Bohemian Rhapsody

Mercury wrote the song and described it as a mock opera joined together from three songs. Producer Roy Thomas Baker remembered Mercury playing the opening ballad on the piano in his flat, stopping, and announcing that this was where the opera section came in. The band recorded it from 24 August 1975, starting at Rockfield. May, Mercury and Taylor sang their parts for ten to twelve hours a day, with some sections carrying 180 overdubs. The tape was bounced down so many times, to eighth generation, that May could see through it when he held it to the light.

Mercury never explained the lyrics beyond saying they were about relationships. Taylor has said the meaning is fairly self-explanatory, with a bit of nonsense in the middle. The opera section names Scaramouche, Galileo, Figaro and Beelzebub. An early handwritten draft headed Mongolian Rhapsody turned up in 2023 in an auction of Mercury's belongings.

Release

EMI thought the single too long. Mercury said it would go out whole or not at all, and the band got a copy to Kenny Everett of Capital Radio. He played it 14 times in two days, and the label released it on 31 October 1975 with I'm in Love with My Car as the B-side. It was the 1975 Christmas number one and held the top spot for nine weeks. Re-released in 1991 after Mercury's death, with These Are the Days of Our Lives, it spent a further five weeks at number one. In the United States it reached number nine in 1976 and number two in 1992 after appearing in Wayne's World. The Guardian said Bruce Gowers' promotional video, filmed at Elstree Studios, ensured videos would become a mandatory tool in marketing music. The song joined the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2022.

The first logged live performance was at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool on 14 November 1975, and the song appears in 695 logged setlists. May and Taylor performed it with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Last Night of the Proms on 13 September 2025, for the song's fiftieth anniversary.