Is there a song that you can’t say for sure when you heard it for the first time?
Not like exactly when you first heard it, but a piece that has always existed in your mind, a song whose words you’ve seemingly always known. In my case, the first song I can say I’ve always known is Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
I think the reason that it’s always stuck with me is its complexities, as it’s essentially three different songs; a ballad, an operatic section and a traditional classic rock song.
My dad always used to listen to a classic rock radio station in the car, and for the most part, those are the songs I grew up on.
I vividly remember my sister and me laughing hysterically at the operatic part of the song, wondering what in the world our father was listening to.
The timelessness of the song continues to mean something to me. I couldn’t count how many different memories I have of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but it means something to me in a way that I can not express in simply words.
The best way I can describe why it means so much to me is that it’s one of those songs that brings people together. Whether it be belting it in the car with friends or listening to someone struggle to sing it at karaoke, it’s a song that everybody knows.
I’ve even had instances with close friends where I’ll start slowly singing the opening lines, “Is this the real life…is this just fantasy,” and we’ll all end up singing the whole song acapella.
Once I got older, I started to understand how massively popular Queen was in their time, and how big of a hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” really was.
I think what makes this song so timeless is the range of human emotions that the different sections of the song take you through. From sadness to silliness, to anger and defiance, it almost takes you through a unique five stages of grief.
The soft melancholic ballad at the beginning evokes feelings of sadness and despair with Mercury singing, “I don’t wanna die, I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all,” and then transitions to the operatic section of the song, which is often the part that confounds first-time listeners. It’s almost comical in nature.
The baroque nature of this gives the song the eclectic and almost esoteric nature that made it stand out against everything else back when it was released in 1975.
The final section of the song is what most people associate the late ’70s as, which is hard classic rock. It begins with a defiant opening line contrasting what we heard at the beginning of the song, “So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye.”
Over the years, I’ve actively stopped listening to songs that I used to love. I even have a playlist on Spotify named “Songs I’ve Heard Enough for One Lifetime.”
“Bohemian Rhapsody” will never be on that playlist. I’ll never get tired of listening to that song.