Queen ‘still not sure’ what Freddie Mercury lyrics mean in hit song | Music | Entertainment
It may go down in history as one of their best songs, but Freddie Mercury’s bandmates still have no idea what he was singing about on one of Queen’s hit tracks.
Guitarist Brian May confirmed he still isn’t too sure what the legendary frontman meant in the lyrics to one of the group’s biggest hits, and drummer Roger Taylor says that even after decades, he’s no closer to figuring out the meaning.
The band, who are set to celebrate 50 years of A Night at the Opera, are still trying to figure out what the meaning is – if there is any to begin with – behind their hit song.
Bohemian Rhapsody has fast become one of Queen‘s best-known songs, but its meaning is still a mystery to those who were in the studio at the time.
Fans are now also trying to figure out the meaning of some of the song’s more cryptic lyrics.
Taylor said: “Sadly, we can’t ask Freddie. People still ask me what Bohemian Rhapsody is all about, and I say I don’t know.” But there’s a part of the drummer that never wants to find out the meaning.
He added that if he did find out what Bohemian Rhapsody was about it “loses the myth and ruins a kind of mystique that people have built up.”
Fans now are sharing their thoughts on what the song could mean. One jokingly wrote: “I’m not certain Freddie knew what Freddie was singing about.” But others have tried to crack the code behind the rock and roll epic.
Another shared: “It’s a style parody of a rock opera. That’s why it’s full of grandiose language hinting at a story that’s vague and confusing. Freddie knew it was nonsense when he wrote the lyrics.”
A third added: “Sometimes things don’t have to make sense, just sound nice phonetically.” Others were satisfied with the nonsense behind the song, with many suggesting the track merely sounding good is poetry enough from Queen.
One wrote: “That’s the best part of poetry. Honestly Freddie can sing the back of a Skippy’s and it would jam. But more to the point it resonates better when you don’t explicitly know what the ideas are. It is why most pop songs don’t last a year. “
Another disagreed, sharing they thought the song was a deeper read on death. They suggested: “I always figured it was Freddie working through some of his feelings about Death through theatrical lyrics.
That impending feeling of dread and Doom from knowing you have an incurable disease hanging over your head (‘just killed a man’, ‘thunderbolts and lightning’, ‘nothing really matters to me’), mixed with a wish to go out with the loudest bang an artist possibly can (gestures broadly to the song itself).”
Whether fans have cracked the meaning behind Bohemian Rhapsody or not doesn’t matter according to Taylor, as he says whatever meaning can be found is merely “overinterpretation.”
He added: “So many people have been wondering, ‘What’s the secret meaning?’ I’m not sure there is one. I think what’s there is plain, and the rest of it is nonsensical in a sort of Lewis Carroll way. ‘Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me.’ For me, it’s all nice imagery, really. I wouldn’t go too much further.”
