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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 2: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 2: and more. We are your two scaremoshes of scarily granular detail. Yes,

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Speaker 2: I'm Alex Hagel.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Run Talk and I was hoping you were

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Speaker 1: gonna go with something with that.

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Speaker 2: It should be Scaremoshi Scattamucci. Today, Jordan, we were talking

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Speaker 2: about one of the greatest classic rock songs of all time,

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Speaker 2: one of the all time. The DJ wants a smoke

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Speaker 2: break and or needs to poop long jams, an improbable

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Speaker 2: fusion of high wire operatic vocals and balls out guitar heroics.

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Speaker 2: That's right, We're talking about Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Hell yeah,

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Speaker 2: what does a world look like without Bohemian Rhapsody. It's

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Speaker 2: one of the most audacious musical fusions of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: It's something that on paper seems so profoundly bizarre that

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Speaker 2: it would never work. And yet, and yet, and yet,

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Speaker 2: it's a song that is lodged in our cultural firmament.

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Speaker 2: Somewhere on the level of the national anthem. It's great.

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Speaker 2: My favorite memory of this song is being on some

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Speaker 2: field trip in high school and for some reason, someone

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Speaker 2: just started singing the opening piano line, and one by one,

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Speaker 2: like two dozen kids on the bus just slowly started

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Speaker 2: to jing in and sang the entire song start to finish,

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Speaker 2: guitar soul who included, and just like, I love that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great.

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Speaker 2: You don't get that with a lot of other songs,

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Speaker 2: especially not ambitious, multi part quasi operatic epics. But it's

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Speaker 2: just like a bunch of nerds on a bus trip,

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Speaker 2: just you know, mouth jamming. We didn't have a boombox

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Speaker 2: or anything. It was just literally just people singing all

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Speaker 2: the piano and all backing vocals.

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Speaker 1: That's like the tiny dancers scene on the bus and

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Speaker 1: almost famous.

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Speaker 2: That's incredible. Before I had seen that movie.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, Well, I wish I had such a foundational

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Speaker 1: memory of this song, or I wish I remember hearing

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Speaker 1: it for the first time and really just kind of

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Speaker 1: experiencing how truly bizarre and fresh it was. For me.

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Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is like the actual Queen, just

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Speaker 1: one of those things that was always kind of there.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't until years later that I appreciated just how

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Speaker 1: outrageous it was blending this Gilbert and Sullivan esque operetta,

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Speaker 1: hard rock and baldry into this sprawling epic, which you know,

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Speaker 1: it's one of a kind. It's beautiful, it's haunting, it's

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Speaker 1: completely ridiculous, And my favorite part about it is that

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Speaker 1: it's so unashamedly itself, and I think that's its true legacy.

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Speaker 1: I mean, sure, the song has made an untold number

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Speaker 1: of kids headbang and play air guitar, but I think

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Speaker 1: any creative person can draw inspiration from Freddie Mercury's just

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Speaker 1: completely unapologetic single mindedness and confidence in his artistic vision.

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Speaker 1: He was just so different and yet so proud of

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Speaker 1: the things that made him different, and that made him

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Speaker 1: become a source of strength in a funny way to

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Speaker 1: so many others, kind of like a David Bowie figure.

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Speaker 1: My favorite Freddie origin story is from his time at

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Speaker 1: ealing Art College in the late sixties, long before he

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Speaker 1: was anything approaching famous. A classmate found them sitting in

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Speaker 1: a pub looking depressed, so he went over and asked

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Speaker 1: Freddie what was wrong, and Freddie sighed glumly, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to be a pop star, and then a smile

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Speaker 1: spread across his face as he rose to his feet

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Speaker 1: and he threw his arms out in a heroic pose

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Speaker 1: that would become his on stage trademark. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: become a legend. How could you not love that? I'm

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Speaker 1: a poor art school student who had absolutely no breaks

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Speaker 1: at that point whatsoever. I just love that and that

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Speaker 1: confidence I think was brought to the four on Bohemian Rhapsody.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, from everything that went into the absolutely insane

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Speaker 2: multi track recording process, including Freddie Mercury's extra vocal chords

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Speaker 2: and teeth and Brian Mayy's homemade guitar and amp, to

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Speaker 2: the song's groundbreaking music video, to the records that it

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Speaker 2: continues to set a half century later, and world and

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Speaker 2: Wayne's and also Wayne's World. Will talk about Wayne's World

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Speaker 2: and animals.

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Speaker 1: Here's everything you don't ever interrupt me again, Here's everything

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Speaker 1: you didn't know about Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Wow, please open

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Speaker 1: this with that help.

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Speaker 2: Hey, We're not going to recap the entire history of

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Speaker 2: Queen to get up to this point.

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Speaker 1: We'll probably touch on it a little bit. There's a

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Speaker 1: biopic you guys may have heard of from a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago that'll do that for you if you want.

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Speaker 1: I've heard it's really well edited. Oh yeah, shots Fired.

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Speaker 2: We'll just start with nineteen seventy four's Sheer heart Attack,

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Speaker 2: really the band's first taste of international success. It reached

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Speaker 2: number two in the UK went gold in the US,

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Speaker 2: thanks largely to the single killer Queen, which reached number

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Speaker 2: two on the British charts and became the band's first

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Speaker 2: US hit, reaching number twelve on the Billboard Hot one hundred.

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Speaker 2: But despite this, Queen was broke. They essentially assigned a

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Speaker 2: contract with Trident Studios that made tried end the middlemen

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Speaker 2: between Queen and what they produced. So they would produce

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Speaker 2: records at and phenomenally four Trident, and then Trident would

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Speaker 2: take the finished product to a record label and be like,

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Speaker 2: this is our product that we are trying to sell you.

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Speaker 2: And so because of this, they made no money from it.

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Speaker 2: They were making sixty pounds weekly like they were living

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Speaker 2: in dismal apartments. I think the stories that John Deacon

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Speaker 2: tried to get money for a down payment for his

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Speaker 2: house and was denied and so in December nineteen seventy

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Speaker 2: four they began negotiating their way out of the deal

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Speaker 2: with Trident, and after nine months they directly with EMI

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Speaker 2: in the UK and Elektra in the US. And though

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Speaker 2: there were a number of financial pitfalls associated with this transition,

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Speaker 2: not just court cost, but they also had a US

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Speaker 2: tour fall through around this time, their new manager, John Reid,

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Speaker 2: who was also Elton John's manager at the time, advised

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Speaker 2: them to let him worry about all that and focus

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Speaker 2: on their new record, which they arrived at the name

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Speaker 2: of at some point a Night at the Opera aimed

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Speaker 2: for the Marx Brothers film.

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Speaker 1: And the opening track on this album, Death on two

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Speaker 1: Legs Parentheses, dedicated to was Freddie Mercury's vengeful Spike Field

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Speaker 1: distract aimed at their former manager, and his lyrics were

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Speaker 1: so coarse that they left the rest of the band

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Speaker 1: totally shocked at first when they heard it. You suck

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Speaker 1: my blood like a leach. You break the law and

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Speaker 1: you breach screw my brain till it hurts. You've taken

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Speaker 1: all my money and you want more. Misguided old mule,

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Speaker 1: with your pig headed rules, with your arrow minded cronies,

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Speaker 1: who are fools of the first division. Death on two Legs,

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Speaker 1: You're tearing me apart to Death on two Legs. You

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Speaker 1: never had a heart of your own. Incredible subtle. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: not to recap the whole song, but my favorite line

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Speaker 1: is feel good? Are you satisfied? Do you feel like suicide?

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Speaker 1: I think you should. You do not mess with Freddie Mercury. No.

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Speaker 1: This was so brutal that the manager in question, Norman Sheffield,

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Speaker 1: ended up suing Queen and their label for defamation over

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Speaker 1: Death on Two Legs, which resulted in an out of

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Speaker 1: court settlement, and he later titled his memoir Life on

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Speaker 1: Two Legs Set.

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Speaker 2: The Record Straight. That's good bit of score settling well. Consequently,

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Speaker 2: the only song on the night of the opera that

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Speaker 2: they tracked at Trident Studios would be God Save the Queen,

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Speaker 2: which is I think the shortest song on the album.

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Speaker 1: It must be the last one, the one that comes

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Speaker 1: after Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah, God Save the Queen is like

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Speaker 1: what would end all concerts in the UK. They played

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Speaker 1: the national anthem before everybody went home, so I think

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Speaker 1: that was like a little bit of Sergeant Peppery, you know,

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Speaker 1: making the album a concert kind of deal.

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Speaker 2: They had recorded that the previous October. Before embarking on

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Speaker 2: the tour for Sheer Heart Attack, the band spent a

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Speaker 2: month during the summer of nineteen seventy five rehearsing in

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Speaker 2: a barn at what would then become Ridge Farm Studios

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Speaker 2: in Surrey, which was a studio established by Frank Andrews,

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Speaker 2: who was a lighting technician who had toured with Queen

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Speaker 2: Bad Company, Rolling Stones, Doobie Brothers and Abba.

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Speaker 1: You know who kicked Bohemian Rhapsody off the top of

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Speaker 1: the charts in the UK in nineteen seventy eight.

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Speaker 2: It was Mama Mia Mia, which is funny because it's

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Speaker 2: in the lyrics. A number of legendary bands passed through

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Speaker 2: Ridge Farm, Roxy Music, Bad Company, Hawkwind, Pearl Jam, Ozzy Osbourne.

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Speaker 2: All of them spent time there. Andrews were called bringing

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Speaker 2: metal detectors out for the property looking for Ozzy Osbourne's

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Speaker 2: rolex after Sharon Osbourne pitched it off their balcony in

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Speaker 2: the middle of an argument. One night at Ridge Farm,

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Speaker 2: when we weren't working, we would swim, play bad tennis,

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Speaker 2: bad snooker and be beaten at table tennis by Freddie

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Speaker 2: Queen drummer and vocalist Roger Taylor told The Telegraph in

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Speaker 2: twenty eleven. I think he'd been the champion at his

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Speaker 2: boarding school and I never ever saw him lose a game.

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Speaker 2: That summer was more like a youth club rather than

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Speaker 2: wild parties. In the evenings, we would go down to

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Speaker 2: the pub, come back to the barn and play more music.

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Speaker 1: You know. It was also like supernaturally good at ping pong.

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Speaker 1: Prince Prince ye. Yeah, oh man, imagine that. I know,

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Speaker 1: that's exactly what I was gonna say. I mean, wait,

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Speaker 1: now I keep going. I'm gonna google and see if

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Speaker 1: there was ever an epic face off.

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Speaker 2: No, my favorite one is Prince playing Michael Jackson and

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Speaker 2: making him cry because he was like hitting Prince with

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Speaker 2: really complicated like spin serves and stuff, and Michael Jackson

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Speaker 2: left in two ears.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah. It was like when he was working on

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Speaker 1: Under the Cherry Moon. They were like in the same

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Speaker 1: studio or something.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 1: There is a cute anecdote involving Freddy in Prince Freddie

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Speaker 1: Mercury's former PA Peter Freestone said if Freddy stayed in

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Speaker 1: during the evenings, he would usually veg out and watch television.

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Speaker 1: He had one video of Prince which he forced many

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Speaker 1: people to watch, sometimes over and over again. These video

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Speaker 1: sessions generally occurred at two or three in the morning

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Speaker 1: after Freddy and his entourage returned from an evening on

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Speaker 1: the town. The Prince tape was immediately put on, and

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Speaker 1: Freddy had sole control of the remote, and his guests

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Speaker 1: were subjected to Freddie's enthusiasm for said artist again and

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Speaker 1: again and again. I wonder what tape it was, Purple

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Speaker 1: rain O, Well, maybe under Cherry Moon.

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Speaker 2: Definitely not on the Cherry Moon.

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Speaker 1: Well, just because you mentioned Michael Jackson, I have a

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Speaker 1: great Michael Jackson Freddie story that I'd like to share. Peez. So,

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Speaker 1: Freddie loved Michael Jackson back from his earliest Jackson five days.

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Speaker 1: He just was totally in awe of Michael. He thought

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Speaker 1: I Want You Back was an incredible song, and he

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Speaker 1: used to like torture his more hard rock loving roommates

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Speaker 1: by playing early Bubblegum Jackson five tracks over and over

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Speaker 1: and over again at high volumes, which I love. And

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Speaker 1: sometime in the early eighties, Freddie and Michael got together

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Speaker 1: in the studio to work on some tracks together, but

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Speaker 1: it fell apart. And there are two reasons why. The

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Speaker 1: Freddie centric version is that some of what should we say,

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Speaker 1: Michael's eccentricities got on his nerves a little bit. Jim Beach,

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Speaker 1: who was Queen's manager at the time, said, I suddenly

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Speaker 1: got a call from Freddy saying, can you get over

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Speaker 1: here because you got to come and get me out

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Speaker 1: of the studio. Jim Beach said, what's the problem. Freddy said,

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Speaker 1: I'm recording with a lama. Michael's bringing his pet lama

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Speaker 1: into the studio every day, and I'm really not used

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Speaker 1: to recording with a lama. I've had enough. I like

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Speaker 1: to get out. Michael, for his part, he had some

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Speaker 1: issues with Freddy's quirks too. According to the story sold

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Speaker 1: to the Son by Freddie's former personal assistant, these sessions

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Speaker 1: broke down when Michael Jackson caught Freddie snorting cocaine through

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Speaker 1: one hundred dollars bill, which didn't fly with Michael.

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Speaker 2: Which would you be more offended by? Probably the lama?

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Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I'm gonna go with a lot. I

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Speaker 2: can deal with cocaine, I can't deal with a big,

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Speaker 2: spitting mammal.

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Speaker 1: Brian Wilson wanted to bring a horse into the studio

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Speaker 1: for pet sounds.

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Speaker 2: I mean when they were doing Chinese Democracy, Bucket had

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Speaker 2: made them build a chicken coop in the studio.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: It was at Ridge Farm that Freddie Mercury would play

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Speaker 2: a six year old Tiffany Murray his early sketch for

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Speaker 2: Bohemian Rhapsody. Murray, a novelist, would later recount this incident

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Speaker 2: in her twenty ten memoir Diamond Star Halo. Do you

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Speaker 2: like it? He asked, It's fantastic, I said, It's a

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Speaker 2: bit long, he replied. According to Mercury's friend Chris Smith,

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Speaker 2: who is a keyboard player in the pre queen band Smile,

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Speaker 2: Mercury started first developing Bohemian Rhapsody in the late nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixties when he was a young Faruk Bolsara. The earliest

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Speaker 2: kernel of the song was known simply as the Cowboy Song,

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Speaker 2: which is my favorite thin list song, and began with

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Speaker 2: the line Mama just killed a man. Freddie Mercury used

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Speaker 2: a piano as the headboard of his bed at his

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Speaker 2: flat in Kensington, and because he was double jointed, he

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Speaker 2: would he would wake up out of dreams and play

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Speaker 2: the piano backwards to work out of ideas from bed.

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Speaker 1: There are so many easier ways to do that, and

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Speaker 1: yet that was the way that was chosen.

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Speaker 2: He told him an interviewer in Sydney in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: five that Bohemian Rhapsody was quote basically three songs that

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Speaker 2: I wanted to put out, and I just put the

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Speaker 2: three together.

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Speaker 1: This was in the era when Freddy was enrolled at

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Speaker 1: the prestigious Healing Art College in London alongside future Rolling

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Speaker 1: Stone Ronnie Wood and Freddie would draw on his art

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Speaker 1: college training for many instances when it came to Queens

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Speaker 1: stage shows, costumes, and even their famous royal crest logo,

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Speaker 1: which he designed himself. It incorporated the zodiac signs of

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Speaker 1: all four members, two lions for the leos, John Deacon

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Speaker 1: and Roger Taylor, a crab to represent Brian May's cancer sign,

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Speaker 1: and Mercury represented himself with two fairies, which he claimed

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Speaker 1: were merely symbols of Virgo. And all of this was

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Speaker 1: dwarfed by a massive phoenix, a symbol of hope and renewal,

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Speaker 1: which borrowed from the crest of his childhood alma mater,

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Speaker 1: Saint Peter's School, and at the center of it all

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Speaker 1: is an elegant queue with a crown at the center. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: And during Freddy's attendance at ealing Art College, a young

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Speaker 1: David Bowie came to play for students, and a fascinated

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Speaker 1: Freddie followed him around and offered to carry his gear,

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Speaker 1: and Bowie soon put him to work pushing tables together

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Speaker 1: to make a makeshift stage. And later, when Freddie was

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Speaker 1: working at a vintage clothing stall in Kensington Market, he

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Speaker 1: sold Bowie a pair of boots, and he was also

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Speaker 1: standing front row when Bowie's debuted as Ziggy Stardous character

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Speaker 1: at a pub in January nineteen seventy two. I just

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Speaker 1: love these stories, like pre famous musicians hanging out and

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Speaker 1: being friends, and I just think it's so cool. London

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Speaker 1: wasn't that big of a place. Yeah, true, but Freddie

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Speaker 1: Sam was several local bands around the time that he

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Speaker 1: first started writing Bohemian Rhapsody, but he had his eye

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Speaker 1: on playing with the aforementioned Smile, who were a trio

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Speaker 1: which included guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, later

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Speaker 1: of Queen, and with trademark enthusiasm, Freddie offered a long

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Speaker 1: list of unsolicited suggestions to the group, and he would

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Speaker 1: stand in front during their shows and shout if I

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Speaker 1: was your singer, I'd show you how it was ton

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Speaker 1: narrator voice. He would.

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Speaker 2: That's moderately rude, uh, but he did. That's true. Roy

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Speaker 2: Thomas Baker, who while at Decca and Trident Studios, worked

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Speaker 2: on the first three Queen records, recalled Mercury playing Bohemian

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Speaker 2: Rhapsody to him for the first time in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 2: five to the magazine Sound on Sound. In an extensive

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Speaker 2: interview he gave about the production of the song in

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Speaker 2: October nineteen ninety five. He said, we were going out

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Speaker 2: to dinner one night and I met Freddy at his

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Speaker 2: apartment in Kensington. He sat down at his piano and said,

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Speaker 2: I'd like to play you a song that I'm working

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Speaker 2: on at the moment. So he played the first part

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Speaker 2: and said this is the chord sequence, followed by the

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Speaker 2: interim part, and although he didn't have all the lyrics

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Speaker 2: together yet, I could tell it was going to be

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Speaker 2: a ballady number. He played a bit further through the

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Speaker 2: song and then stopped suddenly, saying this is where the

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Speaker 2: opera section comes in, we both just burst afing. I

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Speaker 2: had worked with an opera company at Decca, where I

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Speaker 2: learned a lot about vocals and the way vocals are stressed,

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Speaker 2: so I was probably one of the few people in

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Speaker 2: the whole world who knew exactly what he was talking about.

