WHAT SONG AM I?

• My lyrics were written by the lead singer of the group that performed me

• He incorporated the words of a song he’d originally titled The Cowboy Song into my final version

• Record producer Roy Thomas Baker described me as “basically a joke, but a very successful joke”

• One critic described me as a “superficially impressive pastiche of incongruous musical styles”, while The Who’s Pete Townsend said I was “horrifically fascinating”

• My writer never explained the meaning behind my lyrics, other than to say they were about relationships, and the words were meant to be tongue-in-cheek

• Another band member once said the lyrics were probably veiled references to my songwriter’s personal traumas

• The radio DJ who helped to make me famous by playing me 14 times in two days described my lyrics as “random rhyming nonsense”

• I am the third best-selling UK single of all time and the most streamed song from the 20th century

• I was number one for nine weeks when I was first released in 1975 and got to the top of the British charts again in 1991 when my writer and singer died

• My lyrics include the names Gallileo, Scaramouche and Beelzebub