Influences and Meanings of Queen Songs

Questioning. Later on we find that the subject of the song has killed someone and is in, we assume, prison, waiting his court appearance. The opening stanza shows the state of mind of the person. They are questioning whether it is real or is it just a dream (shall I wake up?).

Caught in a landslide refers to the way one event can lead to another and so on until the instigator is overwhelmed - perhaps by the thoughts of the actions, perhaps which also lead to the final action.

There's no escape from reality - sleep is denied as it was Lady Macbeth 'Sleep no more, Macbeth has murdered sleep....Macbeth shall sleep no more."" (2.2.33...40), so he must not sleep but look toward heaven and see.

He is just a poor boy - needs and will get no sympathy for his actions. In the total scheme he is nothing: easy come and easy go. Nothing major, nothing planned. It doesn't matter what happens (wind blows) - as it no longer matters to him. He doesn't have the money to win - if you wish to be cynical about it all.

Talking to his mother either in person or in his mind - perhaps a young man, maybe just a teenager caught in violence that was unintentional which would relate to Stanza #1.

A descriptive section - how he killed the person, but did so without realising his actions and is trying to go over it, trying to see what he did and why. His life was only just begun, he was not old and had so much to look forward to but has gotten rid of it.

If he's not back again - tomorrow he may die but again it repeats that he is worthless - that nothing matters, that his life no longer matters and he is begging her to carry on. Not the words of a murderer, but the words of a spur-of-the moment killing, of a victim of events that crashed around him like a landslide.

It's time for him to go. It is now too late to repent, too late to think or wonder as his time has come. He is going to court and face trial. It is the court's judgment that may impose the death sentence. The poignant last two lines are strong in this verse.

He doesn't want to die, he's not prepared for it and despite his brave words prior to this, he is terrified, so scared his body is tense and aching with shivers running down his spine. Then there is the ultimate repentance - if he had never been born then he would never have killed and not been here.

This part, the Opera part, is his trial and the case is going straight over his head. What are they saying? Who are they? A young person who is unable to comprehend the working of the court.

Perhaps the silhouette is him, perhaps it is the judge. Scaramouche is a figure from literature, a romantic rogue who is, among other things, a lawyer who 'confounds his enemies with elegant orations' , the fandango is a dance that starts slow and finishes very fast - much like a lawyer's oration. Thunderbolt and lightening - the to and fro, the arguing of the legal team. Gallileo and Figaro were both people who were imprisoned for trying to express themselves against authority. Magnifico, could easily be the summing up as this term is said at the end of a performance by an orator, not merely a poetic alteration of Magnificent. So the operatic section could easily be the court case building around him.

He is just a poor boy, a victim of circumstance - playing the old game of upbringing causing the crime. We have the oration from the defense begging for his life and then the back-forth argument between the sides. Let me go - no will not let you go...

Bismillah means 'In the name of Allah' or, more literally, 'for the very essence of Allah' and is a plea by one side or other, perhaps even the third side of the defendant himself calling out. This can also relate back to the Gallileo cry at the end of the prior stanza as it was religion then that punished Gallileo. This religious cry is ended and it becomes a backwards-forward argument which ends in the negative, upon which the defendant calls upon his final comfort, that of his mother (my mother). It is unlikely, as some postulate, that this is referring to Mary, Mother of Christ, as this is not in keeping with the Allah reference above. He is begging to be released using this, and knowing that, if executed, he is going to hell where Beelzebub, the Lord of Lies has a special devil awaiting him - something in keeping with Islam and, indeed with Zoroastrianism.

Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters - nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows...

The piece is a 'rhapsody'. This is not a defined term (in that there are many possibilities) but mostly it is a musical piece of undefined form, often with an epic theme and characterised by changes in mood. Bohemian Rhapsody certainly has all of these - the epic theme of murder & punishment but most importantly, seen through the mind of the defendant, not from an outsider; one with mood changes, and in an undefined (at the time) form.

The term bohemian again adds to the unconventional theme. Literally it is about crime and punishment, beyond that it is an interlude inside the mind of another: a very bohemian topic.

The influence may come from Freddie's childhood and perhaps the execution of one of the Arabic citizens of Zanzibar which he may have witnessed when young. The song, and its necessity to be written, could signifying a freeing of his own trauma by trying to expunge this experience so he could remove his guilt by removing the guilt of this person. It could be this track which allowed him to come to terms with his new lifestyle, so divorced from his past and to come to terms with the fear of punishment for any actions that were ingrained within him.

Every song-writer and poet writes at least one piece which is their masterpiece, and usually this is one which is life changing. This has nothing to do with his (far) later bi- or homo-sexuality, but with the new lifestyle of opulence and fame, finally gained through this song.