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Speaker 2: Though the band rehearshed the tune at Ridge Farm. Bohemian

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Speaker 2: Rhapsody was actually tracked in rock Field Studios, just outside

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Speaker 2: the village of the same name in Monmouthshire, Wales. It

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Speaker 2: was actually relatively new at the time. It had originally

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Speaker 2: been a livestock farm and the converted stone farm structures

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Speaker 2: were built in nineteen sixty eight and nineteen seventy three

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Speaker 2: as one of the first residential style studios.

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Speaker 1: It can have smelled good.

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Speaker 2: I just think it's hilarious that the band that came

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Speaker 2: in after Queen was motorhead like talk about diametric opposites.

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Speaker 1: Once again, that can have smelled good. And later on,

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Speaker 1: speaking of and again later on, Oasis recorded What's the

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Speaker 1: Story Morning Glory there and this was the scene of

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Speaker 1: the famous cricket bat incident, which is one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite stories in all of Oasis lore. For those of

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Speaker 1: you who don't know Liam Gallagher came to the studio

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Speaker 1: one night drunk with a bunch of new friends from

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Speaker 1: the pub in tow Brother Nol had been hard at

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Speaker 1: work for hours, and he was already pissed that his

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Speaker 1: brother had blew him off before, and he didn't appreciate

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Speaker 1: these unexpected guests. Liam later admitted, can you do a

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Speaker 1: Liam Gallagher voice?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 1: No, I probably shouldn't have brought him back, but I

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Speaker 1: thought we were a rock and roll band. You know.

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Speaker 1: A fight broke out with Liam attacking Noel with one

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Speaker 1: of his own guitars, which that's not done. You do

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Speaker 1: not attack a man with one of his own guitars.

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Speaker 1: That's just that's against the Geneva convention. Noel responded by

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Speaker 1: hitting Liam over the head with what was at hand,

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Speaker 1: which was a cricket bat, which I can only imagine

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Speaker 1: he must have had in the studio because of that

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Speaker 1: scene in Spirinal Tap when the manager is like, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's good to have a good solid piece of woodies disposal.

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Speaker 1: This cricket bat was handed over to a British music

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Speaker 1: journalist named Palo Hewitt, who treated the thing like a

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Speaker 1: holy relic until he sold it at auction. I was

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Speaker 1: unable to find out how much it went for Queen, meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: were much better behaved twenty years before Oasis. They were

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Speaker 1: hard at work, as Brian May would later say, making

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Speaker 1: the album that would save us.

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Speaker 2: With each member of the band a talented songwriter in

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Speaker 2: their own right, Queen's process typically involved the individuals bringing

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Speaker 2: their own ideas to the group and then working on

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Speaker 2: them again, either by themselves or in smaller pairs. Brian

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Speaker 2: May told Melody Maker in nineteen seventy five that you

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Speaker 2: lose a bit of the group feeling with this dynamic.

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Speaker 2: I can point to things on this album that suffered

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Speaker 2: from not having us all there at one time, because

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Speaker 2: there's too much responsibility on one. With all that said,

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Speaker 2: Mercury arrived at Rockfield's studio one with Bohemian Rhapsody written

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Speaker 2: down in notebooks that his father Boy used for his

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Speaker 2: accounting work.

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Speaker 1: Roger Taylor also said that it was sketched out on

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Speaker 1: the back page of a telephone book, which I love,

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Speaker 1: just lots of little scraps basically, and the working title

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Speaker 1: for Bohemian Rhapsody for a time at least was simply

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Speaker 1: Fred's Thing, which I also love.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't standard musical notation. Brian May told Mark Blake,

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Speaker 2: author of Is this the real life, the untold story

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Speaker 2: of Queen? But a's and b's and c's and blocks

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Speaker 2: like buses zooming all over bits of paper. He seemed

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Speaker 2: to have the whole thing worked out in his head.

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Speaker 2: We were all a bit mystified about how he was

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Speaker 2: going to link these pieces. Indeed, the song moves through

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Speaker 2: the keys of B flat, E flat A and F major.

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Speaker 2: That's crazy. That's too many keys for one song, Freddy

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Speaker 2: Fred's thing. Hey. According to Baker, the basic backing tracking

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Speaker 2: was recorded at Rockfield, with Mercury conducting and playing a C.

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Speaker 2: Bechstein concert grand piano, the same one seen in the

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Speaker 2: promotional video and that he would play in live appearances

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Speaker 2: in the UK.

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Speaker 1: Just a quick word about the piano used on Bohemian Rhapsody.

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Speaker 1: There's a persistent rumor online and inn like you know,

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Speaker 1: listicles about this song that the piano used to record

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Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody is the same one that the Beatles used

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Speaker 1: to record, Hey, Jude. They're referring to a Bechstein consercized

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Speaker 1: grand piano at Trident Studios in London, where the Queen

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Speaker 1: recorded their first three albums, but I'm fairly sure it

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Speaker 1: wasn't the same one used on Bohemian Rhapsody. Unfortunately, however,

386
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Speaker 1: this piano was used on the seven Seas of Ryan

387
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Speaker 1: Early Queen's Song and possibly Killer Queen, as well as

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Speaker 1: Elton John's Your Song, Tiny Dancer and Levon Harry Nilssen's

389
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Speaker 1: cover of Bad Fingers Without You, Carly Simons You're So Vain,

390
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Speaker 1: Lou Reed's Transformer album, best heard on the track perfect

391
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Speaker 1: Day t Rex is Get It On. Not to mention

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Speaker 1: David Bowie classics like Life on Mars and Changes, plus

393
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Speaker 1: tracks on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, super Tramps, Chrime, Century,

394
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Speaker 1: Early Genesis and so much more all one piano that

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Speaker 1: is incredible. What became of this historic instrument, you may ask, Well,

396
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Speaker 1: the piano was being moved and I'll just I winced

397
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Speaker 1: just even reading this. The cradle supporting it broke as

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Speaker 1: it was being moved, and this priceless instrument tumbled onto

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Speaker 1: the floor and had to be rebuilt, permanently altering it sound.

400
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Speaker 1: It was later sold at auction in May twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: but the details of the price and the purchaser have

402
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Speaker 1: never been made public. It's rumored to have been sold

403
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Speaker 1: between three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand pounds somewhere out there.

404
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,199
Speaker 1: It's a piece of rock and roll history. And you

405
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Speaker 1: know what I have to say about that, You just

406
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Speaker 1: gotta punch in them. You just got to punch in

407
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Speaker 1: the air. Yeah. I love Freddy's playing, though Brian May

408
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Speaker 1: would observe that he plays like a drummer, just with

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Speaker 1: such power, but also an unwavering sense of timing.

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Speaker 2: And just like totally rigid hands too. You watch it

411
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Speaker 2: play and it's just like it's like he's playing with

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Speaker 2: ten drumsticks instead of fingers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an incredible way to put it. Yeah, no

414
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Speaker 1: click track, I mean, and for much of the quiet

415
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Speaker 1: intro parts, he doesn't even have a drummer to help

416
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Speaker 1: keep him in time. It's insane.

417
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Speaker 2: Initially, producer Roy Thomas Baker left a thirty second slot

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Speaker 2: of tape open for the opera section as they were

419
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Speaker 2: calling it. He told Sound on Sound the end rock

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Speaker 2: section was recorded as a separate song, the way we

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Speaker 2: would normally record a loud rock number of that period.

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Speaker 2: The thing that made it difficult was that even the

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Speaker 2: end had lots of vocals on it ooh yeah, ooh

424
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Speaker 2: yeah part. So we had to record the basic backing

425
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Speaker 2: track of drums, bass, guitar and piano, then do the

426
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Speaker 2: background vocals without having the lead vocal on first. This

427
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Speaker 2: wasn't the regular way of doing things because the lead

428
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Speaker 2: vocal would normally dictate the phrasing of the background vocals.

429
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Speaker 2: But we wouldn't have had enough tracks left for the

430
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Speaker 2: rich backing vocals if we hadn't have gone down this route.

431
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,119
Speaker 2: All due respect to Brian May, who we will get to. Yes,

432
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 2: the crazy part of Bohemian Rhapsody is obviously the vocals.

433
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,360
Speaker 2: The typical Queen vocal sound that you hear is even

434
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 2: though Freddie Mercury has a you know, I was, I

435
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 2: was reading these different people saying whether or not he

436
00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:16,120
Speaker 2: had a three or four octave range, and I did

437
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,680
Speaker 2: find a video that successfully found evidence that he hit

438
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 2: notes spanning four octaves at one point or another, whether

439
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 2: or not he consistently had that. But it's funny because

440
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 2: most often the highest notes that you hear on Queen

441
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 2: recordings are actually the drummer Roger Taylor. The highest note

442
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 2: in Bohemian rhapsody for Me. That's Roger Taylor could give

443
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 2: us a taste for me a B flat high b flat.

444
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 2: But the typical blend is they would have Brian May

445
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 2: at the bottom because he had the lowest voice, Freddie

446
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 2: in the middle, and Roger Taylor on top, and they

447
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 2: arrived at this voice in combination because of their tambour

448
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 2: of each other's voices. Like basically, Roger tayl voice was

449
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,199
Speaker 2: thinner and more piercing, so they would give him all

450
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 2: the notes that kind of had to go on what

451
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 2: you would have like a soprano sing. But they were

452
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 2: arranging their the harmonies in more what we call block voicings,

453
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:17,120
Speaker 2: which are closer to like barbershop or gospel style vocals,

454
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:20,640
Speaker 2: where the intervals of the harmonies are closer together than

455
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 2: what you would see in a choral spread, where there's

456
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 2: like in traditional four part choral voice leading. There's all

457
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:29,479
Speaker 2: kinds of rules that you have to obey when you're

458
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 2: writing chorls dating back to like the Bach era, about

459
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,919
Speaker 2: how much movement and how much space you have to

460
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 2: have between all the four voices. Block voicings are much

461
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 2: closer and smaller together. It's like the tight kind of

462
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 2: a cappella harmony blend, but more so than the voicings.

463
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 2: What we think of when we think of the Queen

464
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 2: vocal harmony sound is overdubs, like a sload of overdubs.

465
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 2: All three singers would sing every note of each chord

466
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 2: into a mic at the same time, which meaning even

467
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 2: a simple triad a three note chord vocal harmony would

468
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,640
Speaker 2: be sung by nine voices. Then they would re record

469
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 2: that up to four times again, with the total arrangement

470
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 2: being spread across the either the center of the stereo

471
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,199
Speaker 2: image or to the left or right channels, meaning that

472
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 2: in the finished product, what you would have a three

473
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 2: part vocal arrangement would feature up to thirty six voices

474
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 2: of the members of Queen spread across basically the entire

475
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 2: stereo image. And that's the wall of sound, that's the

476
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 2: defining Queen vocal sound.

477
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: And Brian May has talked about this other vocal trick

478
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: that Queen used a lot during this period, and he

479
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: called it the bell's effect, where you'd have someone hold

480
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: a note, and then you would have somebody else come

481
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: in singing a different note, and then somebody else coming

482
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: in singing a third note, and then possibly somebody else

483
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: or an overdub come in and sing a fourth note,

484
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: and so you have this cascade of harmonies building a chord.

485
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: It's almost like the Three Stooges Hello, Hello, Yeah.

486
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 2: Rhapsody.

487
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: It's the oh.

488
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 2: Like that as those stack up. That's that's one of

489
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 2: the one of the places in the song that you

490
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 2: can hear him talk that he points to.

491
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: And that's an approach that the composer Manta Vani did

492
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: a lot in the thirties, and it's just one of

493
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: the many weird non rock influences that went into this track.

494
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 1: I also read that the band, at some point during

495
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: the vocal sessions, we're saying into metal tubes to get

496
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: a like a honky effect on the vocals, like a

497
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: weird echo.

498
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for you to say, not that kind of honky.

499
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.

500
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 2: Some of these man that that documentary where you watch

501
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 2: him solo, some of these vocal takes is insane, like

502
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 2: they they some of these falsettos that they're doing and

503
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 2: like high notes that they are hitting did do not

504
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 2: sound human. It is true, really a phenomenon of mixing

505
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: that this thing came together, Baker told sound on sound.

506
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 2: The opera bit was getting longer, and so we kept

507
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 2: splicing huge lengths of tape onto the reel. Every time

508
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 2: Freddy came up with another galileo, I would add another

509
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 2: piece of tape to the reel, which was beginning to

510
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 2: look like a zebra whizzing by. This went on over

511
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 2: a three or four day period while we decided the

512
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 2: length of the section. That section alone took about three

513
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 2: weeks to record, which in nineteen seventy five was the

514
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 2: average time spent on a whole album.

515
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: And they've reportedly would be working on this between ten

516
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: and twelve hours a day, which is like Cubricians in

517
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 1: its punishing schedule. I think I read the final stats

518
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: for the opera section alone was about seventy hours, and

519
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: I've read two figures it was either completed between five

520
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 1: studios or six studios. There's an article on Queen's actual

521
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: website that says six, but the figure I've most often

522
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: seen is five. Either way, that's a ridiculous amount of

523
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,399
Speaker 1: studios and this would contribute to making A Night at

524
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:06,919
Speaker 1: the Opera the most expensive album ever made up to

525
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: that point.

526
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 2: And the other thing, too, is that this is nineteen

527
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 2: seventy five. The band is recording on a twenty four

528
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 2: track mixing desk, which is the most channels that you were.

529
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 1: Cutting, cutting edge at the most cutting edge you can imagine, Yeah,

530
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: and all of those overdubs piled up very quickly. The

531
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: way that you worked around this is a process called bouncing,

532
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: in which individual parts are recorded and then themselves.

533
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 2: Re recorded into groupings. Right, so you have three harmonies

534
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 2: that are then recorded and bounced to a separate track

535
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 2: where they're all together, so that they no longer take

536
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 2: up three tracks, they take up one track. Baker explains this.

537
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 2: He says, we formed three part harmonies by recording one

538
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 2: harmony at a time and bouncing. So we did three

539
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 2: tracks of the first part and bounce into one track,

540
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 2: three of the second, and three of the third. We

541
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 2: would then double bounce to one section so that particular

542
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,480
Speaker 2: phrase would have a three part harmony just on one track.

543
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 2: We would do this to each background vocal part across

544
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 2: the song and ended up with fourth generation dupes on

545
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 2: just one of the parts. By the time we mixed

546
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 2: two of the other parts together, the first part was

547
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 2: up to eight generations of overdubs. That's not good for tape,

548
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 2: and that has given rise to one of the most

549
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 2: commonly recited bits of queen lore, which is that, as

550
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,239
Speaker 2: a result of all of is overdombing something like one

551
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty vocal parts, that the tape that they

552
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 2: were using for this was actually worn translucent by the

553
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 2: time that they they got done with it. Do we

554
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 2: talk about how how does that? Does that make sense

555
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: to people? Should to do a quick thing about how like.

556
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: A tape is oxidized. Yeah, I do a thing on it. Yeah,

557
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: you can explain it byter than many.

558
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 2: Do a thing. So in analog recording, what you're doing

559
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 2: is taking the current that is coming from the microphone

560
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 2: and store it in the form of magnetic particles that

561
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 2: are embedded into the surface of a tape, and then

562
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 2: you run that tape over a magnet. That's how analog

563
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 2: tape based recording works. But you degrade the oxide on

564
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 2: the tape the more and more that you use it,

565
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 2: and that's why you know, you have to bounce this

566
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 2: stuff to new and fresher tape. It's why remasters from

567
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 2: the original tape are such a big deal, because they

568
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 2: have to go back and very carefully look at these

569
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 2: things because even though two inch tape is a very

570
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 2: high fidelity format, it is intrinsically an unstable one, and

571
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 2: so in there in this biography, the Mark Blake biography,

572
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 2: Brian May said the original tape had actually worn thin.

573
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 2: People think it's this legendary story, but you could hold

574
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 2: the tape up to the light and see through it.

575
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 2: Every time the tape went through the heads of the

576
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 2: playback machine, more of the oxide was worn off. So

577
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 2: they quickly would bounce this to its own fresh tape.

578
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 2: But yes, they literally wore away the oxide on their

579
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 2: tape record. We have vocals to this.

580
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

581
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: right back with more too much information in just.

582
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 2: A moment, and now to a little section of the

583
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 2: show I like to call Boteethian Rhapsody.

584
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: There's an odd bit.

585
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 2: Of Freddie Mercury trivia that is explored in the aforementioned biopic,

586
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 2: namely that he was born with four additional incisors and

587
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 2: as equips in the film, this means more space in

588
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 2: my mouth means more range. Despite having the resources later

589
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: in life to do so, Mercury left his anterior overjet

590
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: or Class three malecution as it's medically known.

591
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: Or as pronounced overbite as it's not medically known.

592
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 2: He left that unfixed, even though he frequently obscured his

593
00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 2: mouth and photos with his hand and later his signature mustache.

594
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: That really makes me sad. Yeah, Whenever he was talking

595
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: to people at close range, he would kind of wave

596
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: his hand in front of his mouth, and his schoolmates

597
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: nicknamed him Bucky as a kid rude.

598
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 2: This was because he actually believed that his voice came

599
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 2: down to his extra teeth and having them fixed would

600
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 2: affect it. That's not really true, but some interesting facts

601
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 2: about extra teeth. According to the Genetic Literacy Project, the

602
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 2: overall prevalence of extra teeth is point zero nine percent

603
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: to three point four percent, and one small study found

604
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 2: a prevalence of point zero seven to two percent in Iran.

605
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 2: Fredie Mercury was born in Zanzibar, but his parents are

606
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 2: of Parsi descent. They immigrated from Iran, and he was rare.

607
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,959
Speaker 2: Even among this rare subset of people, only one percent

608
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 2: of people with extra teeth have more than two Wow,

609
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 2: that is crazy. You said that so deadpan. I don't

610
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 2: actually think think you believe it?

