Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is half a century old. In all that time, no other artist has ever created a rock song comparable with Freddie Mercury’s extraordinary operatic achievement – even Queen themselves could never repeat it. No one else has ever tried.

Rock opera was a concept much bandied about by rock musicians in the late 60s and early 70s, with the likes of Pete Townsend and Ray Davies both making claims for the form. But whilst their compositions may well have been operatic in construction, they didn’t go beyond the boundaries of rock music in terms of sound. And this is what sets Bohemian Rhapsody apart – unlike anything that preceded it, the song sounds, at times like a bona fide operatic work, yet is able to slide seamlessly between opera and full-on hard rock, without ever sounding contrived or incongruous. The song begins as a slow ballad, before reaching the operatic middle section, then exploding out into heavy rock, before settling once more into the gentle ballad form on which it bows out.

Over the years, many people have asked what it all means. A BBC documentary, made in 2004, even brought in a panel of Oxbridge academics who pored over the lyrics without reaching any definite conclusions. Yet the song is essentially easy to understand – it is a straightforward dramatic narrative concerning a young killer who confronts his guilt and wrestles with the demons of his own imagination. What follows is my personal interpretation of the song: 

Prelude: The narrator introduces himself and his personality. He’s confused and struggling to define the boundary between fantasy and reality, as he prepares to confront divine judgement (‘look up to the sky’) for the crime he has committed. At this stage in the song, we hear only the voice of the narrator. 

First section: In a flashback, the narrator gives a laconic account of his crime, apologising to his mother and friends. He knows he must face up to the reality of what he has done, whether through judicial process in the real world or in a nightmarish courtroom scene where his inner demons take substance and place him on trial for his life. 

Operatic section: The key to understanding this section of the song is delivered in the first lines of the lyric: ‘Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy.’ Up to now, the song has been grounded in the hard reality of a young man who has committed murder. Now, the boundary between reality and fantasy begins to blur. Are we in a court of law or inside the young man’s fervid imagination? Whichever is the case, this section of the song takes the form of a courtroom scene. For the first time, voices other than that of the narrator are heard: ‘I see a little silhouetto of a man’ – this is clearly a reference to the protagonist, a tiny shadowy figure against the titans who sit in judgement. He is fey, an almost clownlike figure (‘Scaramouche/ will you do the Fandango)’ – Scaramouche being a clown character from the commedia dell’arte.

In a sense, some of the lyrics here could be interpreted as a kind of ‘classical word salad’ intended to convey feel rather than specific meaning, although the repetition of Galileo’s name is interesting, Galileo having stood trial for his belief that the Earth revolved around the sun rather than the reverse. Here, our young man, with his nihilist belief that ‘nothing really matters’ seems to believe that the Earth revolves around himself. ‘Figaro’, on the other hand, is probably just an operatic red herring, while ‘magnifico’ suggests the protagonist’s self-aggrandising ego.

Now the protagonist pleads on his own behalf, supported by the Greek chorus. Having previously assured us that ‘I need no sympathy’, the defendant now falls back on self pity (‘I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me’), his plea reinforced by the chorus (‘he’s just a poor boy from a poor family’). He pleads in the name of God (the literal meaning of ‘bismillah’) to be spared, whilst the titans who sit in judgement refuse his plea (‘we will not let you go’). Again, his ego bursts forth defiantly in another ‘magnificio!’ The tug of war between defendant and judgement continues, with the defendant arguing that his ultimate punishment will be to live with his guilt and his demons through all eternity (‘Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me’). With this shout of defiance, the fantastic courtroom scene collapses into a frenzy as the song finally rocks out.

Now our narrator kicks back at his accusers (‘so you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?’). He is determined to escape judgement, but his anger is short lived, and subsides as a softer intrumental passage takes over. Ultimately, the protagonist realises he is left with nothing more than his nihilist philosphy of life: ‘nothing really matters to me’, with the last word coming from the chorus (‘any way the wind blows’): he will continue to drift aimlessly through the world. The gong signifies that judgement has been delivered: the young killer will have to live with himself and his demons for eternity. The song ends where it began.

Does any of this even matter, though? Ultimately, the lyrics served as the props for Freddie Mercury’s grandiose ambition. He wanted to do a rock opera piece, and he needed a storyline on which to hang it. Their meaning is secondary to the effect of the song taken as a whole.

The famous video was as much of an innovation as the song itself. Taking its visual cues from the iconic sleeve of the Queen II album, it debuted on Top of the Pops on 20 November 1975, when the song stood at No.9 in the charts. It hit number one the following week, and the video duly appeared on every subsequent edition of TOTP until 22 January 1976, clocking up eleven appearances. Strange as it seems, I missed out on all of this, as I wasn’t watching Top of the Pops during autumn 1975 – it clashed with Space:1999 over on ITV. As far as I can make out, my first glimpse of the famous video came on Tuesday 23 December, in a special TOTP featuring the number one hits of the year. The song was, however, already very familiar from repeated plays on the weekly Sunday teatime chart countdown, and I didn’t think a lot of it. Queen’s theatricality and Freddie’s voice simply didn’t appeal to me at all back then. Given time, I got used to it, came in time to like it, and would even go so far as to work out Brian May’s guitar solos. Today, I would argue a case for it being impossible to dislike the song: sure, it’s grandiose, almost ludicrously so, and every phrase of words and music has become burned into the collective memory of several generations, but it’s the no holds barred, 100% commitment of the band that transcends mere personal opinion. Having an opinion about Bohemian Rhapsody is as pointless as having an opinion about Big Ben. It’s enormous, it's out there, it’s an icon, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Will anyone be celebrating its centenary half a century from now? Undoubtedly.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY in stats:

First week on chart 08/11/75

Reaches number one 23/11/75

Stays there until 18/01/76 (last week at number one)

Replaced at number one by Abba, Mamma Mia, pushing BR down to number 3

Last week on chart 28.02.76 (17 weeks in total)