Queen passed the 50th anniversary of their seminal song “Bohemian Rhapsody” on Friday, October 31, and in honor, the band has released a Queen The Greatest Special five-part weekly YouTube series. It was such a huge song for the band and definitely deserved some attention for the big 5-0.
The series gives listeners and inside look at the band’s rise to the top and how their music came to life. It joins previous episodes of May and Taylor’s series discussing their starts, Live Aid and the rest of the band’s memories and major moments.
In the latest episode, “The Path to Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor talk about Queen’s journey to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” While the song seemed big and grand at the time, May and Taylor note that they didn’t see it as anything outside of the norm for their dramatic frontman Freddie Mercury.
“It didn’t feel that way from the inside,” May said. “You’ve only got to look at the first album, with ‘My Fairy King.'”
Brian May Discusses Queen
Also in the episode, May and Taylor talk about Mercury’s other experimental tracks, such as “My Fairy King,” “The March of the Black Queen” and “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke.”
“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 in the special. “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 continues, “You don’t always know where he’s going, but that’s the thing people love most about Freddie.”
In addition to the video series, also on Friday, October 31, Queen released “Bohemian Rhapsody” on transparent blue heavyweight 12-inch vinyl, as a 12-inch picture disc and as a blue cassette single.
Anne Erickson started her radio career shortly after graduating from Michigan State University and has worked on-air in Detroit, Flint, Toledo, Lansing and beyond. As someone who absolutely loves rock, metal and alt music, she instantly fell in love with radio and hasn’t looked back. When she’s not working, Anne makes her own music with her band, Upon Wings, and she also loves cheering on her favorite Detroit and Michigan sports teams, especially Lions and MSU football. Anne is also an award-winning journalist, and her byline has run in a variety of national publications. You can also hear her weekends on WRIF.