611
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: No, I mean I was trying to crunch the numbers

612
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: in my head of what that means for the overall

613
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: global population of extra teeth. It yeah, well four extra teeth. Well,

614
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: Ronnie Mallet came to believe that there was something vaguely

615
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: supernatural about these extra teeth. Also, he was fitted with

616
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: a set of prosthetic teeth for the Bohemian Rhapsody movie,

617
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: which he'd wear during his off hours to practice speaking

618
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: and singing. And this was apparently before the film was

619
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: even green lid. That's dedication, he told Entertainment Weekly. When

620
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: you put in those teeth, there's a very visceral change

621
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: to your performance. When I took them out, by the

622
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: end of the film, I felt quite naked.

623
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: While Mercury may have been trying to reclaim this part

624
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 2: of anatomy that he was teased over as crucial to

625
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 2: his musical success, it turns out that what makes his

626
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: voice so unique is lower down in the body. Get

627
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 2: your mind out of the damn gutter.

628
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: It's his throat, his actual throat, Get your mind out

629
00:33:58,080 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: of the gutter.

630
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 2: Specifically, what are called false vocal chords. They are a

631
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 2: pair of mucous membranes that we all have fronts of

632
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 2: the pod.

633
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: Mucous membranes. We all have them.

634
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 2: They protrude out as folds just above your regular vocal chords,

635
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 2: but they're not usually used in the way that most

636
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:24,839
Speaker 2: people pronounce sound speech and in turn singing, and that's

637
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 2: why they're called false vocal chords. But some people do

638
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 2: use them, in particular in indigenous cultures where overtone singing

639
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 2: where you are producing both a fundamental pitch and either

640
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 2: a sub pitch or an overtone of that fundamental at

641
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 2: the same time. Tuvon throat singing is one such example.

642
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: They do it in certain Inuit tribes of it as well.

643
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 2: They are using those false vocal chords.

644
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: Can that be taught? Is that something that can be

645
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: taught or is that something that's Yeah, some people learn how.

646
00:34:55,640 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 2: There's white people who do it, of course, but I

647
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 2: don't know how worked out how Freddie arrived at it.

648
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 2: It's interesting though, because there was a twenty sixteen study

649
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,800
Speaker 2: by a group of Austrian, Czech and Swedish researchers published

650
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 2: in Logo Pedics, Phoniatrics, Vocology, Friend of the Pod.

651
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: Now. The authors they analyzed recordings of Freddy and they

652
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:25,240
Speaker 1: brought in a professional singer name was Daniel zangerborch Oh,

653
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 1: he's great. I got all this early stuff.

654
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 2: To do his best Freddie imitation, and they filmed, like

655
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 2: with an endoscope or whatever those things are. They filmed

656
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 2: his throat at four thousand frames a second to get

657
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 2: to watch the way that his vocal cords were vibrating.

658
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: And what they discovered by comparing this footage to the

659
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 2: recordings is that at certain parts of his performance Freddie's vocals,

660
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 2: whether or not he was doing this on purpose or

661
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: it was just something that he wound up doing, he

662
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 2: was utilizing those false vocal chords along with his regular

663
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 2: vocal chords, and this creates this effect of hearing almost

664
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 2: two pitches at once. It's not quite like you're not

665
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 2: hearing someone harmonize with themselves. Essentially, what you're hearing is

666
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 2: the regular tone, like the what they call the fundamental

667
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 2: and then the way all sound works is that there's

668
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 2: a fundamental frequency, and then based on mathematical relationships of

669
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 2: that frequency expressed in hurts, there are overtones and undertones,

670
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 2: and with throat singing when you're using those different folds

671
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 2: and everything, and even like I think you can hear

672
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 2: actually like David Lee Roth do it in the like

673
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 2: some of those that like Van Halen stuff, the like

674
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 2: whistle tones where he's like ha like that, those are

675
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 2: technically like that's like kind of the same thing.

676
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 1: Anyway.

677
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 2: So yeah, you can hear Freddy Mercury doing that. It's

678
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 2: just part of the magic of Freddy Mercury.

679
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: I've also seen as said that in you know, one

680
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 1: of these many pieces trying to explain in Freddy's voice

681
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: that he was technically a baritone that could sing in

682
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,359
Speaker 1: a tenor range. I'm pretty ignorant about this stuff. Does

683
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 1: that actually have an impact on why his singing is

684
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: so unique or is that just another way of saying

685
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: he has a crazy multi octave range. It's still more

686
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:16,319
Speaker 1: of the latter.

687
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 2: I mean, there's plenty of baritone people with a speaking

688
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 2: voice who like I have a pretty crazy falsetto range,

689
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 2: but I'm a My chest voice and speaking voice is

690
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 2: more of a baritone. And then there is like a

691
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 2: voice part called barrett tenor, like Josh Grobin is a barretenor.

692
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 2: We were singing to Kate Bush along in the car

693
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: and I was doing all the weathering heights stuff, and

694
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 2: Lowe was like, how are you doing that?

695
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 1: Can we hear? I don't know the winding winy.

696
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 2: More, that's the first part of weathering heights.

697
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 1: Wow, Heath Cliff, HiT's me. You can't you come home

698
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: and so cool? Let me to you.

699
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:02,280
Speaker 2: It's like, that's what's my highest.

700
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: Can you do tiptoe through the tulips? Give me some

701
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: tiny taol through the tulips? We me. I used to

702
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: be able to do a pretty decent Brian Wilson falsetto.

703
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:18,879
Speaker 2: I just did Frankie Valley. He was my other one.

704
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: Ooh mean struck in again. Oh that's Lou Christie. Oh

705
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: Lou Christie. Yeah, you're right.

706
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 2: Not I confuse all my annoying Italian guys from the

707
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 2: sixties who sang in girls voices.

708
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: Wow, that is I am very impressed.

709
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 2: I never actually learned how to like utilize it, like

710
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 2: I don't never obviously never sang like that in our

711
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 2: band or anything. It's just something I do in the car.

712
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 2: I use two dogs, uh when sometimes when.

713
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 1: They start howling on how long with them? I always

714
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: loved in U. There's like really creepy early like sparse

715
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: Elvis stuff where he's.

716
00:38:58,480 --> 00:38:59,959
Speaker 2: Doing like blue Moon and he's doing.

717
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm.

718
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 2: Just like trying to sound like a theremon, you know,

719
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 2: so true.

720
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 1: Yeah.

721
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 2: Anyway, while we're talking about the vocals, we might as

722
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 2: well talk about the lyrics, namely, what the hell is

723
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: this song about?

724
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 1: What do all of these names mean?

725
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 2: Well, for starters, Scaramouche is a clown character from the

726
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 2: Italian theater tradition of Comedia de la Arte. What do

727
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 2: you know about Comedia de la Arte, Jordan.

728
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: I think that's the mask based it is, Yeah, yeah,

729
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: where everybody is like a different well go ahead, sorry

730
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 1: to mean to cut you off. Oh yeah, man, I

731
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 1: think that's the famous like you know, the drama mask

732
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: the punch and Judy comes out of it punchy. I

733
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: didn't know that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's it's basically

734
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 1: just like it's really punny and over and it's supposed

735
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 1: to be.

736
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 2: I mean, it's comedia. It's a comedy. But they yeah,

737
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 2: they wear masks, and there's and and basically there's different

738
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 2: archetypes that pop up over and over and Scaremoosh is

739
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 2: a combination of two of these other characters of the Zani,

740
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 2: the servant character who's typically the like kind of Iago

741
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 2: the devious, scheming douchebag, and then the capitano who is

742
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 2: the kind of machismo swag like henchman muscle character. And

743
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 2: that and Scaremoosh is a clown character, but he combines

744
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 2: attributes from both of those other twos.

745
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, the scaremoug character is famous for worming his way

746
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: out of tough, sticky situations, often to the detriment of others.

747
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 2: The fandango is a couple's dance originating in Spain in

748
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 2: the eighteenth century that starts slowly and gradually increases in tempo,

749
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: though at least one person annotating this song on genius

750
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,240
Speaker 2: dot Com suggests that in the context of Bohemian rhapsodies

751
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 2: other death obsessed lyrics, Freddie could be referencing an English

752
00:40:56,440 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 2: slang term, the hemp fandango, which was a term from

753
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 2: hanging Times, I guess, which referred to the death froze

754
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 2: of a hanged man as his legs would jerk at the.

755
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: End of the rope was made of hemp.

756
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 2: Wow, the old fandangoo.

757
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:23,879
Speaker 1: Wow, that's really grim. Yeah, you're gonna pitch.

758
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 2: You're gonna pitch this next guy pitch it?

759
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, folks. If you want to learn

760
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: more about grim phrases in English music, look up The

761
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: True Meeting of Spandau Ballet. That's all I'll say. Uh.

762
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 2: Galileo Galilei, of course, was an Italian astronomer and physicist,

763
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 2: best known for being forced into recanting aspects of his

764
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 2: theory of heliocentrism, the correct theory that the earth in

765
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 2: fact revolves around the sun by the Catholic Church from

766
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,919
Speaker 2: his trial and the Catholic in front of the pod

767
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 2: Catholic Church. No, they're on the enemy's list. It's the

768
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 2: Catholic Church. Jeffrey Katzenberg and.

769
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: Uh, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Short Liz's the Holy Trinity.

770
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: We're mostly here to make friends, just not those guys. Uh.

771
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,439
Speaker 2: From Galileo's trial in sixteen thirty three until his death

772
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 2: in sixteen forty two, he lived under house arrest. Kind

773
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 2: of like pandemic lockdown. Huh, anybody, topical humor doesn't always

774
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 2: hit uh. Figaro is probably an allusion to Mozart's classic

775
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 2: opera The Marriage of Figaro Mercury. Unsurprisingly lifelong opera lover,

776
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 2: he released Barcelona, an album of duets with the operatic

777
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: soprano Montserrat Cabale in nineteen eighty eight.

778
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:49,240
Speaker 1: You heard that red song rules. The song Barcelona is incredible.

779
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 1: He was written as the theme for the for the

780
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: Olympic Olympics. Yeah, oh, it's so good.

781
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 2: Bismilla, meanwhile, is a common Arabic term meaning in the

782
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 2: name of God, hence why it precedes the frase let

783
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 2: him go. I e in the name of God, let

784
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 2: him go, the line answered by the devil's response, we

785
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 2: will not let you go. Freddie Mercury was born to

786
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 2: parents Bomi and Jerebo Sara, in the Tanzanian archipelago of Zanzibar.

787
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 2: His parents, as I mentioned earlier, were of Parsi descent,

788
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 2: followers of the Zoroastrian religion, whose ancestors came from Persia.

789
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 2: Freddie spoke very little about this side of his upbringing

790
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,320
Speaker 2: during his life, but his funeral was conducted by Zoroastrian priests.

791
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 2: And while we're on the topic of antiquity religion, biez

792
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 2: Olbab is one of the seven Princes of Hell in

793
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:42,760
Speaker 2: Christian demonology, a name derived from the Hebrew phrase baal Zebov,

794
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 2: meaning lord of the flies sucks to your asthmar.

795
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: I didn't all know that that was a biblical reference.

796
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 2: No, well, not sucks to your asthmar. That's in the

797
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,479
Speaker 2: pets in Job. It's the Book of Job, and God

798
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 2: said to Job sucks to your asthmar. Oh boy, is

799
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 2: that one of our most niche references.

800
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's up there.

801
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll see how this one market tests. It's an

802
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 2: alternate name for Satan, beezelbub. It's one of the few

803
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 2: names of a few parts of the song that Mercury

804
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:19,240
Speaker 2: is actually on the record about. I found a film

805
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 2: on camera interview where he says someone wrote a letter

806
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 2: about him being into demonology, and he said, well, just

807
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 2: because I used that doesn't mean I study demonology. I

808
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 2: just love the word beezelbub, which is a very funny

809
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:35,240
Speaker 2: sounding word. It must be true.

810
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:37,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm also guessing he probably wanted to clear

811
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: that up for the sake of his parents, who he

812
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: really seemed to go out of his way to protect

813
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: both from the unsavory aspects of his fame and also,

814
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: must be said, certain aspects of his personal life. Here's

815
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: a weird side note about Beezelbub. In two thousand and four,

816
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: when Queen released the Greatest Hits cassette in Iran, where

817
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: Western music was and I imagine still is strictly censored

818
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: and sexuality was and I believe still is illegal. They

819
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: included a leaflet in Persian with translations and also explanations

820
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 1: concerning some of the lyrics on the tape, and the

821
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: explanation for Bohemian Rhapsody states that the song is about

822
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 1: a young man who has accidentally killed someone and like Faust,

823
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: sold his soul to the devil, and on the night

824
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: before his execution, he calls for God, saying bismilla, as

825
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: you said in the name of God in Arabic, and

826
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: with the help of angels, he regains his soul from Chaitan,

827
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 1: which is the devil in Arabic. So that's interesting.

828
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 2: Neither of us were major in theology or linguistics.

829
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: By the way, the broadcasting or journalists or any of this.

830
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 2: There's been a ton of speculation as to what Mercury

831
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 2: meant with all of those names. One biographer, Leslie and Jones,

832
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 2: postulated that the four figures mentioned by name, Scaramouche, Galileo,

833
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 2: figured Out, and Bazelbub are stand ins for the band themselves,

834
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 2: with Mercury being Scaramouche May with his interest in astrophysics,

835
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 2: Galileo Taylor, and Deacon being Figureo and Basil bub respectively.

836
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's representative of either of those

837
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 2: two men. But John Deacon is just a lovely man.

838
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 2: I can't imagine he was actually supposed to be a

839
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 2: stand in for Satan.

840
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,240
Speaker 1: I actually interviewed Leslie Ann Jones, the author you cited

841
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: a moment ago, a few years back, and she told

842
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: me she interviewed Freddie in nineteen eighty six and she

843
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: asked him point blank what Bohemian Rhapsody was about, and

844
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: his only response was that it was quote about relationships,

845
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 1: and that was actually more than most interviewers got from him.

846
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: He once said, I'll say, no, more than what any

847
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: decent poet would tell you if you dared ask him

848
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: to analyze his work. If you see it, dear, then

849
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: it's there. And some have suggested that the song takes

850
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: some lyrical inspiration from the Albert Camu novel The Stranger,

851
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: in which a young man confesses to an impulse of

852
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: murder and then has an epiphany before he's executed. So

853
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: that could have been a possible inspiration for the.

854
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 2: Lyrics the other nakedly depressing aspects of this song. Sometimes

855
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 2: I wish I'd never been born at all. Nothing really

856
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:15,440
Speaker 2: matters have been speculated to be about Mercury's battle with

857
00:47:15,480 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 2: his sexuality, but he famously never commented on any deeper

858
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 2: meaning to the song. Kenny Everett, the DJ who first

859
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 2: played the song on air, claimed to Blender that Freddy

860
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 2: told me Bohemian Rhapsody was just random rhyming nonsense.

861
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:32,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Freddie always went out of his way to dismiss

862
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: his lyrics, I'm guessing in an attempt to disuade fans

863
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: from looking any closer. Brian May remembers that Freddy would

864
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: always say, all my lyrics are fish and chip paper

865
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:47,839
Speaker 1: Darling gone tomorrow, because you know, all the chippies would

866
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: wrap their fish and chips in yesterday's newspapers, So that's

867
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: what that means.

868
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,760
Speaker 2: His Queen bandmates have alternated between playing koy and playing

869
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 2: dumb when pressed for the meaning of the song, and

870
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,320
Speaker 2: a BBC three documentary about the making of Bohemian Rhapsody,

871
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 2: drummer vocalist Roger Taylor maintains that the true meaning of

872
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 2: the song is fairly self explanatory with just a bit

873
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 2: of nonsense in the middle. Brian May casually countered Everett

874
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 2: to blender. He said Freddie was a very complex person,

875
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 2: flippant and funny on the surface, but he concealed insecurities

876
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 2: and problems in squaring up his life with his childhood.

877
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 2: He never explained the lyrics, but I think he put

878
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 2: a lot of himself into that song. Brian May then

879
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:28,919
Speaker 2: added to The New York Times in two thousand and five,

880
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 2: I have a perfectly clear idea of what was in

881
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 2: Freddie's mind, but it was an unwritten law among us

882
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 2: in those days that the real core of a song

883
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 2: lyric was a private matter for the composer, whoever that

884
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: might be. So I still respect that. Roy Thomas Baker

885
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,239
Speaker 2: then joked, if I tell you, I would have to

886
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 2: kill you.

887
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: The sexuality stuff is really interesting, and that tends to

888
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: be the prevalent theory as to what the song's about.

889
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: And I interviewed a few people close to Freddy for

890
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,359
Speaker 1: my People magazine profile on him a few years ago,

891
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: and they all basically echoed that sentiment. His longtime romantic

892
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: partner Jim Hutton, who's together with Freddie when he died

893
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, has gone on records saying that

894
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:10,839
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody was quote his coming out song, and speculated

895
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,439
Speaker 1: that he'd kept his sexuality under raps for the sake

896
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 1: of his family, whose religion doesn't recognize homosexuality. In fact,

897
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: I don't think his family had any idea about his

898
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: long term relationship with Jim Hutton until after he died.

899
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,919
Speaker 1: Leslie and Jones, the journalist, told me Freddie was very

900
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: respectful of his parents, and he did see them, but

901
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 1: they weren't aware of his private life until after he died.

902
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 1: I'm sure they would have found a way of dealing

903
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: with it, but they were from a different generation and

904
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: the expectations were different. They weren't uncompassionate people, they were

905
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 1: very loving parents, but they were from a different time,

906
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: from a different country, and from a different religion. And

907
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:48,320
Speaker 1: speaking to the BBC in two thousand and four, Freddie's

908
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: mother said that although Bohemian Rhapsity filled her with pride,

909
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: she said it hurts me now to hear it, not

910
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker 1: out of any kind of shame, but out of regret

911
00:49:56,360 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: that she didn't truly know her son. Queen's career Freddie

912
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: was in a romantic relationship with a model named Mary

913
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: Austen beginning in nineteen sixty nine, and the pair shared

914
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:09,839
Speaker 1: an apartment and were even engaged to be married, but

915
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 1: Mary noticed something wasn't right between them throughout their seven

916
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:17,320
Speaker 1: years together. She said in the two thousand documentary Freddie

917
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: Mercury The Untold Story. I knew this man wasn't at

918
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 1: one with himself over something. And then eventually, when Freddie

919
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: confessed his sexuality to Mary, she later said, I felt

920
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:31,279
Speaker 1: like a huge burden had been lifted. Once that had

921
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: been discussed. He was like the person I'd known in

922
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: the early years, and though the romance was over in

923
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 1: the traditional sense, they would remain close for the rest

924
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: of Freddie's life. Freddie himself said in nineteen eighty five,

925
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: all my lovers asked me why they couldn't replace Mary,

926
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: But it's simply impossible. The only friend that got is married,

927
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: and I don't want anyone else to me. It was

928
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: a marriage. We believe in each other. That's enough for me.

