Is This The Real Life? (26 page)

Paul Watts, general manager of EMI's international division, was among the doubters. ‘I was expecting something very special,' he said. ‘So when they played me “Bohemian Rhapsody”, my reaction was: “What the fuck's this? Are you mad?”' Watts and Queen's staunch EMI ally Eric Hall both suggested an edit for radio. Queen flatly refused.

Eric Hall said that he smuggled a copy of the song to Kenny Everett, then a DJ on London's Capital Radio. Roy Thomas Baker also claims that he invited Everett over to Scorpio Studios on London's Euston Road to hear the song and solicit his opinion. Everett (who died in 1995) was apparently so impressed he told the band it was a guaranteed hit. He asked for a copy and the group agreed, on the half-hearted proviso that he didn't play it on his radio show. The following day, Everett played a few seconds of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' before teasingly telling his listeners that he wasn't allowed to play any more. After playing more snippets, Everett aired the whole song – all 5:55 minutes of it – a total of fourteen times over the weekend.

Ex-1984 guitarist John Garnham first heard ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' on the radio. Like Ian Hunter, he wasn't sure. ‘I rang up Brian and said, “What have you put out this load of rubbish for?”' he laughs. ‘That showed my judgement. But then I'd always had this thing in 1984 about playing songs that people could dance to. “Bohemian Rhapsody” seemed more removed from that than even Hendrix and Cream. I just didn't get it at the time.'

Fans who went to buy the single the next morning were told that it wasn't out yet. EMI's hand had been forced. Everett had played the song repeatedly, scuppering the record company's argument that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' was too long for radio. EMI relented and on 31 October, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' was released as Queen's fifth single. It entered the chart at number 47. Ten days later, and with the single rising to number 17 and then 9, Queen realised they couldn't perform the song live, and approached director Bruce Gowers to shoot a promo that could be sent to
Top of the Pops
. Gowers had previously directed the film of Queen's Rainbow gig. In 1975 pop promo budgets normally ran to £600. According to Gowers, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' cost £3,500; excessive for the time, if piddling by today's standards.

Gowers and his crew arrived at Elstree film studios where Queen were rehearsing for their next tour. The premise of the video was simple: to shoot the band playing live on the soundstage and to bring the cover of
Queen II
to life, animating the band members' four heads and capturing Mercury in his Marlene Dietrich pose. While its multi-angle shots and trippy visual effects were pioneering for the time, the shoot took just three hours. ‘We started at seven-thirty,' said Gowers. ‘Worked until ten-thirty and were in the pub by quarter to eleven.'

Among all the ‘Scaramouches', the ‘bismillahs' and ‘Galileos' one question remained unanswered: What was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' about? Evasive as ever, Mercury insisted that ‘people should just listen to it, think about it and then decide what it means'. Taylor claimed, ‘It's obvious what it's about.' May had his own take on the song: ‘I don't think we'll ever know and if I knew I probably wouldn't want to tell you anyway. But the great thing about a great song is that you relate it to your own personal
experiences in your own life. I think that Freddie was certainly battling with problems in his personal life, which he might have decided to put into the song himself. But I don't think at that point in time it was the best thing to do so he actually decided to do it later. I think it's best to leave it with a question mark in the air.' By late 1975, there were significant changes taking place in Mercury's personal life, but he had no intention of making them public.

In the meantime, EMI's head of press and promotions, Martin Nelson had been shepherding Queen to gigs and interviews since
Sheer Heart Attack
. In November, with the tour about to begin, Nelson was instructed to find a studio where Reid could meet the band and play them the final mix of
A Night at the Opera
. ‘I managed to get Radio City in Liverpool,' recalls Martin. ‘We were given an off-air studio, but the studio itself was still being built and no one told me that the equipment had not yet been fully wired up. We all congregated at 11 a.m. John Reid turned up in a Rolls-Royce from London. There were no seats in the studio so we all had to sit on the floor. Then the tape machine was working, but only in mono, so it was just coming out on one speaker. Not the best way to hear your new album back for the first time. John was incensed.' Nelson escaped the full extent of the manager's wrath when Reid went outside and saw his car. ‘I was lucky. The studio was in Stanley Street, which could be a bit rough. Someone had stolen John's hubcaps, so he became distracted by that.'

