We mark 45 years of Queen smash

IT has been voted the greatest ★ rock song ever – and Bohemian Rhapsody turns 45 this week. Queen’s “mock opera”, which was released on October 31, 1975, has

1

Freddie Mercury started writing it as a student in

1968 but only had the lyric, “Mama, just killed a man”, and no tune. He originally called it The Cowboy Song.

2

The final six-minute track eventually went on Queen’s 1975 album A Night At The Opera. Its title was possibly a twist on Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody.

3

Mercury used the same piano to record it as Paul McCartney did for the Beatles’ hit Hey Jude. With

180 overdubs, the vocals took three weeks to record.

4

Record bosses were at first wary of putting out Bohemian Rhapsody as a single, thinking it was too long to get radio play. Elton John heard it and thought it would flop.

5

But when DJ Kenny Everett, inset right, played the unreleased track

14 times in one weekend on London’s Capital Radio, the record stores were flooded become one of the best-loved tunes in history and is the third best-selling UK single of all time.

JAMES MOORE marks its birthday with 12 fascinating facts…

with requests and quickly rushed out.

6

It became the 1975 Christmas No1 and topped the chart for nine weeks – then a record. It was knocked off top spot by Abba’s Mamma Mia, which echoed its lyrics.

7

It got to the UK

No1 again – a first – in 1991 after Freddie died aged 45 through Aids complications.

8

DJ Everett said the singer told him the puzzling lyrics were “rhyming nonsense” but Freddie stayed tight-lipped in public.

9

Some think it’s about a lad who accidentally kills someone and sells his soul to the Devil. Others believe the song is really about Mercury’s personal traumas or sexuality.

10

It is though he referenced Galileo, above right, as a nod to Queen’s guitarist Brian May, a stargazing fan. Scara

it was

mouche is Italian for a fool, fandango is a Spanish dance and bismillah an Islamic phrase for “in the name of God”.

11

It had one of the first promotional music videos, based on the cover photo from their album Queen II. It was shot in three hours for just

£3,500.

12

The headbanging scene in the 1992 comedy Wayne’s World won Queen an

MTV Video

Music

Award for the video.