The iconic Queen song Freddie Mercury didn’t understand: “Think about it”
Songs have a habit of tapping into our brain, and staying there for eternity. They don’t always need to make sense to us, in fact, we don’t even have to like them that much, but the minute they strike their opening note, they reveal themselves to us like an old friend.
The instant Queen’s harmonic opening of “Is this the real life?” plays out, there is almost a universal trigger response amongst us all to respond without hesitation, “is this just fantasy?”
It’s the grand opening to a globally adored song, that despite its sonic complexities, is perhaps the easiest of all to sing along to. The play on words in the verse, “I see a little silhouetto of a man / Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? / Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me / (Galileo) Galileo, (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro, magnifico” is nothing more than bona fide music fun, and so despite its pronunciation difficulties, it seems burned into everybody’s memory.
Even without singing along, it’s the sort of track music fans can sit back on and enjoy. Freddie Mercury’s operatic vocals are in full swing, while the backing instrumentation is grand and unrelenting, creating one of the most immersive songs in all of rock. It’s all fitting for a track that tells the tale of first-person murder, which many critics and fans believe to be a beautiful portrayal of Freddie Mercury’s self-acceptance.
The duplicity of that idea is almost staring us in the face now, as we view the song with retrospect. Mercury was famously a man who was imprisoned by his own homosexuality in the 1970s, and felt a desperate need to break out of that and experience life with full freedom. Be it the remorse of killing an idea of a man, fearing the change that comes on the horizon or finally experiencing the relief that “nothing really matters” comes the end of the song, the journey Mercury goes on throughout the song can feel palpable for the listener.
Or can it? Because, despite that theory being most obvious, Mercury himself is willing to refute it. While he did so, partly as his role as an artist not willing to force his listeners into a subject line, he also claimed not to even understand the epic song.
He said, “I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then decide for themselves what it means to them. I don’t like to explain what I was thinking when I wrote a song. I prefer people to put their own interpretation upon it – to read into it whatever they like.” He concluded, “‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a good one, but I still cannot understand it.”
Because of how broad the picture being painted in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is, I firmly believe that Mercury prevents the listener from pigeonholing themselves into a story. Because by avoiding that there is a grand opportunity to buy into an exciting artistic vision. But, while I agree with his intention, there is absolutely no way he didn’t understand the song.
