Queen turned the music world upside down 50 years ago with their creation Bohemian rhapsody.
It was number one in Britain for nine weeks between November 1975 and January 1976. It’s the epic that made the group global superstars and household names.
It is the third best-selling single in British history to date Wham! reached first place in 2024 with the 40-year-old Last Christmasit was the only single to be the UK Christmas number one twice in its original form.
It still is, if you don’t count streaming. However, in Britain it is the most streamed song released in the 1970s, and by September 2025 it had been played over 4.4 billion times worldwide.
Queen guitarist Brian May thinks about how Freddie would celebrate if he were alive today.
He grins and says, “I think he’d probably open a bottle of Cristal. He’d be very, very happy, and I see this wicked smile on his face, like, yeah, we did it, didn’t we?”
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was first released during the economic downturn of the mid-1970s, a period of high inflation, energy crises and industrial unrest. Described as the ‘sick man of Europe’, Britain was crying out for a bit of theatrical escapism. But Queen was still amazed by its impact.
“We thought: this will be a nice song for our new album [A Night at the Opera]Brian said, adding, “which will hopefully save us because we are in serious debt and in a very bad management situation.”
“We definitely weren’t thinking in terms of number one, we just felt it was the best song on the album,” Taylor adds. “It was the most appealing and unusual thing.”
“When times are tough, music can really save you and lift your spirits. I’ve had so many letters over the years saying that one of our songs has lifted people out of depression and given them a new sense of purpose,” Brian revealed.
‘Maybe the time was right for that Bohemian rhapsody. It’s a mystery, though, and I’m kind of glad it’s a mystery, because no one really knows where “Bohemian Rhapsody” came from. No one could have predicted that it would fall on the ears of the general public at that moment and have such an incredible effect. So I guess I think ‘Rhapsody’ would have done well at any time, but was definitely well-timed in terms of how people felt,” he added.
“That’s true right now, there’s also a lot of despondency. I look at the wars going on again, and I think, well, maybe I should do something about it. Then I think, Brian, just keep doing what you can do. You can’t solve every problem. So I’m going to remain a musician,” concluded Brian May.