929
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 1: And so many close to Freddie and many of his

930
00:50:57,000 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: fans believed that his feelings of guilt about out not

931
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:04,240
Speaker 1: being able to you know, truly be with Mary. Austin

932
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: this way, coupled with his relief for embracing his own sexuality,

933
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 1: is what inspired Bohemian Rhapsody. The opening line, Mama just

934
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 1: killed a man seems to be addressing Mary or you know,

935
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:19,319
Speaker 1: mother Mary. The line has a mournful quality, as if

936
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 1: he's saying goodbye to a part of himself. And again,

937
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 1: this is a man who's caught between cultures, you know, Zanzibar,

938
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,280
Speaker 1: where he grew up with the somewhat strict Ziastan religion

939
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:33,839
Speaker 1: versus the very sensual, swinging sixties London. And he's also

940
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: a man who's presiding over several separate sexual identities. There's

941
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: the verse later on in the song with the line

942
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:43,280
Speaker 1: send shivers down my spine, bodies aching all the time,

943
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: which struck many who studied the lyrics as very sexual

944
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: in nature. And Freddy's good friend, the lyricist Tim Rice,

945
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: who wrote the lyrics to a Veda and the Songs

946
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: from The Lion King and many other great songs, has

947
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: agreed with this assessment. He said, it's fairly obvious to

948
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: me the Bohemian rhaps that he was Freddie's coming out song,

949
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: and he offered some lyrical analysis to support this theory.

950
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:08,479
Speaker 1: Mama just killed the man, put a gun against his head,

951
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 1: pulled my trigger. Now he's dead, meaning he's killed the

952
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 1: old Freddie, the straight person he was trying to be,

953
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: and now he's trying to live as the new Freddie.

954
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: I see a little silhouette of a man that's Freddie's

955
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: still being haunted by what he's done and what he is.

956
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: And in the Mark Blake biography Queen, is this the

957
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 1: real life? This true story of Queen Freddie's personal assistant,

958
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: a guy named Peter Freestone, said, if you look at

959
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 1: the way Bohemian Rhapsody's written, it's in three parts to

960
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:38,360
Speaker 1: describe Freddie's life. The first part living with Mary, second

961
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: part is coming to terms with his desire for men,

962
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,439
Speaker 1: and the final part is actual sleeping with men. And

963
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: there's a story I was told by the video director

964
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,360
Speaker 1: Rudy Dolezol, who directed several of Queen's music videos, including

965
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 1: These Are the Days of Our Lives, which is the

966
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 1: last one that Freddy would appear in shortly before his death.

967
00:52:56,480 --> 00:53:00,279
Speaker 1: And the story just always stuck with me or may

968
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 1: not be relevant to the meaning of Bohemian Rhapsody. Rudy

969
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: said that Freddie told him, for each step that you

970
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: go up the ladder of success, you have to leave

971
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 1: something behind that you love. You will lose friends, you

972
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: will even lose family, but that's the price you have

973
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:19,719
Speaker 1: to pay. So maybe I'm projecting, but that could be

974
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,439
Speaker 1: closer to the truth of what Bohemian Rhapsody actually meant

975
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:24,760
Speaker 1: to Freddie than any of the other kind of flippant

976
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 1: explanations he would give in interviews. I'd like to give

977
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 1: the final word on the subject to Freddie himself, who said,

978
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,960
Speaker 1: I think people should just listen to Bohemian Rhapsody, think

979
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: about it, and then make up their own minds as

980
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 1: to what it says to them.

981
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:42,479
Speaker 2: And now we come to Sweet, Sweet, the Purest, Goodest Boy,

982
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 2: Brian May, astrophysicist, Friend to the Badgers. I said, Jordan's

983
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 2: so many pictures of Brian May with Badgers.

984
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: While we were researching, I used to write, I used

985
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: to take great delight in writing about Brian May's Save

986
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: the bad his campaign.

987
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 2: Vegan loves you Know Believes is Yeah, that makes sense.

988
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:08,880
Speaker 2: The man who's laser like guitar meis that's a portmanteau

989
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 2: of guitar army, guitar armies, but also his guitar minies,

990
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 2: his guitar. This bit's not going anywhere.

991
00:54:17,040 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: Uh.

992
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 2: The other most recognizable part of Queen Where to begin

993
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 2: with Brian may Well, A good place to start is

994
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 2: his legendary red Special guitar, which he made himself with

995
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 2: his dad, Harold, who was an electrical engineer who'd worked

996
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 2: on the Concord's landing system. When Brian was just sixteen,

997
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,360
Speaker 2: Brian had taught himself how to play the banjo lay,

998
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:40,760
Speaker 2: which is, as it sounds, a hybrid of the banjo

999
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:44,640
Speaker 2: and ukulele, and then began lusting after the more standard Gibson,

1000
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 2: Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster electric guitar after seeing Jeff

1001
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:52,879
Speaker 2: Beck play live and manipulate amplifier feedback with his strat.

1002
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 1: This is my favorite anecdote in this episode, and one

1003
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: of my favorite anecdotes in rock history. I love the

1004
00:54:57,880 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: story about Brian may made is great.

1005
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 2: Oh it's just the most like DIY, cool, badass thing ever. Yeah,

1006
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:06,320
Speaker 2: he told The Guardian. Brian may told The Guardian in

1007
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:10,160
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, dad could make anything. He converted our spare

1008
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 2: bedroom into a workshop where he made all our household appliances,

1009
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 2: including our TV. May's family was poor growing up, and

1010
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 2: so when young Brian started clamoring for an electric guitar,

1011
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 2: Harold decided he would just build one with his son.

1012
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 2: May said it took two years and was all done

1013
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 2: with hand tools, using any materials we could lay our

1014
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 2: hands on. The neck of the red Special was constructed

1015
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:37,280
Speaker 2: from wood from a hundred year old Ish fireplace mantle

1016
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 2: that a family friend had consigned to the trash. There

1017
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 2: are wormholes in it that May filled in with match

1018
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:48,279
Speaker 2: sticks favor, and the position inlays on the fingerboard are

1019
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 2: hand shape from mother of pearl buttons, presumably from his mother.

1020
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 2: This is my favorite part. Well, parts of the body

1021
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 2: are made from an oak dining table. This is my favorite.

1022
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: The tremolo arm, which of the guitar, is made from

1023
00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:08,960
Speaker 2: motorcycle valve springs and a bicycle saddle bag holder with

1024
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 2: the plastic tip of a knitting needle to complete the assembly.

1025
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 2: Brian May's relationship with his dad was complex. Harold was

1026
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 2: a musician himself who abandoned his dream when Brian came along,

1027
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 2: and so he was displeased when Brian then abandoned his

1028
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 2: astrophysics studies to focus on Queen. The pair didn't speak

1029
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 2: for nearly two years, and their rapprochement finally came when

1030
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 2: Queen played Madison Square Garden in nineteen seventy seven. Brian

1031
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:39,880
Speaker 2: Made told the Guardian, I put my parents on the

1032
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 2: concord which dad had worked on but could never afford

1033
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:45,880
Speaker 2: to fly on, and told him to see what he thought.

1034
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 2: I put them up in a hotel, told them to

1035
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 2: order room service, and after the show, Dad shook my

1036
00:56:51,080 --> 00:56:54,400
Speaker 2: hand and said, Okay, Son, I get it now. That

1037
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 2: was a pivotal moment for me. I'd so desperately wanted

1038
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:57,760
Speaker 2: his approval.

1039
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 1: I love that story.

1040
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:04,240
Speaker 2: He put his dad on the plane that he helped build.

1041
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:06,759
Speaker 1: That's to watch him play the guitar that he helped

1042
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: him build. Oh so good, that's some Steven Spielberg. Dad,

1043
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: Come on, yes it is, Come on, yes it is. Anyway.

1044
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 2: May would take weeks to craft solos and overdubbed parts

1045
00:57:19,800 --> 00:57:22,919
Speaker 2: for Queen songs on the Red Special. A huge part

1046
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 2: of their sound is the fact that his guitar parts

1047
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 2: are multiple tracks of distorted single note lines that are

1048
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 2: arranged into chords, which creates different structures of overtones rather

1049
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 2: than simply playing all of those notes in a regular chord.

1050
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 2: May also played tremendously light strings. He originally used banjo strings,

1051
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 2: which were the lightest ones that he could find, before

1052
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:47,080
Speaker 2: he could find a set of electric guitar strings that

1053
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 2: were light and tiny enough. Your average set of guitar

1054
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 2: strings is like a ten gauge, and Brian May plays eight.

1055
00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

1056
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 2: I think some guitar person will probably get angry about that.

1057
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 2: He also uses a sixpence coin instead of a plastic pick.

1058
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:06,680
Speaker 2: He told Guitar World it's hard enough to give you

1059
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 2: all that contact, and it's also soft enough not to

1060
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 2: break your steel strings because it's made of nickel silver,

1061
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 2: and it has this lovely serrated edge, and if you

1062
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 2: turn it at an angle to the strings, you get

1063
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 2: a lovely kind of splatter.

1064
00:58:21,600 --> 00:58:23,920
Speaker 1: That is nuts to me. I just love the fact

1065
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 1: that they stopped minting sixpence coins when England adopted a

1066
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: decimal currency in nineteen seventy one. So I have this

1067
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 1: great image of doctor Brian May, PhD. Trawing eBay every

1068
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: few months to get a new batch of sixpence coins

1069
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 1: from old collectors and I, as a little boy, used

1070
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:43,120
Speaker 1: to collect pre decimal British currency, so I have a

1071
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 1: real deep kinship with him over this.

1072
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 2: Well, I hate to break that image for you, but

1073
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:53,560
Speaker 2: it's his guitar, text job, his guitar. His longtime guitar

1074
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 2: tech Pete Maladrone told Premier Guitar in their rig Rundown

1075
00:58:57,520 --> 00:59:00,919
Speaker 2: series in twenty fourteen about May's guitars. He says, they're

1076
00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 2: not that expensive. Of the sixpence, they're cheaper than guitar picks.

1077
00:59:05,120 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 2: Actually they're at face value now, he said, five or

1078
00:59:08,280 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 2: six seven pence per. I buy them in bags of

1079
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:14,240
Speaker 2: one hundred. It's not difficult to get a hold of them.

1080
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 2: That's another great interview.

1081
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 1: Actually because he shows, uh, he shows the guitar, and

1082
00:59:18,800 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 1: he talks about having to clean up the guitar after

1083
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: show to get rid of all the metal shavings that

1084
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: come off the pick the pens and collect near the

1085
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: magnetic pickups of the guitar. I'd like to collect those,

1086
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:30,680
Speaker 1: he talks about.

1087
00:59:31,120 --> 00:59:34,640
Speaker 2: He talks about so interesting, how how light Brian's touch

1088
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 2: actually is because he's playing on these super light strings

1089
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 2: with a metal object, and he's like, if anybody else

1090
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 2: picks up this guitar and goes to play on it.

1091
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 2: They're just immediately going to start snapping strings. But that

1092
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:48,000
Speaker 2: high end, and the other part of the sound is

1093
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:51,360
Speaker 2: that everyone talks about is Brian uses a Vox AC thirty,

1094
00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 2: a small combo amp. The dominant the dominant image of

1095
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 2: British classic rock at the time is the you know,

1096
00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 2: the Marshall stack, the enormous all of Marshals behind led

1097
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:05,600
Speaker 2: Zeppelin and behind AC DC and blah blah blah. But

1098
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:08,840
Speaker 2: Brian uses a small Vox AC thirty, a combo amp

1099
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 2: that it's not even a combo means it doesn't have

1100
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:14,440
Speaker 2: a separate amplifier and speaker cabinet's all built into one structure.

1101
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:17,440
Speaker 2: The AC thirty is also the Beatles model, Is that correct, Jordan?

1102
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:18,440
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1103
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 2: Famously, voxes are a more trebly, mid range, bitey, jangly

1104
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:28,120
Speaker 2: voiced amp than a That's why I have one.

1105
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:28,400
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1106
01:00:28,640 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 2: The Beatles think then, like your fenders or your or

1107
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:35,840
Speaker 2: your Marshals, And so the combination of extremely light guitar

1108
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 2: strings and a metal pick and a very medi trebly

1109
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:44,439
Speaker 2: amp gives that biting a laser, his guitar parts sound

1110
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 2: like lasers, and he uses something called a treble booster,

1111
01:00:49,480 --> 01:00:52,400
Speaker 2: the range Master treble booster. It's another part of his

1112
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:57,760
Speaker 2: distinct guitar tone. Anyway, when Roy Thomas Baker got with

1113
01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 2: Queen to start making their debut album, he told Sound

1114
01:01:00,640 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 2: on Sound Brian was already onto something different in terms

1115
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:05,800
Speaker 2: of trying to orchestrate his guitars in a different way

1116
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:08,360
Speaker 2: to how most people would approach it. I had quite

1117
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 2: a bit of an orchestral background through working on classical

1118
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 2: music at Decca, and that helped with structuring the phrasing

1119
01:01:13,520 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 2: of the guitar parts. We never thought of Brian's guitar

1120
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 2: as a raunchy instrument like most guitarists do. It was

1121
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 2: an orchestral instrument. Brian's great strength was in phrasing apart

1122
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:26,960
Speaker 2: and then double tracking or harmonizing very quickly and accurately.

1123
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:31,080
Speaker 2: Queen's early albums all featured the phrase nobody played synthesizer

1124
01:01:31,280 --> 01:01:33,919
Speaker 2: in their liner notes, and Baker told Sound on Sound

1125
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:36,240
Speaker 2: that was less a protest against the dominance of sins

1126
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 2: and music at the time, and more to clue people

1127
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:41,040
Speaker 2: in that all of these other worldly sounds that they

1128
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 2: were hearing were just Brian. He said there was no

1129
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:46,720
Speaker 2: stipulation that we wouldn't have any synths, but the statement

1130
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,400
Speaker 2: no since was printed on the album sleeves. Because of

1131
01:01:49,440 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 2: people's lack of intellect in the ears department, which is

1132
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:55,720
Speaker 2: a very British turn of phrase, many people couldn't hear

1133
01:01:55,760 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 2: the difference between a multi tracked guitar and a synthesizer.

1134
01:01:58,880 --> 01:02:01,680
Speaker 2: We would spend four days is multi layering a guitar solo,

1135
01:02:01,760 --> 01:02:03,920
Speaker 2: and then some imbecile from the record company would come

1136
01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 2: in and say, I like that synth.

1137
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 1: There's the track on that at the Opera Good Company

1138
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:12,520
Speaker 1: where he has a whole horn section. It sounds like

1139
01:02:12,560 --> 01:02:15,320
Speaker 1: a horn section. For years I assumed it was that's

1140
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:18,480
Speaker 1: all guitar lines, just weaving in and out for one.

1141
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:21,120
Speaker 2: And it's really incredible because he's trying to get it

1142
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 2: to sound like a Dixie Lane jazz band, and you

1143
01:02:23,360 --> 01:02:28,040
Speaker 2: hear him playing stuff that sounds like It doesn't just

1144
01:02:28,040 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 2: sound like, oh, I'll play like a bunch of guitars.

1145
01:02:32,080 --> 01:02:35,840
Speaker 2: It sounds like the clarinet parts. The Snowsberry's tastes like Stusburry.

1146
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 2: The clarinet parts sound like what a clarinetist would play.

1147
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 2: He does a trembone glissando at one part with the trembar.

1148
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 2: It's really it's mind boggling the stuff that he was

1149
01:02:48,920 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 2: able to pull out, and on Bohemian Rhapsody in particular,

1150
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 2: May used an amp that was actually built by Queen's basis,

1151
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 2: John Deacon. John Deacon is the if we're assigning identities,

1152
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:22,160
Speaker 2: he's the quiet one or the cat ah the spaceman

1153
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:26,360
Speaker 2: because he was the only person who didn't sing, and

1154
01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 2: he pretty much disappeared from all public life after Queen died.

1155
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 2: Brian May says the only time they hear from him

1156
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:36,680
Speaker 2: is about money, which fair. But he's a great bassist.

1157
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:39,120
Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, he wrote You're My Best Friend

1158
01:03:39,160 --> 01:03:41,200
Speaker 2: and another one bites the dust, I want to Break Free,

1159
01:03:41,320 --> 01:03:43,480
Speaker 2: co wrote under Pressure. And he was also a trained

1160
01:03:43,560 --> 01:03:48,720
Speaker 2: electrical engineer, so one of the trademark Queen guitar sounds

1161
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:52,320
Speaker 2: comes from an amp that he built, called the Deakey

1162
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 2: or what they called it because his name is Deacon.

1163
01:03:55,000 --> 01:03:58,080
Speaker 2: You can hear that on the back half of Bohemian Rhapsody,

1164
01:03:58,120 --> 01:04:02,160
Speaker 2: the harmonized solos, as well as Killer Queen and the

1165
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 2: aforementioned Good Company Bohemian rhapsody.

1166
01:04:04,600 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 1: I assume it's the like trumpet floorish is at the end,

1167
01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: like the triumphant like processional. Yeah, and that kind of stuff. Again.

1168
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 2: In that video that we've been talking about, you can

1169
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 2: hear him pull apart the different guitar sounds and he's like,

1170
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:18,680
Speaker 2: that's the d key, like blah blah blah.

1171
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:20,200
Speaker 1: Just incredible stuff.

