Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody Meaning

Song Released: 1975

Covered By: Panic! At The Disco (2016), Pentatonix (2017)

Bohemian Rhapsody Lyrics

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way...

1. person

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   Aug 15th 2008 !⃝

   This song is a bunch of random rhyming words that are metaphors to a complicated meaning. I don't think anybody knows the true meaning to this masterpiece, maybe not even Mr. Mercury, the writer of the song. I had many thoughts on what the meaning of the song was but none of them made complete sense to me, maybe that's the point.
2. anonymous

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   Aug 11th 2008 !⃝

   This song is about AIDS, no doubt about it. Regardless of whether it is his aids or a hypothetical situation, there are way to many clues that only make sense when you look at the song through this lens.
3. anonymous

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   Aug 3rd 2008 !⃝

   Song's about a guy comin' out. He was gay.
4. olly

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   Jul 17th 2008 !⃝

   I think that ultimately it is most likely that it is just random lyrics but I think with any writer, lyrics have to have a meaning, especailly if the song is as quality as this one.
   
   This leads me to believe that either the song is about a specific story regarding a murder as some have suggested, or quite plausibly, regarding Freddie coming out of the closet, or is intention and worries about doing so.
   
   It truly is an amazing song but then hey, - aren't most of the songs by Queen pretty damn good - it's not often you get 4 talented songwriters who are equally competent in writing a number one single.
   
   Freedie - RIP -
5. anonymous

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   Jun 9th 2008 !⃝

   Everyone is digging to deep. The song means whatever you want it to mean. There are many meanings yet no meaning at the same time. Just enjoy the music and be thankful for it. we don't need to know everything anyways. Maybe it was purposely no meaning/or the meaning kept secret to keep people wondering and there imaginations run wild. What's the difference? We will never find out anyway.
6. anonymous

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   Jun 7th 2008 !⃝

   Hey everyone. When you analyze the song from a psychoanalytical perspective (meaning that it may mean something other than its intent), I think that it's referring to the fact that he was both ashamed of the fact that he "killed" his former self (Farrokh Bulsara, a Zanzibari immigrant), and that as someone else stated, he was a homosexual during a period in which the Rock and Roll industry was decidedly homophobic. Brian May, the guitarist for Queen is quoted as saying, "Freddi was a very complex person: flippant and funny on the surface, but he concealed insecurities and problems in squaring up his life with his childhood. He never explained the lyrics, but I think he put a lot of himself into that song" (http://blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=256)(in reference to "Bohemian Rhapsody". And no, of course it's not about AIDS. The song was release in 1975, the A-Side of "A Night at the Opera". This was before anyone really knew what AIDS was, though not necessarily before he contracted the syndrome. The point is, even if he had AIDS, he wouldn't have known. When analyzing the lyrics for simply the words on the page, the other 50percent of people posting on here are correct. It is simply about a man who has done murder, and is writing to his mother, explaining the situation, then, towards the end, gaining a defiant tone "Oh baby can't do this to me".
7. anonymous

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   May 20th 2008 !⃝

   "Bohemian Rhapsody" is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution he calls for God in Arabic, "Bismillah" (Basmala), and with the help of angels regains his soul from Shaitan.
8. anonymous

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   May 4th 2008 !⃝

   First part is the shock from killing the man and initial guilt swelling up,
   
   next comes the confession and the realization of what all he did and trying to comfort his mother
   
   then comes him taking responsibility and the stresses of facing the facts and the fear of the consequence
   
   next is the trial and the back and fourth banter of the jury and judge and the boy pleading for a pardon
   
   the last part is his cry out in prison before the execution where he states that even though they convicted him he will make it out this could easily be the cry of a convicted man claiming innocence as he walks down death row
   
   the end would be the depression right before death and giving up hope after all is said and done
   
   i could be right I could be wrong but hey
   Freddy Mercury said it himself its whatever you believe it to be because what he meant it to be inst necessarily the correct meaning for someone else.
9. jason

