‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ began its six year journey to number one at a humble west London abode
Greatness can take time. In our world of instant gratification, where ‘instant’ seems to be showing ever faster, somehow in the age of social media and swift online hits, that fact can be tough to handle. But some of the greatest and most enduring careers, or some of music’s most timeless tracks ever penned, have taken a good while to get going – and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a perfect example of that.
When ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ came out, it was a super hit. It landed direct at number one as the 1975 Christmas chart topper, and then it stayed there for nine weeks as nothing seemed able to usurp it.
After teasing the lengthy track in small sections on the radio in the lead up to its release, people flocked out in their masses to be able to hear the entire song that already had them intrigued, and the result was Queen’s biggest, most successful and defining track.
However, before then, every single person they encountered about it put up a fight. “It had a very big risk factor,” Freddie Mercury admitted about the track, explaining, “The radios didn’t really like it initially because it was too long and the record companies said you can’t market it that way.” Initially, their label didn’t even want them to record the track, as when the band first explained their concept for a six-suite, lengthy rock-opera odyssey, that didn’t seem like money bags to them.
Yet by the time these conversations were happening in the mid-1970s, Mercury was already used to fighting for the tune, as in his life, he was already in the sixth year of grappling with it and realising how great it could be.
Mercury started writing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ all the way back in 1968. He was writing it before Queen even formed in 1970, back when he was still living with his family in a small, humble house towards Heathrow Airport. In the day, he was balancing college and his job as a dishwasher in the airport’s kitchen. “He used to write all his music before going to college, put it under the pillow and [tell] me not to remove any of the bits from underneath,” his mother recalled, as outside of those working hours, Mercury was beginning to form into the artist the world would come to know.
In scraps under his pillow, the words for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ were beginning to form, starting right there in the family home in a suburb stuck between Hounslow, Feltham and Twickenham.
By the time the song was released in 1975, though, he was far from where he started. Though still in the same city, Mercury lived in Kensington by then, in a flat he shared with Mary Austen. By then, the band had some standing and some sway to be able to get the track out and fight for its value.
But just like Mercury himself, the hit had humble beginnings, starting out at 22 Gladstone Ave as the singer was crafting something huge with barely even the courage to sing a note yet.