Viewing this song from the point of view of the dichotomy of Freddie's existence we can see the early awareness and perhaps understanding of his dual nature being realised.

The shy, withdrawn Freddie seems to be soliloquizing here, trying to determine what is his reality - where his real life begins and ends. Referring to his stage persona, he questions whether it is reality or fantasy but realises that, by this stage it has grown so big that he is being swept along with the landslide of their success.

He is semi-despairing, just a poor boy who is gaining his dream, yet one which, at this stage, is not all-consuming: what will be, will be and he is content to move along with this, whichever way he is blown.

Freddie was closer to his mother then to his father and, in many ways would undoubtedly feel that his choice of career would not be acceptable to her and to his religion and culture. Yet he still proceeds.

Taking up the 'gun' and 'killing' the man he was, killing the past and breaking from tradition just as he should be growing into it was one of his early conflicts with his 'new life'. Here he is perhaps trying to destroy the private Freddie, to take on board the new fame-filled jet-setting lifestyle.

Yet he is keenly aware of what he is giving up, and the disappointment that it would initially have caused his mother: his ancestors.

Again, we get the '...nothing really matters' repeated from earlier; only this time it is for his family, for his past, to realise that, ultimately, the way is forward and what is cast off is nothing more then empty tears and they - and he - should simply move on.

It is too late to go back - his time has come and he is now a star. He walks a different path to his past life, his private life, and is thrust into the limelite and made to perform his utmost until his body itself is aching with the pressure of the life.

Again, he wishes his past life goodbye and face the 'truth', face the audience and their changeable mood. Here he expresses the wish of all performers that they '...don't want to die', or don't want to go out and fail before the crowd of people. Then, finally in this section, he shows starkly the fear that he always had before a performance where he wishes he never took this path, was never reborn as Mercury and had remained safe in his past private life.

This part, the Operatic part, shows the turmoil within him as he awaits his time to go on stage, to be tried and judged by the anonymous faces of his audience. All his bravado, all his posturing and preening is, to him, only a shadow puppet, only a silhouette of the true him and he shows this fakeness by calling on Scaramouche, a famous faker who hid his true identity behind the façade of a charming rogue: much like the stage Freddie. Like the stage Freddie, this mask, this Scaramouche, dances and prances in the wild Fandango across the stage, bathed in the lightning of the stage lights and the thunder of the music and of the crowd.

In amongst this we get the call to Galileo and to Figaro; both of whom were forced to change their character to be accepted by the masses: Galileo had to recant his beliefs of be branded a heretic and Figaro had to act in a way that went against his own feelings and intentions by his patron. Perhaps, in Freddie's case, we have a link once more, not only to him having to hide who he really was from the audience, but also an acknowledgement that the character was forced upon him by the fans and by his contract.

Once again, he despairs that he is a 'poor boy' - that the real Freddie is not the idol adored by fans and (at this stage) purportedly rich. He is crying out here for himself to be heard, for the private person to be the one that the fans accept, not the 'monstrosity', the stage person.

In this part he cries out to Allah for the people to let him go, for him to be able to be himself; which they continually refuse to do. This interchange goes back and forth, tearing at him until he realises that they will 'Never let (him) go' and makes one final plea, adding to it that by refusing to let him destroy this stage persona, this monster, they have condemned him to a life of living hell.

Once again, this is the private Freddie speaking, pleading for release, which is once more denied.

He is now angry with those who have condemned him to this life: the stoning and spitting are parts of the Middle Eastern religious punishments of those who have prostituted themselves, something which his stage presence is akin to. A link is often made between the act of prostitution and the act of performing: both giving enjoyment for money.

He attacks the audience for loving him when he is on stage, yet leaving him alone to 'crash and burn' after a performance when the adulation ceases. In this, he has had enough and simply tells them straight that they can't do this to him and he has to get out in order to save himself.

Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters - nothing really matters to me

Any way the wind blows...

We can see this forming and running through the mind of Freddie as he waits once more to go onto the stage. We can see the fear within him of failure and of losing himself. This is Freddie's soliloquy: his exploration into his deepest fears of losing himself to the monster of performance and the feelings of self-betrayal and even of a form of resentment for the audience who continually demand of him.

Yet throughout the piece he is ever philosophic, accepting that it is the whim of chance, of fate that places him where he is and takes him where he will go.

In the end, does the private or the public Freddie win out? Is there really a 'winner' or is it just an acceptance of fate. There is no denying that Freddie wishes to be famous and wishes this life style, yet there is always within him the boy from Zanzibar, the Zoroastrian from a remote island who must wonder - as do all - what happened to the man who would have been had Queen never happened.

This is Freddie's turning point. This is the song where Freddie becomes Freddie Mercury and accepts his fate: whichever way the wind will blow him.