The Queen song Brian May needed to fight to be on: “That was a bit disappointing”
With the amount of conventional hits Queen have to their name, it’s almost a mystery how their biggest hit is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
At six minutes long and structured like a theatrical monologue, it was by no means designed to top the charts and become the cultural behemoth it has been labelled. In fact, if you were to look through their entire discography, you would expect that more from songs like ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Under Pressure’ or ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’.
The latter is as traditional a hit as you’re likely to find, with a reliable upbeat tempo, easy lyrics of feel-good fun and a catchy chorus hook. All the while, it showcases Freddie Mercury’s charismatic vocals and gives Brian May a guitar solo to lean into, if he ever felt in danger of being slightly left out by the track’s tight structures. Nevertheless, it took time to grow: “Worldwide, it’s a massive Queen song,” Brian May explained, “It wasn’t in the beginning. It was a sleeper, and it grew”.
Seemingly, that was something that surprised the band, and for good reason. All the notes of an immediate hit were there, and it was largely down to the influence of a chart titan like Freddie Mercury, who wanted to step away from the crunching guitars of operatic rock and make something piano-led to rival the work of Elton John.
“It was quite funny,” May recalled, “Freddie saw it very much as a piano song, à la Elton. Powerhouse piano, powerhouse vocal, and that’s it. So I played lots of rhythm guitar on it, and Freddie still said, ‘No, no, no, no, it’s a piano song!’”
May obliged, allowing Mercury’s vocals and the supporting piano to make up the bulk of the melody. It was for good reason ultimately, for those two ingredients being the driving force of the song are essentially what’s made it such a timeless hit. But, conversely, it needed an extra sprinkle to truly identify it as something that could exist in the Queen atmosphere, and so knowing that, Mercury gave in to May’s desires as well.
“That was a bit disappointing,” May admitted with regard to the piano, adding, “But he did say, ‘Well, it does need a solo. I need you to take over the vocal’. I said, ‘Okay, give me a verse and let me see what I can do’. And being in the studio and hearing it evolve, I could sort of hear the solo in my head before I actually picked up the guitar to do it. As very often with me, [the guitar solo is] a kind of little diversion. It’s a counter melody. It’s not the actual tune of the verse.”
However, May didn’t reinvent the wheel for the solo, because that would have been grossly misjudging the palette of the song; it was a simply structured song that required a simply structured and equally as catchy solo. “It’s very simple. But I do notice that [the solo] gets a reaction from people. It steps up the energy quite a bit, even from a song that’s got high energy. So I’m happy with it the way it is,” he admitted.
