Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’: The surprising truth behind the iconic song

Before Freddie Mercury put a gun against a man’s head and pulled the trigger, he considered sending him off to war.

An early draft of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the 1975 hit that would define the band, included the verse, “Mama, there’s a war began / I’ve got to leave tonight,” according to “A Life in Lyrics: The Official Creative Legacy of Freddie Mercury,” (Dey Street Books, out now), by Mercury and Mary Austin, the singer’s former fiancée.

Published ahead of what would’ve been Mercury’s 80th birthday on September 5, the book draws on notebooks and musical sketches found at the singer’s London home after his 1991 death — papers that show how even Queen’s most familiar songs passed through some strange early versions.

That includes even the band’s name. Austin recalls being present at an early meeting as the members debated what to call themselves. Mercury suggested Queen, while guitarist Brian May offered the curious alternative Build Your Own Boat. When Mercury asked her opinion, Austin sided with May.

“Freddie smiled but said nothing,” Austin writes. “I have since wondered whether it was some sort of test; if so, I suspect I did not fare particularly well!”

Mercury won the argument. But the book shows how much revising took place before another of his inspired names became permanent.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” began with a single line, “Mama, just killed a man,” which Mercury is thought to have written in 1968 while studying graphic design at Ealing Art College. The line suggested an Old West story to him, and he informally called the unfinished fragment “The Cowboy Song.”

The song took a dramatic turn after Mercury bought the Yamaha grand piano on which he’d compose much of it. Austin wonders whether shopping for the instrument helped steer him toward its grander sound.

“When you visit a piano showroom, you’re surrounded by sound,” she writes. “You’re hearing instruments played, perhaps classical music in the shop. I don’t know if that’s where some of the operatic thinking came from, but it’s possible.”

Other music — by Chopin, Mozart and Joni Mitchell — was swirling around Mercury as the song took shape.

“Freddie was playing Joni Mitchell constantly, her album ‘Court and Spark,’ or possibly ‘For the Roses,’” Austin writes. “I remember feeling almost jealous, which sounds ridiculous now, but true, nonetheless. Joni Mitchell was the only woman I was ever jealous of!”

Years later, Mercury briefly considered a different title. At the top of one handwritten page, “Mongolian Rhapsody” is crossed out and replaced with “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Another unused opening read, “Time for goodbyes now/ Is this reality?” The familiar “Nothing really matters to me” appeared in Mercury’s notes early, before he decided where it belonged. Whole pages were devoted to the dense vocal harmonies of the operatic section, with “Galileo,” “Bismillah,” “Fandango” and “thunderbolt and lightning” serving almost as guideposts for the voices.

Parts of the song may have come to him in his sleep.

Austin remembers Mercury waking with half-remembered lyrics from a dream, frustrated he couldn’t recall exactly what they were. So he got into the habit of “deliberately waking himself in the middle of the night and writing things down,” Austin writes. “He was so preoccupied with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ that even his sleep seemed to be involved.”

The obsession consumed his waking hours as well. For most of their relationship, Austin could interrupt Mercury while he was writing at the piano, and he’d happily take a break for tea and conversation. But while composing “Bohemian Rhapsody,” he “didn’t even stir when I came in,” Austin writes. “He was so focused his whole posture even seemed altered.”

That intensity carried into the studio, where the band spent three weeks making what was then the most expensive recording in history. The operatic section alone required nearly 200 vocal overdubs from Mercury, May and drummer Roger Taylor. By the end, some sections existed on eighth-generation tape that was so worn light could pass through it.

The finished song, at nearly six minutes, was far too long for a conventional single, and executives at EMI, their record company, requested heavy edits. Mercury refused and walked out of the meeting.

The confidence didn’t last long. Back home, he became “worried that he’d torpedoed his own career and that of the band,” Austin writes.

He found an ally in Kenny Everett, a DJ at London’s Capital Radio who was given an advance copy of “Bohemian Rhapsody” with the apparent understanding that he might play it once or twice. Instead, he spent a weekend repeatedly airing the full song.

Capital’s switchboard was flooded with listeners asking where they could buy a single that had not yet been released. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was released uncut in 1975 and spent nine weeks at No. 1 in Britain and became Queen’s first Top Ten hit in America.

The song also had a chart resurgence after being memorably featured in the movie “Wayne’s World” in 1992 — sending it to No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 — and again for the Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2018.

It’s hard to imagine Wayne and Garth head-banging in a battered AMC Pacer to “Mongolian Rhapsody.”