Queen began their 24-date tour on 14 November with two nights at the Liverpool Empire. In keeping with the grandiosity of their new single, the band's stage set included more lights, more magnesium flares and more dry ice than before. Taylor's kit was accessorised by a giant gong (just like John Bonham's), while his snare drum would be filled with lager to create a fountain of liquid during his solo.

The show would begin with a taped introduction from best pal Kenny Everett (‘Ladies and gentlemen … a night at the opera') and a recording of the operatic section of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody', before the band careened onstage to finish the song, minus the final verse. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' would be reprised after a run of songs including ‘Ogre Battle', ‘Flick of the Wrist' and ‘Killer Queen'.
Later, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' would be played in one piece, with the band leaving the stage for the taped operatic section (Brian May: ‘It gave us a chance to change the frocks') and returning for the finale.

This time, Freddie's stage outfits ran the gamut from the winged Hermes suit and slashed-neck black number, to eye-wateringly tight satin shorts (‘Rude? Meant to be, dear,' he told a writer from
Melody Maker
) to a £200 Japanese kimono. Three dates in, at the Coventry Theatre, the kimono's sash disappeared into the audience, and Pete Brown was dispatched to find a replacement; Mercury had to make do with a silk scarf. As Jonh (sic) Ingham wrote in
Sounds
: ‘Freddie reacts to his audience like an over-emotional actress – Gloria Swanson, or perhaps Holly Woodlawn playing Bette Davis. At the climax of the second night in Bristol, he paused at the top of the drum stand, looked back over the crowd and with complete, heartfelt emotion, placed his delicate fingers to lips and blew a kiss …'

Queen's road crew now included Mott The Hoople's ex-roadie Peter Hince, who had been appointed to look after Mercury and Deacon. Peter soon became au fait with Freddie's perfectionism. ‘If something wasn't working, then Freddie would immediately order another new one,' he recalled. ‘Everything had to be the best, to do the best work.'

This attention to detail also extended to the employment of a personal masseur named Steven, a moonlighting physiotherapist who had once worked for Rudolf Nureyev. However Queen's PR Tony Brainsby was no longer required. Brainsby claimed that first hearing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' left him ‘feeling like a father whose wife had just given birth'. He'd looked after the band for three years, but with a change in the management regime, Brainsby's place would be taken by a PR from John Reid Enterprises, Caroline Boucher. ‘Queen were so easy and pleasant and willing and keen,' says Caroline now. ‘Elton John was just getting into quite a bad drug phase, so Queen were much simpler to deal with than Elton. But Freddie could have his moments if things weren't going his way, as he was such a perfectionist.'

On 20 November,
Top of the Pops
broadcast the promo for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody'. On a day off between dates in Cardiff and
Taunton, Queen and members of their support band Mr Big gathered in a hotel room to watch it on TV. It was the first time any of Queen had seen the finished promo. ‘There was much hilarity,' remembered Brian May, as the group crowded around the set, watching themselves in action, their four disembodied heads ‘singing' the operatic section, even the head of John Deacon, the one member of Queen who never sang in the studio, and whose microphone was always turned down onstage.

‘I loved the video. I thought it was wonderful,' recalls Mr Big's lead singer Jeff Pain, who performed under the stage name Dicken. In 1977 Mr Big would have a Top 5 hit with the single ‘Romeo'. In 1975, they were being managed by Mott The Hoople's handler Bob Hirschman and touting their debut album
Sweet Silence
, a much heavier record than their later hit would suggest. ‘Fred told us how much he liked
Sweet Silence
, particularly a song of ours called “Zambia”. They used to keep putting the album on when we were travelling in the bus together. I used to feel embarrassed: “No, no, Freddie, please play
Sheer Heart Attack
…”'

The two bands had met at Elstree just before the tour was due to start. ‘Queen were farting about onstage, and it sounded awful,' says Dicken. ‘We watched them and thought, “Oh, we're gonna blow them offstage.” Then we got to Liverpool, and I stood at the side when Queen were on and just went, “Oh!”'

