A Song Imprinted on My Mind

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”

These words are enough to make my skin tingle and bring a goofy smile on my lips. When I first heard Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody about six years ago, it left me completely in awe. I practically gaped into the distance with my mouth open for a few minutes after the last notes had faded away. Then I listened to the song again. And again. And maybe a couple of hundred times more.

I had heard quite many of Queen’s songs before Bohemian Rhapsody, but none of the others had had such a huge impact on me. The kick-ass harmonies in the beginning are deeply impressing, and when Freddie Mercury starts playing the piano and singing, shivers run down my spine. If you ask me, no one will ever reach the level on which Freddie was as a singer. His register was beyond comprehension, and he could make the listeners feel all the things he was feeling just by singing about them intensely.

Though Freddie Mercury usually gets most of the attention when it comes to Queen, we should not forget the other members of the band. They are all very gifted musicians. Bohemian Rhapsody, just like all the other Queen songs, wouldn’t work without Brian May’s virtuoso guitar solos, Roger Taylor’s precise drumming and John Deacon’s crafty bass lines. It isn’t all about Freddie.

There has been plenty of discussion about the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody over the years. The most common interpretation is that it tells about a man who has sold his soul to the devil. I completely buy this theory. The lyrics may seem a bit dodgy at first, but when you listen to them carefully, you can hear the story behind the words.

The lyrics may be unusual, but the melody isn’t the simplest one either. There is plenty going on in the song, and the tune shifts a lot. It’s almost as there were several different songs merged into one. Actually, the most curious thing is that these different parts blend in perfectly. The variation doesn’t sound weird; it just makes the song better and more ingenious. The melody and the story seem to go back to the beginning in the end with the words “Anyway the wind blows”, which have been sung earlier on. The circle closes, and it all makes sense in some twisted way.