1172
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 2: John Deacon built that out of stuff he found in

1173
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 2: the trash while walking through London, specifically the amplifier section

1174
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:33,280
Speaker 2: of a transistor radio called the Conquest Supersonic PR eighty

1175
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:36,640
Speaker 2: that was built in South Africa and Zimbabwe in the

1176
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:39,920
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties. Deacon hook that up two speakers, one of

1177
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:43,000
Speaker 2: which was a six and a half inch eLAC twin cone,

1178
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:46,000
Speaker 2: built the whole thing into a cabinet and powered it

1179
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 2: with a nine volt battery. It has no tone or

1180
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:53,160
Speaker 2: volume controls and it never broke down, so they didn't

1181
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:55,680
Speaker 2: know like they had. It just worked for them because

1182
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:58,240
Speaker 2: he handbuilt the thing, they never knew what was in it,

1183
01:04:58,560 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 2: and eventually someone started to be like, oh, we should

1184
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:03,360
Speaker 2: like make a commercial copy of this, so they took

1185
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:07,080
Speaker 2: it apart and then found out what was actually what

1186
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:10,080
Speaker 2: I had actually gone into this thing, which for decades

1187
01:05:10,120 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 2: had been just part of the Queen's studio studio gear. Yeah,

1188
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:19,760
Speaker 2: so red special Vox AC thirty, the Deky and a

1189
01:05:19,920 --> 01:05:25,000
Speaker 2: Dallas Rangemaster treble booster, some really thin guitar strings and

1190
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 2: a sixpence and you're and you will still not be,

1191
01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 2: just gonna say, and also a near genius intellect and

1192
01:05:32,120 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 2: incredible fingers. For Bohemian Rhapsody's lyrical solo, Brian May told

1193
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:41,200
Speaker 2: Total Guitar in twenty twenty one. Freddy said he wanted

1194
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:43,120
Speaker 2: a solo in there, and I said, I would like

1195
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:46,680
Speaker 2: to effectively sing a verse on the guitar. I basically

1196
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,520
Speaker 2: sang it. I regard the guitar in that situation as

1197
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 2: a voice. I could hear this melody, and I had

1198
01:05:51,880 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 2: no idea where it came from. The melody isn't anywhere

1199
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:56,840
Speaker 2: else in the song, but it's on a familiar chord sequence,

1200
01:05:56,880 --> 01:05:59,960
Speaker 2: so it dovetails in quite nicely. I didn't do many takes.

1201
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 2: It was one of those occasions where you do a

1202
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:03,480
Speaker 2: few takes and then you go back and listen to

1203
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 2: the first one, and the first one is almost exactly

1204
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:07,240
Speaker 2: what you want. You just need to trim it a

1205
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:08,640
Speaker 2: little bit and polish it up.

1206
01:06:10,120 --> 01:06:12,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. Brian May talked at length about how he didn't

1207
01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:14,920
Speaker 1: want his solo to just be a restatement of the verse,

1208
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 1: but he wanted it to be its own distinctive musical phrase.

1209
01:06:18,640 --> 01:06:22,160
Speaker 1: In one of several Bohemian rhaps City documentaries out there,

1210
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:24,640
Speaker 1: he said that to play the verse melody in this

1211
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:30,600
Speaker 1: case would be quote lamb, which I enjoy very much,

1212
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:32,760
Speaker 1: just find it hilarious.

1213
01:06:32,960 --> 01:06:34,800
Speaker 2: He would have been problem that man would have been

1214
01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:37,080
Speaker 2: great if like he'd been doing this documentary with like

1215
01:06:37,120 --> 01:06:43,040
Speaker 2: a badger cradle in his arms, like working the faders

1216
01:06:43,080 --> 01:06:47,400
Speaker 2: with this cute little animal. As for the headbanging riff

1217
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:49,200
Speaker 2: of the part of the song, May said, that was

1218
01:06:49,280 --> 01:06:52,440
Speaker 2: Freddy's idea, Freddy Burker, who played guitar, and so he said, Uh,

1219
01:06:52,720 --> 01:06:55,120
Speaker 2: Freddy had that riff in his head, and I just

1220
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:57,000
Speaker 2: played what he wanted there. I think he just sang

1221
01:06:57,040 --> 01:06:58,560
Speaker 2: it to me, and then we went for it live

1222
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:03,960
Speaker 2: in the studio. As you meditate on that, we'll be

1223
01:07:04,040 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 2: right back with more too much information after these messages,

1224
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:20,480
Speaker 2: once all of these elements had been recorded and all

1225
01:07:20,480 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 2: of the tapes spliced together by hand and mixed at

1226
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:27,120
Speaker 2: five or six studios, four of them in London alone.

1227
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,680
Speaker 2: The band started premiering it to people. Queen at this

1228
01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:32,880
Speaker 2: time had a habit of hiding their tapes while the

1229
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:35,120
Speaker 2: sessions were in progress to shield them from the eyes

1230
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 2: of the label, meaning very few people heard the song

1231
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 2: until it was finished. Baker told Sound on Sound we'd

1232
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 2: attempt some rough mixes ourselves for other songs, just to

1233
01:07:43,800 --> 01:07:46,040
Speaker 2: see if edits would work. But rough mixes had a

1234
01:07:46,040 --> 01:07:49,080
Speaker 2: habit of getting into the record company's hands prematurely, so

1235
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:51,000
Speaker 2: if we ever did any we would hide them or

1236
01:07:51,040 --> 01:07:54,680
Speaker 2: disguise them. Once a triedent. Billy Kobom, who's a jazz

1237
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 2: drummer who's around this time. I think he would have

1238
01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:01,920
Speaker 2: been in Mahavishna Orchestra with John mccauklin. Billy Coben was

1239
01:08:01,960 --> 01:08:03,720
Speaker 2: working next door and we hit our tapes in that

1240
01:08:03,800 --> 01:08:07,680
Speaker 2: control room. Labeling them is silly, Bobham. If it had

1241
01:08:07,680 --> 01:08:09,919
Speaker 2: been labeled Queen, we knew that E and I would

1242
01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 2: have had a copy the next day.

1243
01:08:11,800 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of this. That's really fascinating to me.

1244
01:08:14,200 --> 01:08:17,759
Speaker 2: Mark Blake's biography recalls that Mata Hoople lead singer Ian Hunter,

1245
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:19,920
Speaker 2: who had just quit that band and was about to

1246
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:21,880
Speaker 2: get the members of Queen to play on his next

1247
01:08:21,880 --> 01:08:24,639
Speaker 2: solo record, drop by the studio to check in on

1248
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:27,320
Speaker 2: what the band was doing and was treated to Bohemian Rhapsody.

1249
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:30,519
Speaker 2: He told Blake, they unleashed it on us in four

1250
01:08:30,640 --> 01:08:33,840
Speaker 2: huge speakers. I couldn't make head nor tail of all

1251
01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:36,639
Speaker 2: that pomp and circumstance. It was like being run over

1252
01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:40,000
Speaker 2: by a truck. Fred said, what did you think? I

1253
01:08:40,040 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 2: didn't have the faintest idea.

1254
01:08:42,880 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: What is it? Does Mata hoop will have like pictures

1255
01:08:45,400 --> 01:08:47,720
Speaker 1: on somebody. First they were going to break up, and

1256
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:50,000
Speaker 1: then they got David Bowie to like give them all

1257
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:52,680
Speaker 1: the young dudes and sing on it and produce it.

1258
01:08:53,160 --> 01:08:56,439
Speaker 1: And then Ian Hunter bounced and was somehow going to

1259
01:08:56,520 --> 01:08:59,200
Speaker 1: get Queen to play with him. I mean, like, Mata

1260
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:03,559
Speaker 1: hoopole are fine, but that's a serious star wattage for like,

1261
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:06,080
Speaker 1: never mind, I'm not going to go any further in

1262
01:09:06,120 --> 01:09:09,320
Speaker 1: case I'm Mata Hoopl's fervent fan base come for me.

1263
01:09:10,560 --> 01:09:12,760
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, it is really funny. Todd

1264
01:09:12,800 --> 01:09:17,040
Speaker 2: Rundren played on his one of his tours Mick Mick

1265
01:09:17,160 --> 01:09:20,240
Speaker 2: Jones from The Clash is on uh is on his

1266
01:09:20,280 --> 01:09:22,799
Speaker 2: first album in the eighties. I don't know, man, maybe

1267
01:09:22,840 --> 01:09:26,200
Speaker 2: maybe Ian Hunter has like, uh, he's got like voodoo

1268
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:29,920
Speaker 2: powers or something. He just uh yeah. His nineteen seventy

1269
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:32,920
Speaker 2: nine album featured John Kale and several members of the

1270
01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:33,880
Speaker 2: East Street Band.

1271
01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:41,639
Speaker 1: Okay, oh yeah, I forgot that. So you do recognize

1272
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:42,559
Speaker 1: that that's super weird.

1273
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 2: No, it's yeah, it's wild. I all American alien boy.

1274
01:09:45,400 --> 01:09:48,320
Speaker 2: This nineteen seventy six record. It has David Sanborn, who

1275
01:09:48,360 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 2: is like a famous jazz saxophonist, and Jocko Pastorius, who

1276
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:55,759
Speaker 2: revolutionized the electric bass in the twentieth century, is playing

1277
01:09:55,760 --> 01:10:00,040
Speaker 2: on that for some reason. Yeah, man, what is he

1278
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 2: Hunter have on baby? He's just really persuasive. He's got

1279
01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:07,639
Speaker 2: great drugs. I did not know that Ian Hunter wrote

1280
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:08,719
Speaker 2: Cleveland Rocks.

1281
01:10:09,120 --> 01:10:11,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the theme song to the True Carriage Show.

1282
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:18,559
Speaker 2: That is wild. Ian Hunter was given the key to

1283
01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:22,280
Speaker 2: the city by Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kassinich in nineteen seventy nine.

1284
01:10:22,920 --> 01:10:25,040
Speaker 2: This concludes your Ian Hunter sidebar.

1285
01:10:26,080 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 1: He must have made so much money from that damn song.

1286
01:10:28,640 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 1: Ah uh.

1287
01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:33,880
Speaker 2: When Queen's manager John Reid played Bohemian Rhapsody to his

1288
01:10:33,960 --> 01:10:37,479
Speaker 2: other client at the time, Elton John. The singer's response was,

1289
01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:39,120
Speaker 2: are you fing mad?

1290
01:10:41,800 --> 01:10:44,120
Speaker 1: Elton's response is really funny to me. I think it's

1291
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:46,639
Speaker 1: important to note that Elton was also in a romantic

1292
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 1: relationship with John Reid at the time, and Elton wrote

1293
01:10:50,160 --> 01:10:52,640
Speaker 1: about the moment that he first heard Bohemian Rhapsody in

1294
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:59,160
Speaker 1: his memoir The hilariously titled Me. He said, quote, we

1295
01:10:59,200 --> 01:11:01,680
Speaker 1: listened to the song and I shook my head incredulous.

1296
01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:04,400
Speaker 1: You're not actually going to release that, are you. We

1297
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:06,799
Speaker 1: asked what the problem was with the song, Elton replied,

1298
01:11:07,240 --> 01:11:09,920
Speaker 1: for one thing, it's about three hours long. For another,

1299
01:11:10,200 --> 01:11:12,439
Speaker 1: it's the campiest thing I've ever heard in my life,

1300
01:11:12,479 --> 01:11:15,919
Speaker 1: which is hilarious coming from him. And the title's absolutely

1301
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:19,000
Speaker 1: ridiculous as well, he said, which is rich coming from

1302
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:21,880
Speaker 1: the man who just released an album called Captain Fantastic

1303
01:11:22,040 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Although, wait, does that album

1304
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:27,680
Speaker 1: title kind of rule in might kind of rule all right?

1305
01:11:27,680 --> 01:11:30,599
Speaker 1: Which it's my favorite from that era. But the title,

1306
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:31,920
Speaker 1: it's a ridiculous title.

1307
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:35,600
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, Captain Fantastic would have sufficed.

1308
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:41,519
Speaker 1: Yeah. However, I do love Elton and Freddie's friendship so much.

1309
01:11:41,920 --> 01:11:46,080
Speaker 1: Elton told this really sweet, really devastating story of getting

1310
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 1: a delivery at his house for Christmas nineteen ninety one,

1311
01:11:49,080 --> 01:11:51,320
Speaker 1: which was just a few weeks after Freddie Mercury's death,

1312
01:11:51,600 --> 01:11:54,120
Speaker 1: and it was a painting by the British Impressionist artist

1313
01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:57,680
Speaker 1: Henry Scott Tuck, who Elton had just started collecting, and

1314
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:00,320
Speaker 1: the canvas was covered in an elaborate pillow cave, and

1315
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:03,599
Speaker 1: it came with a note from Freddie reading using their

1316
01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:07,599
Speaker 1: drag names. It said, Dear Sharon, I thought you'd like this,

1317
01:12:07,920 --> 01:12:12,719
Speaker 1: Love Molina, Happy Christmas. And Elton has reduced to tears

1318
01:12:12,760 --> 01:12:14,519
Speaker 1: because he knew that his friend had picked out this

1319
01:12:14,680 --> 01:12:17,320
Speaker 1: Christmas gift knowing there was a pretty decent chance that

1320
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:19,599
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be alive to give it to him. And

1321
01:12:19,640 --> 01:12:21,559
Speaker 1: Nelton said that he still has the painting on its

1322
01:12:21,560 --> 01:12:23,920
Speaker 1: easel in his bedroom, as well as the pillowcase that

1323
01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 1: it came in next to his bed. And I'm pretty

1324
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:28,559
Speaker 1: sure that Freddie's death was the reason that he became

1325
01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:33,080
Speaker 1: really active and fundraising for a's research. A touching display

1326
01:12:33,080 --> 01:12:37,840
Speaker 1: of friendship between two two outrageous legends.

1327
01:12:38,720 --> 01:12:41,200
Speaker 2: Despite the pressure that the band had faced to produce

1328
01:12:41,240 --> 01:12:43,519
Speaker 2: a radio friendly hit to lift themselves out of the

1329
01:12:43,520 --> 01:12:45,719
Speaker 2: financial hole they were in after the tried ent deal

1330
01:12:45,760 --> 01:12:49,240
Speaker 2: and a canceled US tour. Mercury was adamant that Bohemian

1331
01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 2: Rhapsody'd be the band's next single. Tell me one other

1332
01:12:52,360 --> 01:12:55,040
Speaker 2: group that has done an operatic single, he said, I

1333
01:12:55,040 --> 01:12:58,400
Speaker 2: can't think of anybody. Producer Roy Thomas Baker went to

1334
01:12:58,439 --> 01:13:01,000
Speaker 2: bat for the band, pointing out that Richard Harris had

1335
01:13:01,000 --> 01:13:03,680
Speaker 2: had a hit with MacArthur Park in nineteen sixty eight,

1336
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:06,640
Speaker 2: a song that goes on for an interminable seven and

1337
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:07,559
Speaker 2: a half minutes.

1338
01:13:08,760 --> 01:13:11,360
Speaker 1: I'm guessing Hey Jude, which is also around that same length,

1339
01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:13,439
Speaker 1: was less of the shock because it was the Beatles,

1340
01:13:13,439 --> 01:13:16,559
Speaker 1: and yeah, they could do whatever they want.

1341
01:13:16,439 --> 01:13:19,160
Speaker 2: But Emi said the BBC wouldn't play anything past three

1342
01:13:19,160 --> 01:13:22,240
Speaker 2: and a half minutes. Paul Watts, who was the general

1343
01:13:22,280 --> 01:13:24,680
Speaker 2: manager of the label's international division, is quoted in the

1344
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:28,200
Speaker 2: Mark Blake book. I was expecting something very special, so

1345
01:13:28,200 --> 01:13:31,719
Speaker 2: when they played me Bohemian Rhapsody, my reaction was, what

1346
01:13:31,800 --> 01:13:35,880
Speaker 2: is this? Are you mad? Watts and Eric Hall, who

1347
01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:38,360
Speaker 2: was a fan of the band at EMI, both pushed

1348
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:41,800
Speaker 2: for radio edit, but Queen refused. Later on, it was

1349
01:13:41,800 --> 01:13:44,280
Speaker 2: said that bassist John Deacon was the lone member who

1350
01:13:44,320 --> 01:13:46,439
Speaker 2: would have been okay with releasing the song in a

1351
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:47,679
Speaker 2: radio edit format.

1352
01:13:48,280 --> 01:13:50,799
Speaker 1: I read that they actually made one for the French market,

1353
01:13:50,840 --> 01:13:54,040
Speaker 1: which was something like three minutes and eighteen seconds long,

1354
01:13:54,360 --> 01:13:56,080
Speaker 1: and it's really rare. I've been trying to find a

1355
01:13:56,160 --> 01:13:59,200
Speaker 1: version of it online. I can't say for certain that

1356
01:13:59,240 --> 01:14:02,320
Speaker 1: the one that's on YouTube is the right, because according

1357
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:05,400
Speaker 1: to descriptions from Brian May, at least this radio edited

1358
01:14:05,479 --> 01:14:08,760
Speaker 1: version started off right at the piano intro with no

1359
01:14:09,000 --> 01:14:11,800
Speaker 1: you a cappella beginning, and it cut out the operetta

1360
01:14:11,840 --> 01:14:14,720
Speaker 1: part entirely. It was basically just the ballad part of

1361
01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:17,960
Speaker 1: the song. That's not the case for the version that

1362
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:21,840
Speaker 1: I found on YouTube. So I don't know if you

1363
01:14:21,880 --> 01:14:25,160
Speaker 1: were a loved one as the three minute version, but

1364
01:14:25,240 --> 01:14:27,800
Speaker 1: he Bean raps forty five please get in touch and

1365
01:14:27,920 --> 01:14:29,760
Speaker 1: Higel will vemma you five bucks.

1366
01:14:31,320 --> 01:14:33,599
Speaker 2: The story of how the song eventually hit the airwaves

1367
01:14:33,640 --> 01:14:37,320
Speaker 2: is a little muddy. The aforementioned EMI dude, Eric Hall,

1368
01:14:37,400 --> 01:14:40,519
Speaker 2: said that he himself smuggled at copy to Kenny Everett,

1369
01:14:40,560 --> 01:14:43,679
Speaker 2: who is an extremely famous DJ on London's Capitol Radio,

1370
01:14:44,280 --> 01:14:47,000
Speaker 2: while Roy Thomas Baker said that he brought Everett over

1371
01:14:47,160 --> 01:14:49,280
Speaker 2: to get his opinion on the song, and Everett loved

1372
01:14:49,320 --> 01:14:52,160
Speaker 2: it and asked for copy. The band acquiesced under the

1373
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:54,200
Speaker 2: condition that he not played the song, as it was

1374
01:14:54,439 --> 01:14:57,240
Speaker 2: a test pressing or rough copy or whatever, and whatever

1375
01:14:57,280 --> 01:14:59,280
Speaker 2: the actual case was, what ended up happening was that

1376
01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:02,400
Speaker 2: Everett played few snippets of the song, all while telling

1377
01:15:02,400 --> 01:15:04,720
Speaker 2: his listeners that he couldn't play the whole thing, and

1378
01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:08,640
Speaker 2: then proceeded to do just that fourteen times over the

1379
01:15:08,680 --> 01:15:09,719
Speaker 2: course of one weekend.