On 21 November, the day after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody' debuted on
Top of the Pops
, EMI released
A Night at the Opera
. While over-shadowed by its epic single, the rest of the album hardly trailed behind in the scope of its ambition. In later years, it would become a clichéd statement for rock groups to make, but Brian May's explanation ‘we wanted
A Night at the Opera
to be our
Sgt Pepper
' was no exaggeration. The album had been created in six different studios, with, on occasion, three studios being used simultaneously. Its cost was estimated at a then unheard of £40,000, leading to a rumour that it was the most expensive album ever made (later denied by the band). Such was the band's ceaseless meddling that they'd missed their deadline of a release in time for the tour. No sooner had the band premiered
A Night at the Opera
at a press reception at London's Roundhouse Studios, than Roy Thomas
Baker whisked the tapes back into the studio to continue the process of fine-tuning. ‘This album combines the outrageousness of
Queen II
and the good songs of
Sheer Heart Attack
,' Mercury told the press. ‘The finest songs ever written.' As a final flourish, the album artwork featured a very regal crest, incorporating lions, fairies and a swan over the band's Q logo. ‘The advertising side of me comes out in that aspect,' Mercury explained. ‘We look upon it as a campaign, a project.'

The album's opening song was outrageous enough. Written by Mercury ‘Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to …)', found the singer spitting bile about blood-sucking leeches and decaying sewer rats, and seemed to have been inspired by some perceived wrong-doers. It wasn't until the album sleeve had been manufactured and an EMI executive read the lyrics that the label had doubts (Paul Watts: ‘Someone said, “Are you sure about this?”'). The song's lyrics were so vicious that Mercury recalled May ‘feeling bad singing it'. But ‘Death on Two Legs' was very much the singer's baby. ‘In the studio, Freddie was insistent on having the headphones so loud in order to reach the high notes that his ears started bleeding,' recalls Gary Langan. (Mercury himself told a reporter that it was his throat that bled.)

The camp vaudeville of ‘Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon' came as light relief, and Queen explored a similar mood with ‘Seaside Rendezvous' and ‘Good Company'. The rest of the album also illustrated the eclectic nature of the band's songwriting. Mercury's ‘Love of my Life' was the subtlest of ballads that paid lip service to his great passion for classical music. Mercury even coerced May into playing the harp on the song; a process fraught with difficulty as the instrument kept slipping frustratingly in and out of tune.

After the inconsequential ‘Misfire' on
Sheer Heart Attack
, John Deacon's ‘You're My Best Friend' sounded like the work of a completely different songwriter. The antithesis of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody', it was a disarmingly simple pop song, dedicated to his wife, and featuring its composer playing electric piano (Taylor: ‘Freddie thought the electric piano was vastly inferior to the grand'). ‘You're My Best Friend' managed to sound unlike
anything Queen had done before, but still wholly convincing; a trick the band would achieve again and again in years to come.

John Anthony's belief that Roger Taylor was Queen's most obvious pop star seems confirmed by his contribution to
A Night at
the Opera
. But ‘I'm in Love With My Car' was actually inspired by the band's soundman John Harris – a ‘boy racer to the end', said Taylor – whose pride and joy was his Triumph TR-4, although Taylor sampled the sound of his own Alfa Romeo on the song. ‘I'm in Love With My Car' was eventually chosen as the B-side of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody', earning the drummer considerable royalties. As Brian May explained, ‘At the time, we'd always work on each other's songs, but when it came to credits, the person who came up with the original idea would go, “I wrote the fucking song, so I'm taking the writing credit.” A lot of terrible injustices take place over songwriting. The major one is B-sides. “Bohemian Rhapsody” sells a million and Roger gets the same writing royalties as Freddie because he did “I'm in Love With My Car”. There was contention about that for years.' Queen would finally change this rule for 1982's hit single ‘Under Pressure'. ‘A wise decision,' said Taylor, ‘as that financial side of things can be very divisive.'

The rather one-dimensional ‘Sweet Lady' aside, Brian May's writing on
A Night at the Opera
was as varied as that of his bandmates. The straight-ahead folk song ‘39' was sung by May with lyrics supposedly inspired by German poet and novelist Hermann Hesse. ‘It's a science fiction story,' May told a BBC interviewer. ‘It's about someone who goes away and leaves his family, and when he comes back, he's aged a year and they've aged a hundred years.' Not for the last time, the guitarist had written a song expressing his misgivings about being away from his home and his family.