Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Queen’s iconic track “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and to commemorate the occasion, the band has launched Queen The Greatest Special, a five-part weekly YouTube series.
In this week’s episode, The Path to Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor discuss the band’s journey to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” noting that while the public may have been surprised by such a grand song, for them it was just something they came to expect from their frontman Freddie Mercury.
They give earlier examples of Freddie’s experimentation, including “My Fairy King,” from their debut album, as well as “The March of the Black Queen” and “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke” from Queen II.
“It’s interesting. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is viewed as a giant step for Queen creatively, but from the inside, it didn’t really look that way, it didn’t feel that way,” May says. “It’s one of the threads of Queen in our development. This is the stuff that Freddie brings to the table. We’re used to it and we love it. It’s very entertaining. It’s quite off the wall.”
May adds, “You don’t always know where he’s going, but that’s the thing people love most about Freddie.”
The video series also launches on the same day Queen has released “Bohemian Rhapsody” on transparent blue heavyweight 12-inch vinyl, as a 12-inch picture disc and as a blue cassette single. It is available now.
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