1380
01:15:10,760 --> 01:15:13,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kenny Everett loved Bohemian rhapsoy so much. He said

1381
01:15:13,680 --> 01:15:15,400
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be number one, it should be a new

1382
01:15:15,400 --> 01:15:19,719
Speaker 1: position above that. It should be a half just pretty

1383
01:15:19,720 --> 01:15:24,000
Speaker 1: good I record hit half. Yeah. Some of the folks

1384
01:15:24,080 --> 01:15:27,599
Speaker 1: I talked to for my Freddie Mercury profile who knew

1385
01:15:27,640 --> 01:15:30,879
Speaker 1: Freddy and Kenny Everett, who were both close friends, basically

1386
01:15:30,880 --> 01:15:32,679
Speaker 1: said that it was a case of handing this tape

1387
01:15:32,680 --> 01:15:35,880
Speaker 1: of Bohemian Rhapsody over to Kenny Everett and saying, oh no,

1388
01:15:36,040 --> 01:15:38,639
Speaker 1: it would be a shame if someone were to, you know,

1389
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:42,840
Speaker 1: play this on your super popular radio show and use

1390
01:15:42,880 --> 01:15:45,120
Speaker 1: it to drum up buzz for a song that our

1391
01:15:45,200 --> 01:15:48,759
Speaker 1: labels giving us a hard time about releasing. Whatever you do,

1392
01:15:48,760 --> 01:15:51,760
Speaker 1: don't play it, you know. Wink And then Kenny said,

1393
01:15:51,800 --> 01:15:54,320
Speaker 1: oh no, I never do that, wink and.

1394
01:15:54,400 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 2: Watch me when I say it.

1395
01:15:56,520 --> 01:16:00,759
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, winking was involved. Whatever the case, Kenny Everett,

1396
01:16:00,760 --> 01:16:04,200
Speaker 1: who was kind of a renegade with this python esque

1397
01:16:04,240 --> 01:16:06,920
Speaker 1: sense of humor that ended up getting him fired from

1398
01:16:06,920 --> 01:16:10,240
Speaker 1: the BBC a few years before. As you said, he

1399
01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:13,680
Speaker 1: teased listeners by playing snippets of the song before then

1400
01:16:13,720 --> 01:16:16,599
Speaker 1: playing it in its entirety fourteen times that weekend. And

1401
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 1: it was one of those cliche situations where all the

1402
01:16:18,920 --> 01:16:21,600
Speaker 1: phone lines at the radio station lit up and I

1403
01:16:21,600 --> 01:16:24,920
Speaker 1: an interviewed with the Sound on sound producer Roy Thomas

1404
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:27,800
Speaker 1: Baker said it was a strange situation when radio on

1405
01:16:27,840 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 1: both sides of the Atlantic were breaking a record that

1406
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:32,720
Speaker 1: the record company said would never get airplay.

1407
01:16:33,680 --> 01:16:36,599
Speaker 2: Yeah. This was because Paul Drew, who ran the RKO

1408
01:16:36,720 --> 01:16:39,599
Speaker 2: general stations in the US, was actually in London and

1409
01:16:39,640 --> 01:16:43,720
Speaker 2: he heard Bohemian Rhapsy being played on Effett Show and

1410
01:16:43,840 --> 01:16:47,080
Speaker 2: managed to get a copy of the tape to play stateside,

1411
01:16:47,120 --> 01:16:51,000
Speaker 2: which ended up forcing the hand of Queen's US label, Elektra.

1412
01:16:51,600 --> 01:16:54,040
Speaker 2: So what happened after this weekend was that fans hit

1413
01:16:54,080 --> 01:16:56,479
Speaker 2: the shops Monday to try and buy this single, and

1414
01:16:56,640 --> 01:16:59,479
Speaker 2: all the record shops then rang up Emi and said

1415
01:16:59,520 --> 01:17:02,560
Speaker 2: we need this song released as a single, and the

1416
01:17:02,720 --> 01:17:05,840
Speaker 2: result is that Bohemian Rhapsody was released as Queen's fifth

1417
01:17:05,920 --> 01:17:08,920
Speaker 2: single in the UK on Halloween nineteen seventy five.

1418
01:17:09,360 --> 01:17:10,719
Speaker 1: I mean this is when we cut to the cigar

1419
01:17:10,840 --> 01:17:15,920
Speaker 1: chopping executive. Get me that song, Get me Queen. I

1420
01:17:15,960 --> 01:17:17,640
Speaker 1: gotta hit a Bohemian Rhapsody.

1421
01:17:18,400 --> 01:17:22,280
Speaker 2: Scarrowmouge. I think I think I had that guy killed.

1422
01:17:25,640 --> 01:17:31,520
Speaker 1: He's buried with Hoffa. The B side for Bohemian Rhapsody,

1423
01:17:31,920 --> 01:17:37,160
Speaker 1: hilariously is Roger Taylor's I'm in Love with My Car,

1424
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:42,559
Speaker 1: which is the song Roger, It's your cousin, It's your cousin,

1425
01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:43,639
Speaker 1: Marvin Taylor.

1426
01:17:44,560 --> 01:17:46,880
Speaker 2: You know that new sound about having sex with your

1427
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:50,160
Speaker 2: car you're looking for, Well, listen to this.

1428
01:17:51,120 --> 01:17:53,559
Speaker 1: He plays like the sound of a strip club next

1429
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:57,400
Speaker 1: to a next to a highway light. Bulb goes on

1430
01:17:57,479 --> 01:18:01,479
Speaker 1: over Roger Taey's head. No, that song actually whips. It's

1431
01:18:01,520 --> 01:18:04,920
Speaker 1: a great vocal performance. It's great, but it is very silly.

1432
01:18:05,560 --> 01:18:09,960
Speaker 1: The lyrics are very sexual. Should I read some of it? Yeah,

1433
01:18:09,960 --> 01:18:12,080
Speaker 1: there's no getting around that. Yeah, it's about wanting to

1434
01:18:12,120 --> 01:18:13,040
Speaker 1: have sex with your car.

1435
01:18:13,720 --> 01:18:17,000
Speaker 2: But it's not about Roger Taylor. Supposedly he wrote it

1436
01:18:17,040 --> 01:18:19,240
Speaker 2: inspired by one of the band's rodies, a guy named

1437
01:18:19,520 --> 01:18:24,400
Speaker 2: Jonathan Harris, whose Triumph TR four was evidently the love

1438
01:18:24,400 --> 01:18:28,160
Speaker 2: of his life. The lyrics are as follows the machine

1439
01:18:28,200 --> 01:18:31,600
Speaker 2: of a dream, such a clean machine with the pistons

1440
01:18:31,600 --> 01:18:35,639
Speaker 2: of pumpin and the hub caps all gleam. When I'm

1441
01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:39,439
Speaker 2: holding your wheel, all I hear is your gear with

1442
01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:43,040
Speaker 2: my hand on your grease gun. Oh it's like a

1443
01:18:43,120 --> 01:18:48,320
Speaker 2: disease son. Anyway, this isn't.

1444
01:18:48,120 --> 01:18:51,760
Speaker 1: The appropriate response. But a TR four is not like

1445
01:18:51,520 --> 01:18:53,960
Speaker 1: it's like a Mazda Miata like. It's not like a

1446
01:18:54,080 --> 01:18:57,679
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce or a Jaguar like some really like rare

1447
01:18:57,800 --> 01:18:58,839
Speaker 1: expensive car.

1448
01:19:00,320 --> 01:19:03,080
Speaker 2: Roy Thomas Baker told Sound on Sound Queen were great

1449
01:19:03,080 --> 01:19:04,880
Speaker 2: to work with, although like most bands, there was an

1450
01:19:04,880 --> 01:19:07,720
Speaker 2: element of internal bickering. I always told them there was

1451
01:19:07,760 --> 01:19:09,519
Speaker 2: too embarrassing for them to have an argument in front

1452
01:19:09,520 --> 01:19:11,519
Speaker 2: of everyone in the studio, so I would always make

1453
01:19:11,520 --> 01:19:13,439
Speaker 2: a room available for them to go in and argue

1454
01:19:13,439 --> 01:19:16,120
Speaker 2: in private. I think most of their arguments were about

1455
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:19,640
Speaker 2: who had the B side that royalty thing, which is

1456
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:21,719
Speaker 2: if you have the B side to a successful single,

1457
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:24,519
Speaker 2: you get half the royalties, meaning Roger Taylor's song about

1458
01:19:24,520 --> 01:19:28,439
Speaker 2: wanting to his car got half the royalties from being

1459
01:19:28,479 --> 01:19:30,600
Speaker 2: the B side to one of the greatest songs of

1460
01:19:30,600 --> 01:19:35,320
Speaker 2: all time. Baker continued, I remember Roger moping because he

1461
01:19:35,400 --> 01:19:37,920
Speaker 2: really wanted his song I'm in Love with My Car

1462
01:19:38,200 --> 01:19:41,360
Speaker 2: on the B side of Bohemian Rhapsody. He locked himself

1463
01:19:41,400 --> 01:19:44,200
Speaker 2: in the tape closet at SARM Studios and said he

1464
01:19:44,200 --> 01:19:46,240
Speaker 2: wouldn't come out until they agreed to put it on.

1465
01:19:47,280 --> 01:19:49,680
Speaker 2: If you should happen, however, to find one of the

1466
01:19:49,720 --> 01:19:53,080
Speaker 2: two hundred copies of the Bohemian Rhapsody I'm in Love

1467
01:19:53,080 --> 01:19:55,400
Speaker 2: with My Car single that were pressed on blue vinyl,

1468
01:19:55,880 --> 01:19:58,519
Speaker 2: you are extremely in luck. There is one of them

1469
01:19:58,520 --> 01:20:02,599
Speaker 2: currently on sale on this cogs for over five thousand dollars,

1470
01:20:02,920 --> 01:20:03,519
Speaker 2: and that's.

1471
01:20:03,360 --> 01:20:05,560
Speaker 1: A bargain because in some of the documentaries from like

1472
01:20:05,600 --> 01:20:07,760
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, two thousand and four I was

1473
01:20:07,760 --> 01:20:10,160
Speaker 1: watching about Bohemian Rhapsody, that's how much it was going

1474
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:13,280
Speaker 1: for then twenty years ago, so I bet you the

1475
01:20:13,920 --> 01:20:15,599
Speaker 1: list price is probably even higher.

1476
01:20:16,040 --> 01:20:18,080
Speaker 2: A Night at the Opera, which as we mentioned, ended

1477
01:20:18,120 --> 01:20:20,880
Speaker 2: up becoming the most expensive British album ever made at

1478
01:20:20,880 --> 01:20:23,160
Speaker 2: the time, came out just under a month later on

1479
01:20:23,200 --> 01:20:26,599
Speaker 2: November twenty first, nineteen seventy five. Because of the band's

1480
01:20:26,640 --> 01:20:29,280
Speaker 2: dithering over the final mix, it wasn't reviewed in most

1481
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:32,640
Speaker 2: UK music magazines because they just didn't make these available.

1482
01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:34,519
Speaker 2: There was no final mix of it until the very

1483
01:20:34,560 --> 01:20:38,520
Speaker 2: last minute, so there were no press copies available. But regardless,

1484
01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:41,720
Speaker 2: it topped the UK album chart for four non consecutive

1485
01:20:41,760 --> 01:20:44,439
Speaker 2: weeks and peaked at number four on the Billboard Top

1486
01:20:44,600 --> 01:20:47,879
Speaker 2: LPs and Tape chart, becoming the band's first platinum certified

1487
01:20:47,920 --> 01:20:48,880
Speaker 2: album in the US.

1488
01:20:49,000 --> 01:20:51,600
Speaker 1: But it wasn't without its detractors. A critic for the

1489
01:20:51,720 --> 01:20:55,439
Speaker 1: UK outlet Melody Maker, came for Bohemian Rhapsody upon its release,

1490
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:59,960
Speaker 1: writing that it sounded like quote a ballum amateur opera

1491
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:05,000
Speaker 1: society performing the Pirates of Penzance. Presumably this reviewer was.

1492
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:09,160
Speaker 2: Shot Bohemian rhaps They topped the UK singles charts for

1493
01:21:09,320 --> 01:21:13,400
Speaker 2: nine weeks plus another five weeks following Freddie Mercury's death

1494
01:21:13,400 --> 01:21:16,479
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one. It remains the UK's third best

1495
01:21:16,520 --> 01:21:20,080
Speaker 2: selling single of all time. Topped the charts in countries

1496
01:21:20,120 --> 01:21:24,080
Speaker 2: including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands, sold over

1497
01:21:24,160 --> 01:21:27,880
Speaker 2: six million copies worldwide. In the United States, the song

1498
01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:30,479
Speaker 2: peaked at number nine in nineteen seventy six, but reached

1499
01:21:30,479 --> 01:21:33,080
Speaker 2: a new peak of number two after appearing in the

1500
01:21:33,160 --> 01:21:36,080
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two film Wayne's World. More on That in a.

1501
01:21:36,040 --> 01:21:40,920
Speaker 1: Bit, Critic Anthony to Curtis described Bohemian Rhapsody uncharitably but

1502
01:21:40,960 --> 01:21:45,000
Speaker 1: not inaccurately, as the quick essential example of the kind

1503
01:21:45,040 --> 01:21:49,479
Speaker 1: of thing that doesn't exactly go over well in America fair.

1504
01:21:50,400 --> 01:21:53,040
Speaker 2: In two thousand and four, this song was inducted into

1505
01:21:53,120 --> 01:21:55,600
Speaker 2: the Grammy Hall of Fame. While following the release of

1506
01:21:55,640 --> 01:21:58,840
Speaker 2: the twenty eighteen Queen biopic that shares the name, it

1507
01:21:58,920 --> 01:22:03,919
Speaker 2: became the most streamed song from the twentieth century period,

1508
01:22:04,439 --> 01:22:08,040
Speaker 2: breaking the previous record held by Nirvana for Smells Like

1509
01:22:08,080 --> 01:22:11,559
Speaker 2: Teen Spirit. In twenty twenty one, it was certified Diamond

1510
01:22:11,640 --> 01:22:14,120
Speaker 2: in the US for combined digital sales and streams equal

1511
01:22:14,160 --> 01:22:20,559
Speaker 2: to ten million units eh. Fellow prog rock icon Greg Lake,

1512
01:22:20,640 --> 01:22:23,479
Speaker 2: whose song I Believe In Father Christmas was kept from

1513
01:22:23,479 --> 01:22:27,360
Speaker 2: the number one in the UK by Bohemian Rhapsody, acknowledged

1514
01:22:27,400 --> 01:22:29,639
Speaker 2: that he was beaten by one of the greatest records

1515
01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:32,920
Speaker 2: ever made, describing Bohemian Rhapsody as a once in a

1516
01:22:32,960 --> 01:22:33,879
Speaker 2: lifetime recording.

1517
01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:36,400
Speaker 1: I can't believe you just loved Greg Lake and with

1518
01:22:36,560 --> 01:22:44,559
Speaker 1: Queen Go go listen to take a pebble on your

1519
01:22:44,600 --> 01:22:45,080
Speaker 1: own time.

1520
01:22:46,280 --> 01:22:47,679
Speaker 2: What's your beef with the Lake?

1521
01:22:50,800 --> 01:22:54,240
Speaker 1: No peace socks? Come on? Oh, I have a soft

1522
01:22:54,240 --> 01:22:56,280
Speaker 1: spot for a lot of prog rock. Actually, I'd probably

1523
01:22:56,320 --> 01:23:01,600
Speaker 1: like Kingdom Success, But yeah, I like you whatever. The

1524
01:23:01,760 --> 01:23:03,719
Speaker 1: Welcome Back by Friends of the show that never owns

1525
01:23:03,760 --> 01:23:06,640
Speaker 1: that one rules, Yeah, I like yet I like some

1526
01:23:06,800 --> 01:23:10,720
Speaker 1: Yes too man carnivil Carnival. Yeah, I even like the

1527
01:23:10,720 --> 01:23:13,240
Speaker 1: one with the armadillo tank Tarcas. I went to a

1528
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:16,479
Speaker 1: big ELP face brain salad surgery, come on, oh yeah,

1529
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:21,000
Speaker 1: brain solas wrong with you? Don't hate on ELP putts.

1530
01:23:21,400 --> 01:23:25,000
Speaker 1: You wish you could play keyboards. It's jealousy, that's what

1531
01:23:25,080 --> 01:23:27,920
Speaker 1: it is. You wish you had a collection of Nazi

1532
01:23:27,960 --> 01:23:31,280
Speaker 1: daggers to stab into a series of b three organs

1533
01:23:31,360 --> 01:23:38,479
Speaker 1: like yeah, um, no lesson authority here, this will warm

1534
01:23:38,520 --> 01:23:41,240
Speaker 1: you to the cockles of your frozen elp hating heart.

1535
01:23:41,680 --> 01:23:45,320
Speaker 1: No lesson authority on mid century maximalist pop music than

1536
01:23:45,360 --> 01:23:48,439
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson, when asked about the song

1537
01:23:48,680 --> 01:23:53,519
Speaker 1: in Sounds magazine in nineteen seventy six, described Bohemian Rhapsody

1538
01:23:53,560 --> 01:23:57,200
Speaker 1: as quote the most competitive thing that's come along in ages,

1539
01:23:57,760 --> 01:24:01,439
Speaker 1: and a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer

1540
01:24:01,880 --> 01:24:05,960
Speaker 1: of artistic music. I love that. I love that Brian

1541
01:24:06,000 --> 01:24:08,720
Speaker 1: Wilson comments at a Bohemian Rhapsody because I really think

1542
01:24:08,720 --> 01:24:11,920
Speaker 1: there's a line between you know, the unorthodox form and

1543
01:24:11,960 --> 01:24:16,880
Speaker 1: meticulous studio construction of good vibrations to Bohemian Rhapsody. There's

1544
01:24:16,920 --> 01:24:19,479
Speaker 1: also been a lot of comparison between Bohemian Rhapsody and

1545
01:24:19,520 --> 01:24:24,200
Speaker 1: another Wayne's World staple, Stairway to Heaven. Music writers Pete

1546
01:24:24,200 --> 01:24:27,519
Speaker 1: Brown and HP Newquist observed that both songs had a slow,

1547
01:24:27,600 --> 01:24:31,439
Speaker 1: introspective beginning and a gradual climb to a raging metal

1548
01:24:31,560 --> 01:24:35,280
Speaker 1: jam and back again, although the notable distinction is while

1549
01:24:35,360 --> 01:24:39,280
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin meshed folk influences with heavy metal, Queen opted

1550
01:24:39,320 --> 01:24:41,840
Speaker 1: for the like grandeur of the operetta as part of

1551
01:24:41,880 --> 01:24:42,559
Speaker 1: its hard rock.