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   Apr 29th 2008 !⃝

   I'm no expert, but I believe that this song is told from the point of view of a man who is receiving the death penalty for killing a man by "putting a gun against his head." The criminal is most likely a "poor boy" who is very close to his "mama." He knows that the cops are coming for him, so he warns his mama by saying "if I'm not back again this time tomorrow, carry on." But then it's "too late," his "time has come" because he's been caught and sentenced to the death penalty. Then he must "leave it all behind and face the truth." At first I thought it was the death penalty because he says to his mama "I don't want to die, sometimes wish I'd never been born at all." Then, anyone who knows the song well, knows that this is the point in the song where the music quickens, almost sounding as if it were a heartbeat. The criminal goes on to explain how he sees "a little silhouetto of a man." I figure that this "little silhouetto" is most likely seen through something that is blocking his vision... Something like a bag that they put over the heads of people who are sentenced to the electric chair. Another way of knowing that he is killed using the electric chair is when he says "thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening." Maybe you've realized already what the argument is about after the lyrics "spare him his life from this monstrosity." That's right, there's a bunch of angels and devils arguing about where this man should go. The angels want the devils to "let him go!" But the devils "will not let him go!" I researched "Beelzebub" and found only more support for my theory. Beelzebub is a demon/devil and second only to the devil himself. To end the song, we know that the man ends up going to hell, and he's okay with it. Because "nothing really matters, anyone can see, nothing really matters" to him.
10. anonymous

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    Jan 24th 2008 !⃝

    I have always felt that the song was meant to reflect the emotional roller coaster of being gay when it wasn't so easy generally, and more so when you've grown up in a non western society. (eg. 'Mama just killed a man' - ie. Imagining telling his mother he was gay was equivalent to telling her he'd just killed someone - as well as perhaps also having the meaning that he had admitted to himself that he wasn't heterosexual). Freddie seemed to me to be quite shy and reserved in many ways - a typical middle class boy knowing 'how to behave' and aware of the social expectations - but with this completely rebellious and fun loving side.
    
    I think the rest of the lyrics support how he felt about his 'different tendancies', ie. The guilt that was ingrained in him in conflict with his powerful urges.
    
    I think the music relected the ups and down of this epic emotional conflict - as opera has always done in the most dramatic and camp way - and together with the words really conveyed the anguish, then recklessness, then guilt - then emptiness and isolation - real rollercoaster genius. Eg. The mournful music reflecting the opening lament that he couldn't tell his mother or the world how he felt and it was killing him - is followed by the light carefree music to words like 'scaramouche do you want to do the fandango' - as if to illustrate that during all this soul searching/guilt his mind is forcibly distracted by his naughty gay side taunting him 'come on you coward do a camp dance'. He tries to resist it thinking of the consequences - and the music really reflects that battle to resist temptation - 'Beelzebub' and all that with doom laden music - but he obviously succumbs to his passions as illustrated by the subsequent powerful rock explosion (I think the bohemian rhapsody is this passion which is rhapsodic because it is non-conformist ie:bohemian)
    
    That explosion is then followed by the musical and lyrical come down where maybe because of society at the time, his upbringing and possibly religious guilt he still doesn't feel comfortable or loved for himself in either the acceptable/family/ hetero world or the or bohemian/homosexual world. Maybe he feels both sides 'love[only part of]him and leave [the rest of] him to die'.
    
    To me the music and words really conveyed the whole feeling of that turmoil in 3D - real art. So if he ain't a genius - it must be me!

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
11. jetsfan025

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    Jan 23rd 2008 !⃝

    UGGG, the song is about a guy who accidentally killed someone, and then he went to his mom and complained because he was about to be executed. and so he sold his soul to the devil, and right before the execution he asked god for forgiveness. So he wasn't upset he was going to be executed anymore, because he was going to heaven.
12. anonymous

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    Jan 16th 2008 !⃝

    Ok, guys for everyone wondering, Freddy Mercury in an interview with david wigg in 1987, stated in plain words "the song 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is completely random bits of my creation smashed into one piece of an unordinarily finished masterpiece" yet even though it was his song and he says it has no other meaning, Freddie was influenced by so many different obstacles I'm willing to bet you those obstacles shaped this song the way it is
13. lrobi93

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    Jan 11th 2008 !⃝

    Okay, this song is not about AIDS. Bohemian Rhapsody was written in 1975, Mercury was not officially diagnosed with AIDS until twelve years later in the Spring of 1987.
14. anonymous

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    Nov 30th 2007 !⃝

    Where is everyone pulling these interpretations from, thin air? The people who have explained this in depth obviously looked at the song and have analyzed it thoroughly, not just scan the letter and thought of something completely opposite of what Freddie ever intended. Quit saying it's about AIDS because it's not and it never will. This was written before he got aids and before AIDS was in the spotlight.
15. anonymous

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    Nov 26th 2007 !⃝

    Whoever said Freddy's family was deeply muslim was wrong.
    They were Zoroastian or sun worshippers.
    
    So the song couldn't be about himself as the referred character said "Bismillah".

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