Fifty years after its entry into the official British ranking -UK Singles Chart-, «Bohemian Rhapsody» returned to the center of the scene thanks to the personal stories that surround her, according to an extensive interview with Peter Freestonethe personal assistant who accompanied Freddie Mercury during his last years of life.
The six-minute piece, which sold more than six million copies worldwide, reached the top of the charts in November 1975 and remained there nine weeks while Queen was on tour.
Freestone, who was a close friend, housemate and personal assistant of the musician for 12 years, provided unpublished details about the genesis and reception of the song. “For most people, if you mention Queen, the first thing they say is Bohemian Rhapsody.”said Freestone in dialogue with the media The Sun.
Freestone recounted that the band submitted a rushed video for the show «Top of the Pops«, filmed in just four hours at Elstree Studios on a budget of approximately £4,000.
The material It was first broadcast on the BBC on 20 November 1975.. According to Freestone, the visual piece “was pioneering for its time” and took aesthetic influences from series like «Doctor Who.» He explained that the filming responded to the need to have television support while the band could not perform live due to the tour.
The former assistant described a contradiction between the monumentality of the song and Mercury’s stage fright: “He was afraid every time I touched him. I didn’t enjoy performing it live because there is a section where only the piano plays; He was terrified of making a mistake and that everyone would laugh,” he said.
Freestone added that, on one occasion, during a tour of Canada in the 1980s, omitting the song from the repertoire provoked public angerso they had to include it again the next night.
Freestone and Mercury’s humanity: the intimate story behind «Bohemian Rhapsody»
Regarding the origin and structure of the theme, Freestone indirectly explained that «Bohemian Rhapsody» arose from the fusion of several incomplete ideas that inhabited Mercury’s head. As he detailed, it was “basically three songs in one” that the band decided to assemble, a move that Freestone called “a move of genius.”
The meaning of the lyrics maintains public and academic debate. In 2015, the lyricist Sir Tim Rice assured that The song represented Mercury’s “coming out”an interpretation from which Freestone distanced himself.
Queen at Live Aid 1985. Photo: Archive. Freestone recalled the social context of the singer’s youth—homosexuality was illegal until the sixties—and maintained that, despite the explicit readings, For Mercury the songs were fundamentally “about love, whether finding it or losing it.”.
Figures from the band itself and the musical world also offered evaluations. The guitarist Brian May He interpreted the relevance of the theme as inextinguishable: “I think Bohemian Rhapsody is something you never get tired of,” May said.
Your compatriot Roger Taylor accompanied the reappearance of the theme in recent events, such as the performance with orchestra and choir at the «Last Night of the Proms.»
Peter Freestone told unpublished details of the creation of «Bohemian Rhapsody.» Photo: Aqueenofmagic.com.Freestone also contributed memories of his private life with Mercury.: He listed domestic routines, hobbies and festive episodes, such as a night when Mercury was found in a container after a fight in which his drink was spiked.
At the moment, Freestone resides in the Czech Republic and runs an AIDS foundation. “I am proud that one of his great works, Bohemian Rhapsody, maintains its legacy half a century later,” he concluded.
