“Bohemian Rhapsody” is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band’s 1975 album A Night at the Opera. It is a six-minute suite, consisting of several sections without a chorus: an intro, a ballad segment, an operatic passage, a hard rock part and a reflective coda. The song is a more accessible take on the 1970s progressive rock genre.
Upon its release as a single, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became a commercial success, topping the UK Singles Chart for nine weeks and selling more than a million copies by the end of January 1976. It reached number one again in 1991 for another five weeks when the same version was re-released following Mercury’s death, eventually becoming the UK’s third-best-selling single of all time. It is also the only song to be the UK Christmas number one twice by the same artist.
It topped the charts in several other markets as well, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and The Netherlands, later becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time selling over six million copies worldwide. In the United States, the song originally peaked at number nine in 1976, but returned to the chart in 1992 after being used in the film Wayne’s World and reached a new peak of number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The release of the film of the same name in 2018 resulted in renewed popularity and chart success worldwide for the song.
Although critical reaction was initially mixed, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became Queen’s most popular song and is considered one of the greatest rock songs. The single was accompanied by a promotional video, which scholars consider ground-breaking. Rolling Stone stated that its influence “cannot be overstated, practically inventing the music video seven years before MTV went on the air.” The Guardian ranked the music video for “Bohemian Rhapsody” number 31 on their list of the 50 key events in rock music history, adding it ensured “videos would henceforth be a mandatory tool in the marketing of music”.
In 2004, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Appearing in various polls as being one of the greatest songs in popular music, in 2012, the song topped the list on an ITV nationwide poll in the UK to find “The Nation’s Favourite Number One” over 60 years of music, while Mercury’s vocal performance was chosen as the greatest in rock history by readers of Rolling Stone. In December 2018, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became the most-streamed song from the 20th century, and the most-streamed of all classic rock songs. The number of downloads of the song and original video has exceeded 1.6 billion downloads across global on-demand streaming services.
Bohemian Rhapsody
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
Because I’m easy come, easy go
A little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me
Mama, just killed a man
Put 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, oh oh
Didn’t mean to make you cry
If I’m not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters
Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body’s aching all the time
Goodbye everybody I’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, oh oh (anyway the wind blows)
I don’t want to die
Sometimes wish I’d never been born at all
I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouch, Scaramouch will you do the Fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me
Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, figaro, magnifico
I’m just a poor boy and nobody loves me
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 him go
Bismillah, we will not let you go, let me go
(Will not let you go) let me go (never, never let you go) let me go (never let me go)
Oh oh 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 for me for me
So you think you can stop 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
Oh oh oh yeah, oh oh yeah
Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me
Anyway the wind blows
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