5 Facts About The Song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ That You Didn’t Know
That’s Paul McCartney’s piano!
The piano that Freddie Mercury played on the song was the same one that McCartney played when recording “Hey Jude.”
The song was entirely written by Freddie Mercury
While his band members sung and played on the song, Freddie Mercury was the band member who had the entire vision for the song in his head. He pieced the song together in different sections and did loads of overdubbing. It took 3 weeks to record the song. An entire week was dedicated to the operatic portion of the tune.
The head banging guitar riff in the song originated with Freddie Mercury, not Brian May
That guitar riff was initially a piano ‘riff’. Brian May used that as a blue print to build the song’s iconic guitar riff.
EMI Records, the band’s label, never wanted them to release the song as a single.
EMI felt the song was way too long to be played on the radio. Freddie vehemently disagreed so he gave the song to a friend of his that was a DJ. The DJ playeed it over 10 times during one weekend and listeners loved it. The label relented and the song became a single.
What’s a Scaramouche?
Scaramouche is a character from the Italian clown tradition commedia dell’arte. This clown is foolish but always finds a way to get himself out of trouble.
