“Bohemian Rhapsody” was the eleventh track, and the first single released from Queen’s 1975 album, A Night at the Opera. Written by Freddie Mercury, the song has become the band’s signature tune and is hailed as one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded. Initially, critics were unsure what to make of the song, with some labeling it as a novelty, campy, calculated, and a brazen hodgepodge. However, they were all wrong. Rolling Stone ranked it 17th in its list of the 500 greatest songs in 2021, and Time ranked it among the top 100 songs written since 1923.

Mercury started writing the song in the 1960s, and it is a combination of three songs with multiple parts, including a cappella ballad, opera, and hard rock. This six-minute lament appeals to many, but everyone has their own interpretation of the song’s meaning. The band has never fully explained the lyrical meaning of the song, only stating that Freddie was a complicated individual with mercurial personality traits and habits. In the album’s Iranian release, it was mentioned in the liner notes that Freddie Mercury, of Indian and Persian descent, explained that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ is about a young man who accidentally kills someone, makes a Faustian bargain by selling his soul to the devil, and ultimately calls upon God, Bismillah, to reclaim his soul.

Source: …Bohemian Rhapsody by Lily Rothman, Time, 2015. Graphic: Bohemian Rhapsody, Cover and Video by Queen, 2008.