QUEEN: New 'The Greatest' Series Celebrates 50th Anniversary Of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

On October 31, 1975, QUEEN's masterpiece "Bohemian Rhapsody" was released and began the journey to becoming one of the greatest songs of all time. Brilliant and completely unique, its creative and technical complexity sent shockwaves throughout the music industry, taking everyone by surprise. Everyone, that is, except the band, who by this point had become well used to QUEEN singer Freddie Mercury's extraordinary flights of fantasy. In exclusive interviews for "Queen The Greatest", QUEEN guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor highlight the songs that paved the road to "Bohemian Rhapsody".

While to the outside world "Bohemian Rhapsody" is regarded as QUEEN's masterstroke, for May and Taylor, talking in this first episode of a new series of "Queen The Greatest", this was very much a typical day's work with Freddie.

"You didn't know where Freddie was coming from," says Brian. "He comes in and goes 'there's this bit, and there's another bit we'll do, and there's the operatic and then there's another bit we will do.' 'Oh, yeah, okay, Freddie.' And basically, you have two choices, either going 'well we're really not feeling it,' which we sometimes would do, or we all dive in, and the whole QUEEN machine swings into action."

Clearly for Freddie, Brian, Roger and QUEEN bassist John Deacon, "Bohemian Rhapsody" was part of the natural evolution of QUEEN, and in these interviews Brian and Roger explain where from a songwriting point of view this evolution began.

May points to the band's first album, QUEEN and its track "My Fairy King": "Piano based, quite complex, lots of mood changes and a fantasy lyric."

Taylor concurs: "I think it was certainly part of Freddie's journey. Obviously when we did 'Bohemian Rhapsody' we didn't know we were going to end up with that. Part of our thing was really experimentation, and it's very much on our first album, the track 'My Fairy King', which I think is one of the more interesting tracks, it was complicated, had a lot of difficult vocals, and it had fantastic elements."

Taylor continues: "On the second album, 'Queen II', there's a monumentally long and complicated track, 'March Of The Black Queen', which involved a lot of rehearsal, a lot of singing and so many different little sections. It's a lot more complicated in many ways than 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. It had all the different ingredients 'Bohemian Rhapsody' had. It's a track I like to listen to because of the complexity of it. I can't believe we learned it all; it was so bloody long and laborious but satisfying."

May points to a further example of Freddie's evolution as a songwriter: "Now 'The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke' is incredibly complex, and ought to be just as shocking to people as 'Bohemian Rhapsody', because it's unique. No one's ever done anything like that, and all these little pieces that come in and go out and tings and contrapuntal things, and he's doing something over here, I'm doing something over here. We just remixed it all, and it's fascinating to make it all work."

Taylor agrees: "It's incredibly complicated. There are swooping, counter six-part harmonies here, there, coming in and crossing. It's very bloody complicated that song — and rather wonderful in its eccentricity, I think. Yeah. It's a nice, interesting track. It didn't come across as big as we thought it would, but it's an interesting exercise in eccentric over-elaboration."

"But this is Freddie and this is QUEEN," adds May, "because this is the kind of music we're evolving as we go along quite gradually."

While neither "March Of The Black Queen" or "The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke" enjoys the same profile as "Bohemian Rhapsody", they undoubtably laid the path to QUEEN's most famous song.

The new series of "Queen The Greatest" will continue weekly throughout November.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" was released on heavyweight blue 7" and 12" single, 12" picture disc and blue cassette single on October 31.