to tell the story of a Boy or Young Man who, troubled by poverty and possibly a difficult and painful past, is Depressed and either attempts to commit suicide or succeeds in doing so. The lyrics "any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me" reflects a typical mood of universal indifference often associated with depression. The lines "let me go" and " Bismillah , no, we will not let you go" may be referring to his wish to end his life battling against society's general disapproval of suicide irrespective of the severity of the individual's suffering. Another interpretation of the lyrics suggest that it is based on the story of a man stranded on death row, possibly in an Arab Muslim country. "Mama, just killed a man, Put a gun against his head, Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead" The person in question confesses to his mother that he is resposible for the death of another man. He goes on to say that if he doesn't return, she should carry on with her life. The song goes on to plead for the life of the murderer, however the words "Bismillah, no, we will not let you go" is suggestive of religious overtones, having to deal with certain Muslim countries that punish crime in a speedy manner without trial. However the lyrics are interpreted, critics all agree that the song deals with angst and topics of self pity and depression, emotions that the entire populace can relate to. Yet another interpretation is that of reincarnation. " I see a little sillouetteo of a man" could represent the new life. THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO The video for the single was directed by Bruce Gowers , using ideas from the band members themselves. It was created for the sole purpose of allowing the band to be on tour and appear "live" on the BBC 's '' Top Of The Pops ''. Shot in just over four hours on the band's rehearsal stage, it cost only £4500 to produce, using an outside broadcast truck owned by one of the band's managers. This was a very small sum compared to the multi-million dollar industry music videos have become. All the special effects were done during the recording. The effect of having the face zooming away was accomplished by simply pointing the camera at a monitor, thus giving visual feedback (pictured below), a visual glare which is analogous to Audio Feedback . In the original version of the video an apparent editing glitch led to the piano part briefly being double-tracked out of sync with itself, but this was corrected in later releases. The "first ever music promo video" The "Bohemian Rhapsody" video is often cited as "the first ever music promo video." Although this statement is not true -- prior to 1975, many bands (including Queen themselves and especially ABBA ) had made promotional clips to accompany their single releases -- no band had used a promotional clip to support their single in such a way. (It is true that the majority of these were recorded on ''film'' as opposed to ''video'' tape; however, this technical detail made little difference to their effectiveness, especially as most modern music videos are shot on film.) However, the "Bohemian Rhapsody" video did start a major trend in the music industry; following its success, it became a regular practice for record companies to produce promo videos for their artists' single releases. These videos could then be shown on TV music shows such as the BBC's ''Top of The Pops'', without the need for the artist to appear in person. Prior to this, if the artist was not available, ''Top of the Pops'' would generally show dancers such as Pan's People performing a routine to the song. A promo video allowed the artist to have their music broadcast and accompanied by their own choice of visuals, rather than the BBC's generic dancers. POPULARITY "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the only single to have been UK Christmas Number 1 twice (in a single recording), first in 1975/1976, and then in 1991 / 1992 (as a double-A single with " These Are The Days Of Our Lives ") following the death of Mercury. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was placed third in the official List Of The Best-selling Singles In The UK issued in 2002 . The song initially reached #9 in the United States in 1976. The song consistently ranks highly in media reader polls of "the best singles of all-time". In 2002 , it came first in the Guinness Hit Singles poll of the greatest UK singles of all-time, as well as coming 10th in a BBC World Service poll to find the world's favourite song. In 2000 it came second to " Imagine " by John Lennon in a Channel 4 television poll of ''The 100 Best Number 1s''. It has been in the top 5 of the Dutch annual "Top 100 Aller Tijden" ("All-Time Top 100 Singles") since 1977 , reaching #1 many times; in the annual "Top 2000" (maintained since 1999 ) it has, As Of 2004 , been #1 every year. The song enjoyed renewed popularity in 1992 as part of the soundtrack to the film '' Wayne's World ''. In connection with this, a new video was released, intercutting excerpts from the film with footage from the original Queen video, along with some live footage of the band. This re-release hit #2 in the US in 1992. The track was not initially intended as a single release due to the length. However, Mercury's friend Kenny Everett (a Capital Radio DJ at the time) played an advance copy on the radio several times; the track proved popular and was released with " I'm In Love With My Car " as the B-side . LIVE PERFORMANCES Queen did not feel able to recreate the song's elaborate harmony vocals live on stage. When performing it in concert, they would omit the song's a capella introduction entirely, beginning with a short piano solo played by Mercury (he would occasionally open the song with an improvised set of Arpeggio s before playing the signature piano riff). For the middle "opera section", the band on the ''A Night at the Opera'' tour avoided it and would go into a medley by segueing into another song altogether (for instance, Killer Queen , then to The March Of The Black Queen ) and then go back to Bohemian Rhapsody for the ending ballad section. On all subsequent tours from ''A Day at the Races'' to this very day, the band would leave the stage after Brian May's guitar solo on the ballad section of track and play a tape of the studio version of the opera section and use the opera section as a costume change for May and/or Mercury. When the backing tape of the opera section was near completion, the band would pick up on the "heavy rock" section playing to the "for me" part and after the last "for me" hit, pyro would go off and the band would play right through to the end of the track. On the 2005/2006 Queen + Paul Rodgers tours, a live performance recording of Mercury would play on video screens doing the vocals and piano for the first segment, while the other musicians played along and Paul Rodgers sat out. The middle operatic section featured a montage of clips on the video screens mostly featuring Mercury, while the band left the stage as they had in the past. The final section saw the band's return to the stage as in previous tours, with Paul Rodgers rejoining the band to sing lead vocals on the remainder of the song. TRIVIA
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