1552
01:24:42,760 --> 01:24:45,880
Speaker 2: At the nineteenth Annual Grammy Awards in February nineteen seventy seven,

1553
01:24:45,960 --> 01:24:49,360
Speaker 2: Bohemian Rhapsody received two Grammy nominations for Best Pop Vocal

1554
01:24:49,400 --> 01:24:52,560
Speaker 2: Performance by a Duo Group or Chorus and Best Arrangement

1555
01:24:52,600 --> 01:24:55,519
Speaker 2: for Voices. Though it lost. Queen has been nominated for

1556
01:24:55,560 --> 01:24:58,400
Speaker 2: four Grammys, lost out every time, although in two thousand

1557
01:24:58,400 --> 01:25:00,160
Speaker 2: and four the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall

1558
01:25:00,200 --> 01:25:02,760
Speaker 2: of Fame. Hell the Bell, he mean to absolutely lose

1559
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:04,280
Speaker 2: for Best Vocal Arrangement too.

1560
01:25:04,680 --> 01:25:09,160
Speaker 1: Ooh should we check this? Yeah? Like seriously, one hundred

1561
01:25:09,160 --> 01:25:15,920
Speaker 1: and eighty tracks. The tape was clear. You animals, You insects,

1562
01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:18,320
Speaker 1: The tape was clear.

1563
01:25:19,600 --> 01:25:24,479
Speaker 2: The laces were out. The lace Venture reference for you

1564
01:25:24,760 --> 01:25:29,960
Speaker 2: just because Span High Low Culture. Best Pop Vocal Performance

1565
01:25:30,360 --> 01:25:33,880
Speaker 2: by a Duo Group or Chorus Ooh if You Leave

1566
01:25:33,960 --> 01:25:35,320
Speaker 2: Me Now by Chicago.

1567
01:25:35,880 --> 01:25:40,439
Speaker 1: Oh, and what was the other one?

1568
01:25:40,520 --> 01:25:44,000
Speaker 2: Best Arrangement for Voices, Best Arrangement for Voices?

1569
01:25:44,160 --> 01:25:49,280
Speaker 1: Oh oh no, it's the worst possible one.

1570
01:25:50,400 --> 01:25:58,360
Speaker 2: Guess I'll give you a hint. It was featured in Anchorman,

1571
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:03,240
Speaker 2: I Don't Know, Starland vocal band for Afternoon Delight.

1572
01:26:05,960 --> 01:26:11,080
Speaker 1: Ah ah, screaming into a pillow.

1573
01:26:12,320 --> 01:26:14,880
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's horrifying.

1574
01:26:15,160 --> 01:26:18,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's bad. That was stellar call from the Grammys.

1575
01:26:20,000 --> 01:26:23,080
Speaker 2: Bohemian Rhapsody also won an Ivor Novello Award in nineteen

1576
01:26:23,120 --> 01:26:25,360
Speaker 2: seventy six and British Single of the Year the nineteen

1577
01:26:25,360 --> 01:26:28,240
Speaker 2: seventy seven brit Awards and October of nineteen seventy seven.

1578
01:26:28,360 --> 01:26:31,080
Speaker 2: Only two years after its release, the British Phonographic Industry

1579
01:26:31,120 --> 01:26:34,320
Speaker 2: named Bohemian Rhapsody as the best British single of the

1580
01:26:34,400 --> 01:26:37,400
Speaker 2: last twenty five years, and twenty five years after that,

1581
01:26:37,720 --> 01:26:40,080
Speaker 2: it was named by Guinness the Guinness Book of World

1582
01:26:40,120 --> 01:26:43,040
Speaker 2: Records as the top British single of all time. In

1583
01:26:43,080 --> 01:26:44,760
Speaker 2: a two thousand and one poll of more than fifty

1584
01:26:44,800 --> 01:26:47,960
Speaker 2: thousand readers of The Observer and viewers of British TV's

1585
01:26:48,000 --> 01:26:50,280
Speaker 2: Channel four for the one hundred best number one singles

1586
01:26:50,280 --> 01:26:53,920
Speaker 2: of all time, Bohemian Rhapsody came in second to John

1587
01:26:54,000 --> 01:26:59,599
Speaker 2: Lennon's Imagine Bohemian Rapsody's Better. In two thousand and two,

1588
01:26:59,600 --> 01:27:01,920
Speaker 2: it came in tenth in a BBC World Service poll

1589
01:27:01,920 --> 01:27:04,160
Speaker 2: to find the world's favorite song has been in the

1590
01:27:04,200 --> 01:27:07,760
Speaker 2: top five of the Dutch annual all time Top one

1591
01:27:07,800 --> 01:27:10,439
Speaker 2: hundred singles since nineteen seventy seven, reaching number one on

1592
01:27:10,560 --> 01:27:13,320
Speaker 2: eight occasions, more than any other artist. The Dutch love

1593
01:27:13,439 --> 01:27:14,439
Speaker 2: Queen Who Knew That.

1594
01:27:16,000 --> 01:27:16,559
Speaker 1: The Dutch.

1595
01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:20,439
Speaker 2: In a twenty twelve reader's poll conducted by Rolling Stone,

1596
01:27:20,479 --> 01:27:23,759
Speaker 2: Bohemian Rahpsy was voted the best vocal performance in rock history.

1597
01:27:24,280 --> 01:27:27,120
Speaker 2: Also that year, the song topped an ITV poll in

1598
01:27:27,120 --> 01:27:29,920
Speaker 2: the UK to find the nation's favorite number one over

1599
01:27:30,000 --> 01:27:33,360
Speaker 2: sixty years of music, beating out Billy Jean, Someone Like

1600
01:27:33,400 --> 01:27:37,639
Speaker 2: You Don't Look Back in Anger and Hey Jude, which

1601
01:27:37,720 --> 01:27:41,559
Speaker 2: rounded out the top five. The band's groundbreaking music video

1602
01:27:41,640 --> 01:27:45,160
Speaker 2: for the single so passed one billion views on YouTube

1603
01:27:45,200 --> 01:27:48,400
Speaker 2: in July twenty nineteen, one billion views, making it the

1604
01:27:48,439 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 2: oldest music video to reach one billion views on the

1605
01:27:50,920 --> 01:27:54,200
Speaker 2: platform and the first pre nineteen ninety song to reach

1606
01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:58,080
Speaker 2: that figure. And lastly, my favorite honorifics of all time.

1607
01:27:58,160 --> 01:28:00,680
Speaker 2: In two thousand and two, Bohemian Rhapsody was selected by

1608
01:28:00,680 --> 01:28:02,920
Speaker 2: the US Library of Congress for preservation in the National

1609
01:28:02,960 --> 01:28:07,960
Speaker 2: Recording Registry as being culturally, historically or esthetically significant.

1610
01:28:08,680 --> 01:28:11,680
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you have that? What else do I

1611
01:28:11,720 --> 01:28:17,080
Speaker 1: have at this point, they've taken everything else from me. Well,

1612
01:28:17,120 --> 01:28:20,679
Speaker 1: speaking of that video, it's a crucial component of Bohemian

1613
01:28:20,760 --> 01:28:24,240
Speaker 1: Rhapsoy's success, and honestly it was more or less done

1614
01:28:24,280 --> 01:28:26,880
Speaker 1: just to get out of doing lame promotional appearances they

1615
01:28:26,880 --> 01:28:29,559
Speaker 1: didn't feel like doing. Queen were poised to head out

1616
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:31,960
Speaker 1: on tours soon after the release of Bohemian Rhapsody in

1617
01:28:31,960 --> 01:28:34,519
Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen seventy five, which made it tough

1618
01:28:34,560 --> 01:28:38,360
Speaker 1: to do the traditional televisual promotional run and on the store.

1619
01:28:38,560 --> 01:28:41,240
Speaker 1: I just love this anecdote. Roger Taylor's drum kit was

1620
01:28:41,280 --> 01:28:45,000
Speaker 1: outfitted with a sixty inch symphonic Tam Tam gong which

1621
01:28:45,040 --> 01:28:47,840
Speaker 1: had been cleaned, packed and set up on each date.

1622
01:28:48,080 --> 01:28:50,599
Speaker 1: It's just so we could strike that one final note

1623
01:28:50,600 --> 01:28:53,680
Speaker 1: in Bohemian Rhapsody touring in the seventies.

1624
01:28:54,439 --> 01:28:56,439
Speaker 2: Speak of Emerson Lake and Palmer, I think they set

1625
01:28:56,479 --> 01:28:58,840
Speaker 2: like a gross weight record when they were touring in

1626
01:28:58,880 --> 01:29:02,639
Speaker 2: the seventies, the sheer tonnage of crap that they were

1627
01:29:02,640 --> 01:29:05,800
Speaker 2: taking with them on tour. I mean, B three's aren't

1628
01:29:05,960 --> 01:29:08,679
Speaker 2: like I found what it was. Emerson Lake and Palmer

1629
01:29:08,680 --> 01:29:13,640
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven took twenty five tons of equipment

1630
01:29:13,720 --> 01:29:14,160
Speaker 2: on tour.

1631
01:29:14,640 --> 01:29:17,519
Speaker 1: I would is it like itemized? I would love to

1632
01:29:17,520 --> 01:29:21,080
Speaker 1: see what the hell that I make? Gus a bunch

1633
01:29:21,160 --> 01:29:27,599
Speaker 1: of organs like synths, gongs, yeah, drums, samps, stamps. Wow?

1634
01:29:27,920 --> 01:29:28,639
Speaker 1: Is that a record?

1635
01:29:28,720 --> 01:29:29,200
Speaker 2: I don't know.

1636
01:29:29,280 --> 01:29:33,640
Speaker 1: I don't know that the I choose to believe it. Yeah. Wow. So,

1637
01:29:33,720 --> 01:29:35,680
Speaker 1: in addition to gearing up to head out on the

1638
01:29:35,720 --> 01:29:38,479
Speaker 1: road performing what he Mean raps the on TV shows

1639
01:29:38,560 --> 01:29:41,160
Speaker 1: was further complicated by the fact that the song was

1640
01:29:41,600 --> 01:29:45,160
Speaker 1: extremely hard to perform live. Brian May would later say

1641
01:29:45,160 --> 01:29:48,080
Speaker 1: that they felt self conscious miming to the operatic part,

1642
01:29:48,120 --> 01:29:50,680
Speaker 1: which is really their only option. You couldn't reproduce that

1643
01:29:50,840 --> 01:29:54,639
Speaker 1: on stage, at least at that time. In nineteen seventy five,

1644
01:29:54,640 --> 01:29:57,719
Speaker 1: that music TV show du Joor was Top of the Pops,

1645
01:29:58,040 --> 01:29:59,799
Speaker 1: which was I'm trying to think of with the American

1646
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:03,559
Speaker 1: eqivalent would be like bigger than American Bandstand, bigger than

1647
01:30:03,600 --> 01:30:06,360
Speaker 1: Soul Train, bigger than TRL, some combination of the three.

1648
01:30:07,120 --> 01:30:09,160
Speaker 1: But appearing on top of the Pops was kind of

1649
01:30:09,200 --> 01:30:12,360
Speaker 1: a drag for Queen. Speaking to the Observer in December

1650
01:30:12,360 --> 01:30:15,320
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, Roger Taylor explained we had everything

1651
01:30:15,360 --> 01:30:17,839
Speaker 1: we possibly could to avoid appearing on Top of the Pops.

1652
01:30:18,240 --> 01:30:20,799
Speaker 1: One it was the most boring day known to man,

1653
01:30:21,600 --> 01:30:24,679
Speaker 1: and two it's all about not actually playing. It's all

1654
01:30:24,680 --> 01:30:27,360
Speaker 1: pretending to sing or pretending to play. So we came

1655
01:30:27,439 --> 01:30:29,840
Speaker 1: up with the video concept to avoid playing on Top

1656
01:30:29,880 --> 01:30:33,200
Speaker 1: of the Pops, a fact that I'm sure the producers

1657
01:30:33,200 --> 01:30:36,880
Speaker 1: of that show are thrilled to hear. Queen also hired

1658
01:30:36,920 --> 01:30:39,880
Speaker 1: director Bruce Gowers to shoot their music video, and he

1659
01:30:39,960 --> 01:30:42,680
Speaker 1: got the job basically by virtue of the fact that

1660
01:30:42,880 --> 01:30:44,519
Speaker 1: he was one of the few people in Britain at

1661
01:30:44,560 --> 01:30:47,280
Speaker 1: the time who had experienced shooting music videos or pop

1662
01:30:47,320 --> 01:30:49,680
Speaker 1: promos as they were called back then. He was a

1663
01:30:49,680 --> 01:30:52,320
Speaker 1: camera operator and a few of the Beatles promotional clips

1664
01:30:52,320 --> 01:30:54,960
Speaker 1: from a decade earlier, including one for Paperback Writer in

1665
01:30:55,040 --> 01:30:58,120
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, and he would later move to Hollywood

1666
01:30:58,160 --> 01:31:01,240
Speaker 1: and direct the MTV Movie Awards, the Primetime Emmy Awards,

1667
01:31:01,320 --> 01:31:04,240
Speaker 1: the People's Choice Awards, and the first ten seasons of

1668
01:31:04,280 --> 01:31:08,280
Speaker 1: American Idol. So this guy's had a big career anyway.

1669
01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:11,360
Speaker 1: Gowers met the band at Elstree Studios just outside of

1670
01:31:11,400 --> 01:31:14,240
Speaker 1: London to shoot the Bohemian Rhapsody clip in November nineteen

1671
01:31:14,320 --> 01:31:17,679
Speaker 1: seventy five, and they completed it in just three hours

1672
01:31:17,720 --> 01:31:20,880
Speaker 1: for a poultry thirty five hundred pounds or about five

1673
01:31:20,920 --> 01:31:24,040
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And there are two main images from the

1674
01:31:24,120 --> 01:31:27,160
Speaker 1: video that everyone remembers. The first is the band recreating

1675
01:31:27,160 --> 01:31:30,000
Speaker 1: their iconic diamond pose from the cover of their Queen

1676
01:31:30,120 --> 01:31:33,280
Speaker 1: two album, which was taken by photographer Mick Rock and

1677
01:31:33,320 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 1: that image was borrowed from the silver screen cinema star

1678
01:31:35,840 --> 01:31:39,280
Speaker 1: Marlena Dietrich from her nineteen thirty two movie Shanghai Express,

1679
01:31:39,680 --> 01:31:41,920
Speaker 1: which is just one of the many non rock star

1680
01:31:42,080 --> 01:31:45,040
Speaker 1: influences on Freddie Mercury always thought it was interesting. He

1681
01:31:45,080 --> 01:31:49,840
Speaker 1: also worshiped e Liza Minelli, specifically the use of her course, yeah,

1682
01:31:49,880 --> 01:31:52,280
Speaker 1: specifically the use of her hands when he wasn't playing

1683
01:31:52,320 --> 01:31:55,639
Speaker 1: an instrument on stage, those sort of Bob Fosse ish

1684
01:31:55,680 --> 01:31:58,160
Speaker 1: movements that he had her do in the movie Cabaret,

1685
01:31:58,600 --> 01:32:01,599
Speaker 1: and Freddie later said, I as adoralize them. Anelle. She's

1686
01:32:01,640 --> 01:32:04,600
Speaker 1: a total wow the way she delivers her songs, the

1687
01:32:04,680 --> 01:32:08,120
Speaker 1: sheer energy and Robney Mallick later told The New York

1688
01:32:08,160 --> 01:32:10,040
Speaker 1: Times that as he was preparing for his role, as

1689
01:32:10,080 --> 01:32:12,800
Speaker 1: Freddy in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. He found it more

1690
01:32:12,800 --> 01:32:15,960
Speaker 1: helpful at times to watch Liza in cabaret than watching

1691
01:32:16,000 --> 01:32:19,920
Speaker 1: Freddy's concerts. The other famous visual in the Bohemian Rhapsody

1692
01:32:20,000 --> 01:32:23,080
Speaker 1: video is the stream of Freddy's faces that stretch off

1693
01:32:23,080 --> 01:32:26,439
Speaker 1: into infinity during the Magnifico and let Me Go parts.

1694
01:32:26,479 --> 01:32:29,840
Speaker 1: This sort of visual echo, and this was achieved live,

1695
01:32:30,040 --> 01:32:33,280
Speaker 1: not in post production, by pointing the camera at a monitor,

1696
01:32:33,600 --> 01:32:37,240
Speaker 1: thus triggering what's called visual feedback, which is basically akin

1697
01:32:37,360 --> 01:32:40,760
Speaker 1: to audio feedback. And the effects for this video, even

1698
01:32:40,800 --> 01:32:44,360
Speaker 1: though they look really cool, were really low budget. For example,

1699
01:32:44,360 --> 01:32:47,479
Speaker 1: the honeycomb effect that was of the band in their

1700
01:32:47,520 --> 01:32:50,439
Speaker 1: diamond post was achieved by holding a prism up to

1701
01:32:50,479 --> 01:32:54,840
Speaker 1: the front of the camera lens, so very quick, very easy.

1702
01:32:54,880 --> 01:32:56,800
Speaker 1: Everything about this clip was sort of a rush job.

1703
01:32:57,080 --> 01:32:59,560
Speaker 1: It was edited in just five hours because Top of

1704
01:32:59,600 --> 01:33:01,720
Speaker 1: the Pops wanted to air the video the same week

1705
01:33:01,760 --> 01:33:04,840
Speaker 1: it was shot, so it premiered on November twentieth, nineteen

1706
01:33:04,880 --> 01:33:07,920
Speaker 1: seventy five, and resulted in a whole new wave of

1707
01:33:07,960 --> 01:33:11,640
Speaker 1: interest for Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody. And It's funny the

1708
01:33:11,680 --> 01:33:14,040
Speaker 1: band actually laughed when they first saw the clip because

1709
01:33:14,040 --> 01:33:16,519
Speaker 1: they just thought it was so kitchy, but turned out

1710
01:33:16,560 --> 01:33:19,719
Speaker 1: to be their master stroke. More than an artistic triumph,

1711
01:33:19,920 --> 01:33:22,559
Speaker 1: it allowed for repeated airings on top of the pops,

1712
01:33:22,760 --> 01:33:25,639
Speaker 1: which contributed to the song's success. Normally, when bands came

1713
01:33:25,680 --> 01:33:28,200
Speaker 1: on to mime their new single, they could only really

1714
01:33:28,240 --> 01:33:31,800
Speaker 1: play at once, but making these promo videos meant you

1715
01:33:31,800 --> 01:33:34,120
Speaker 1: could play it again and again, and this jump started

1716
01:33:34,160 --> 01:33:36,360
Speaker 1: a trend among British artists at the time for making

1717
01:33:36,439 --> 01:33:39,840
Speaker 1: videos of their songs to air in place of TV appearances.

1718
01:33:39,880 --> 01:33:42,000
Speaker 1: Saved them from having to slep around all these different

1719
01:33:42,000 --> 01:33:45,160
Speaker 1: studios and again you got a lot of repeat performances

1720
01:33:45,200 --> 01:33:47,479
Speaker 1: out of it, and hence why when MTV launched a

1721
01:33:47,479 --> 01:33:49,920
Speaker 1: few years later in nineteen eighty one, the majority of

1722
01:33:49,920 --> 01:33:52,120
Speaker 1: the videos that came in these early days were from

1723
01:33:52,160 --> 01:33:55,120
Speaker 1: British artists because that was simply all that was available

1724
01:33:55,160 --> 01:33:58,240
Speaker 1: all the time. The other enduring image of bohemian raps

1725
01:33:58,280 --> 01:34:01,880
Speaker 1: these stems, of course, from Wayne World. The nineteen ninety

1726
01:34:01,880 --> 01:34:05,160
Speaker 1: two film based on Mike Myer's breakout SNL character, opens

1727
01:34:05,160 --> 01:34:09,040
Speaker 1: with Wayne Dana Carvey's character Garth and their friends headbanging

1728
01:34:09,080 --> 01:34:12,400
Speaker 1: in the car to the song, and it's hard to imagine,

1729
01:34:12,479 --> 01:34:15,840
Speaker 1: but this scene was very nearly completed using a different song.

1730
01:34:16,840 --> 01:34:19,400
Speaker 1: Laurd Michaels, the Saturn Night Live producer and the producer

1731
01:34:19,439 --> 01:34:21,920
Speaker 1: of Wayne's World, was pushing hard for a guns N'

1732
01:34:22,040 --> 01:34:25,760
Speaker 1: Roses track in order to keep the movie contemporary. And

1733
01:34:25,800 --> 01:34:27,559
Speaker 1: this is because it's hard to remember now, but by

1734
01:34:27,600 --> 01:34:30,160
Speaker 1: the dawn of the nineties, Queen We're not seen as

1735
01:34:30,280 --> 01:34:33,200
Speaker 1: very cool in the United States. They hadn't even bothered

1736
01:34:33,240 --> 01:34:37,280
Speaker 1: a tour here during their last international tours, and the

1737
01:34:37,320 --> 01:34:40,920
Speaker 1: reason that's most commonly cited for Queen's popularity taking a

1738
01:34:41,000 --> 01:34:44,599
Speaker 1: nosedive was their video for I Want to Break Free,

1739
01:34:45,280 --> 01:34:48,200
Speaker 1: which featured the band in drag, and that so it

1740
01:34:48,280 --> 01:34:50,880
Speaker 1: seems ridiculous to say now, sort of damage to their

1741
01:34:50,880 --> 01:34:53,439
Speaker 1: reputation in the United States. It was tough for hard

1742
01:34:53,520 --> 01:34:56,640
Speaker 1: rock fans at the time to be seen openly embracing

1743
01:34:56,680 --> 01:35:00,000
Speaker 1: a band who dressed in drag. So by nineteen ninety two,

1744
01:35:00,200 --> 01:35:02,320
Speaker 1: Queen weren't big in America and so they were a

1745
01:35:02,320 --> 01:35:05,360
Speaker 1: tough sell for the producers of Wayne's World. Mike Myers

1746
01:35:05,400 --> 01:35:08,439
Speaker 1: told Vanity Fair in twenty fourteen, Lauren kept putting under

1747
01:35:08,479 --> 01:35:10,560
Speaker 1: my office store of the Billboard Hot one hundred, and

1748
01:35:10,600 --> 01:35:13,320
Speaker 1: it was all guns n' roses, guns n' roses, guns n' roses.

1749
01:35:13,720 --> 01:35:15,679
Speaker 1: I said, I love guns n' roses, but I don't

1750
01:35:15,680 --> 01:35:18,720
Speaker 1: have a joke for guns n' roses. Mike Myers and

1751
01:35:18,760 --> 01:35:21,240
Speaker 1: Lauren Michaels, they seem to have this really weird relationship

1752
01:35:21,479 --> 01:35:23,720
Speaker 1: in the late eighties. Soon after Myers was hired on

1753
01:35:23,760 --> 01:35:26,200
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live, Lauren tried to get him to remake

1754
01:35:26,280 --> 01:35:30,640
Speaker 1: The Graduate Dustin Hoffman and Ben's Weird. Yeah, I know.

1755
01:35:31,360 --> 01:35:35,000
Speaker 1: Myers responded by saying, kind of rightly, it didn't need

1756
01:35:35,040 --> 01:35:37,840
Speaker 1: to be remade. He said, it's a perfect film and

1757
01:35:37,920 --> 01:35:40,559
Speaker 1: a little man should not stand in a great man's shoes.

1758
01:35:41,479 --> 01:35:45,120
Speaker 1: And Lauren said, I just offered you a freaking movie,

1759
01:35:45,680 --> 01:35:48,200
Speaker 1: and Meyers said, well, I want to make Wayne's World,

1760
01:35:48,360 --> 01:35:53,800
Speaker 1: to which Lauren said really, which Myers said, decoded as

1761
01:35:54,080 --> 01:35:58,760
Speaker 1: Lauren speak for you sing idiot. Myers then went on

1762
01:35:58,800 --> 01:36:03,160
Speaker 1: to decode other Lauren. When Lauren says right, a lah

1763
01:36:03,200 --> 01:36:06,240
Speaker 1: Doctor Evil who based Doctor Evil on it means he

1764
01:36:06,240 --> 01:36:09,360
Speaker 1: doesn't want to hear about it anymore. Meanwhile, when Michael

1765
01:36:09,400 --> 01:36:12,519
Speaker 1: says cool, it means get the out of my office.

1766
01:36:14,520 --> 01:36:17,439
Speaker 1: So things started off on kind of a weird foot

1767
01:36:17,479 --> 01:36:20,920
Speaker 1: for Wayne's World and the Bohemian Rhapsody scene in general,

1768
01:36:21,240 --> 01:36:24,360
Speaker 1: and reportedly when producers tried to pressure Mike Myers into

1769
01:36:24,439 --> 01:36:27,439
Speaker 1: using Welcome to the Jungle for that scene, he threatened

1770
01:36:27,439 --> 01:36:31,360
Speaker 1: to leave the production entirely. I guess Mike was kind

1771
01:36:31,360 --> 01:36:34,120
Speaker 1: of a pill on the set. The headbanging scene took

1772
01:36:34,240 --> 01:36:38,040
Speaker 1: ten hours to shoot, and by the end everybody evolved

1773
01:36:38,080 --> 01:36:41,040
Speaker 1: with the scene. We're complaining of headaches and begging for aspirin.

1774
01:36:41,720 --> 01:36:43,719
Speaker 1: And you'll notice if you watch the scene, Dana Carvey

1775
01:36:43,720 --> 01:36:45,599
Speaker 1: didn't learn the lyrics ahead of time, so you can

1776
01:36:45,640 --> 01:36:48,000
Speaker 1: see that he's often just like randomly moving his mouth

1777
01:36:48,640 --> 01:36:52,400
Speaker 1: when singing a lot. It's pretty funny. Yeah. Director Penelophie

1778
01:36:52,400 --> 01:36:55,280
Speaker 1: Safara said that Mike was a nightmare to work with, though,

1779
01:36:55,320 --> 01:36:58,840
Speaker 1: and that she quote hated that bastard for years. She

1780
01:36:58,960 --> 01:37:01,439
Speaker 1: told the famous story I'm arriving on set one day

1781
01:37:01,479 --> 01:37:04,320
Speaker 1: to discover that the snack table only had butter and

1782
01:37:04,400 --> 01:37:08,519
Speaker 1: not margarine for his Bagel Myers, who suffers from low

1783
01:37:08,520 --> 01:37:12,080
Speaker 1: blood sugar, became enraged, flipped the table over and stormed

1784
01:37:12,080 --> 01:37:14,040
Speaker 1: off the set and did not come out of his

1785
01:37:14,160 --> 01:37:18,800
Speaker 1: trailer for hours, reportedly for legal reasons. Penelophe sa Faris

1786
01:37:18,800 --> 01:37:22,559
Speaker 1: added to Entertainment Weekly. Myers was emotionally needy and got

1787
01:37:22,600 --> 01:37:25,400
Speaker 1: more difficult as the shoot went along. You should have

1788
01:37:25,479 --> 01:37:27,000
Speaker 1: heard him bitching when I was trying to do that

1789
01:37:27,040 --> 01:37:30,040
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody scene. Oh, I can't move my neck like that.

1790
01:37:30,200 --> 01:37:31,960
Speaker 1: Why do we have to do this so many times?

1791
01:37:32,000 --> 01:37:35,960
Speaker 1: No one's gonna laugh at that. But thankfully Sepharis and

1792
01:37:36,040 --> 01:37:39,200
Speaker 1: Mike Myers have reconciled. Two thousand and eight, she revealed

1793
01:37:39,200 --> 01:37:42,160
Speaker 1: that after seeing him at Austin Powers International Man of Mystery,

1794
01:37:42,360 --> 01:37:44,880
Speaker 1: she was so impressed that she thought, I forgive you, Mike.

1795
01:37:45,160 --> 01:37:47,240
Speaker 1: You can be moody, you can be a jerk, You

1796
01:37:47,240 --> 01:37:49,280
Speaker 1: could be things that others of us can't be, because

1797
01:37:49,320 --> 01:37:52,320
Speaker 1: you are profoundly talented, and I forgive you. But thanks

1798
01:37:52,320 --> 01:37:55,000
Speaker 1: to his inclusion in Wayne's World, Bohemian Rapsy shot up

1799
01:37:55,040 --> 01:37:58,479
Speaker 1: the charts in the United States, reaching number two, being

1800
01:37:58,560 --> 01:38:01,400
Speaker 1: kept from the top spot by Jump by Chriss Cross,

1801
01:38:02,080 --> 01:38:04,439
Speaker 1: and years later, Mike Myers would pay tribute to his

1802
01:38:04,520 --> 01:38:07,040
Speaker 1: role in the song's success by taking a role in

1803
01:38:07,080 --> 01:38:10,760
Speaker 1: the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody as the EMI executive who

1804
01:38:10,760 --> 01:38:14,559
Speaker 1: refuses to release Bohemian Rhapsody because it's too long and

1805
01:38:14,640 --> 01:38:17,000
Speaker 1: kids need a song that they can quote bang their

1806
01:38:17,000 --> 01:38:19,880
Speaker 1: heads too in a car, which is clever.

1807
01:38:20,280 --> 01:38:22,040
Speaker 2: That phrase would be an anachronism.

1808
01:38:22,960 --> 01:38:25,840
Speaker 1: Yes, you're right. Quiet Riot had not released Bang Your

1809
01:38:25,880 --> 01:38:33,599
Speaker 1: Head or Metal Health, I should say, until nineteen eighty three. Uh.

1810
01:38:33,800 --> 01:38:35,840
Speaker 1: Still pretty funny, though, is it?

1811
01:38:36,000 --> 01:38:39,680
Speaker 2: Jordan's Is that the price we pay for historical accuracy

1812
01:38:41,520 --> 01:38:45,320
Speaker 2: in our biopics? In our Oscar winning biopics?

1813
01:38:45,520 --> 01:38:48,320
Speaker 1: Did that win Best Picture? Ronnie One?

1814
01:38:48,840 --> 01:38:50,880
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Bohemian Rhapsody?

1815
01:38:51,080 --> 01:38:52,679
Speaker 1: Oscars? Did it win Best Picture?

1816
01:38:52,880 --> 01:38:53,799
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ?

1817
01:38:54,000 --> 01:39:05,080
Speaker 1: Did it? Yes? God, wow, wow, Jesus Okay. Mike Myers's

1818
01:39:05,160 --> 01:39:07,880
Speaker 1: character says to Queen but even Rhapsod, he goes on

1819
01:39:07,960 --> 01:39:11,120
Speaker 1: forever it's six bloody minutes, to which Freddy has the

1820
01:39:11,240 --> 01:39:14,320
Speaker 1: medium funny comeback line, I pity your wife if you

1821
01:39:14,360 --> 01:39:18,599
Speaker 1: think six minutes is forever. Ooh yeah, that's good. That's

1822
01:39:18,640 --> 01:39:22,120
Speaker 1: pretty good. Yeah. The head banging scene in Wayne's World

1823
01:39:22,160 --> 01:39:25,000
Speaker 1: sounds unpleasant for all concerns, but there was a silver

1824
01:39:25,080 --> 01:39:28,599
Speaker 1: lining for Myers other than, you know, making a ridiculous

1825
01:39:28,600 --> 01:39:31,880
Speaker 1: amount of money. He belatedly learned that Brian May had

1826
01:39:31,880 --> 01:39:34,120
Speaker 1: taken a rough cut of the scene to Freddie Mercury

1827
01:39:34,200 --> 01:39:36,880
Speaker 1: just before his death in November nineteen ninety one, and

1828
01:39:36,880 --> 01:39:39,880
Speaker 1: according to Brian May, Freddy quote loved it. He just

1829
01:39:39,960 --> 01:39:42,919
Speaker 1: laughed and laughed. He was very weak, but he smiled

1830
01:39:42,960 --> 01:39:46,879
Speaker 1: and laughed. How wonderful is that? And Mike Myers reportedly

1831
01:39:46,960 --> 01:39:49,120
Speaker 1: had no idea about this until he was at a

1832
01:39:49,120 --> 01:39:52,760
Speaker 1: screeting from Bohemian Rhapsody in twenty eighteen, and Brian turned

1833
01:39:52,760 --> 01:39:55,200
Speaker 1: to him and said, you know, Freddy saw Wayne's world

1834
01:39:55,240 --> 01:39:58,479
Speaker 1: and he loved it. According to Myers, he cried on

1835
01:39:58,560 --> 01:40:01,880
Speaker 1: the spot. I had no idea, he said. I didn't

1836
01:40:01,880 --> 01:40:04,400
Speaker 1: know that he'd seen it until then. And so remember

1837
01:40:04,439 --> 01:40:07,559
Speaker 1: our sweet sentimental ending for our Austin Powers episode, when

1838
01:40:08,040 --> 01:40:10,280
Speaker 1: our dear Mike Myers got a priceless moment with his

1839
01:40:10,320 --> 01:40:13,960
Speaker 1: hero George Harrison that went over so well that we've

1840
01:40:14,000 --> 01:40:16,760
Speaker 1: decided to end this episode on another one of those

1841
01:40:16,800 --> 01:40:21,240
Speaker 1: sweet Mike Myers almost meeting his hero of moments. Friend

1842
01:40:21,240 --> 01:40:27,880
Speaker 1: of the pod, Michael Myers tears, happy tears, happy tears. Wow,

1843
01:40:28,120 --> 01:40:30,680
Speaker 1: that's everything on Bohemian Rhapsody that took us less time

1844
01:40:30,680 --> 01:40:33,599
Speaker 1: than I thought I would two hours on one song.

1845
01:40:33,640 --> 01:40:37,320
Speaker 1: This episode is about as long as Bohemian Rhapsody, and.

1846
01:40:37,320 --> 01:40:43,240
Speaker 2: It'll be better edited. Where's our Oscar Academy. Let's not

1847
01:40:43,280 --> 01:40:45,920
Speaker 2: get weighed down in bitterness. I would like to go

1848
01:40:46,000 --> 01:40:48,439
Speaker 2: out on this episode with a quote that Roy Thomas

1849
01:40:48,439 --> 01:40:51,080
Speaker 2: Baker gave to The New York Times about the song

1850
01:40:51,479 --> 01:40:55,040
Speaker 2: Bohemian Rhapsody, but that I think could also be a

1851
01:40:55,040 --> 01:41:01,120
Speaker 2: lovely eulogy for its mastermind, mister Freddie Mercury. The thing

1852
01:41:01,160 --> 01:41:03,880
Speaker 2: that makes the song most ageless is the fact that

1853
01:41:03,920 --> 01:41:07,559
Speaker 2: it didn't confine to any given genre of music. It

1854
01:41:07,600 --> 01:41:11,200
Speaker 2: doesn't compete with anything. It's in a world of its own.

1855
01:41:12,680 --> 01:41:17,200
Speaker 2: What a world, folks. Thank you for listening. This has

1856
01:41:17,240 --> 01:41:20,679
Speaker 2: been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Runtagg.

1857
01:41:21,280 --> 01:41:23,880
Speaker 2: Nothing really matters, okaks you next time.

1858
01:41:24,600 --> 01:41:34,439
Speaker 1: Hey. Too much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The

1859
01:41:34,479 --> 01:41:37,880
Speaker 1: show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog. The

1860
01:41:37,920 --> 01:41:40,679
Speaker 1: show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

1861
01:41:40,920 --> 01:41:44,040
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtog

1862
01:41:44,080 --> 01:41:45,160
Speaker 2: and Alex Heigel.

1863
01:41:45,000 --> 01:41:48,240
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1864
01:41:48,560 --> 01:41:50,599
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1865
01:41:50,680 --> 01:41:53,640
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the

1866
01:41:53,640 --> 01:41:56,960
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1867
01:41:56,960 --> 01:42:00,679
Speaker 1: favorite shows.

1868
01:42:01,320 --> 01:42:06,360
Speaker 2: Jack Latinosan Fat Tax, Fatimum, and