Understanding Bohemian Rhapsody

tonight's spectacle was made possible by skillshare the first thousand people to go to the link in the description will get two weeks of skillshare premium free hello and welcome to polyphonic's house of musical wonder and mystery come in have a seat and i'll give you a reading tonight's reading is one you may have heard before or perhaps one you've even done yourself for in rock and roll circles it's a rite of passage it's the story of a conflicted hero a tragic death and a glorious rebirth it's the story of one man putting it all on the line to be true to himself and it's the story of some of the most brilliant songwriting you've ever heard tonight my friends we will be doing a close reading into bohemian rhapsody [Music] [Music] first a magic trick with just two seconds of sound i will make you sing is this the real life unfortunately that sound will be all of the song that i can play tonight but please listen along at home as we read into bohemian rhapsody on the off chance you're not familiar with queen and that sample didn't stir you into song you should know that bohemian rhapsody represents perhaps the apex of the 1970s rock experiment in a mind-bending feat it somehow manages to take the transformative structure of progressive rock and shove it into a form that could be a radio rock staple and sell out arenas worldwide along the way we get an operatic breakdown a legendary guitar solo and iconic lyrics that perfectly walk the line between grounded and cryptic over the years those lyrics have remained a riddle guitarist brian may has repeatedly refused to comment on the song preferring to let fans find their own interpretations but on the queen video greatest hits dvd he did provide some insight into the song he said i think that freddie was certainly battling with problems in his personal life which he might have decided to put into the song himself he was certainly looking at recreating himself another musician close to mercury tim rice was more straightforward with his own interpretation of the song speaking with leslie ann jones tim rice said it's fairly obvious to me that this was freddie's coming out song there is a very clear message contained in it this is freddy admitting that he is gay it's worth noting that the topic of freddie mercury's specific sexual orientation is not as simple as it might seem it's well known today that freddie mercury wasn't heterosexual but how open he was about that is unclear and it's also unclear whether he identified as gay or bisexual personally i don't think it's my place to speculate so throughout this video i will mostly be referring to mercury's sexual identity as queer and now back to the main show i don't think that by any means the only way to understand bohemian rhapsody is as a coming out story but that's the reading that's in the cards tonight bohemian rhapsody opens on a scene of a man confused weighed down by the expectations of society is this the real life is this just fantasy caught in a landslide no escape from reality to any who have struggled with feelings of queerness of otherness this is a sentiment that will no doubt resonate it can be disorienting and you can feel that the expectations of the world are weighing you down pushing you around but rather than living under the weight of that landslide freddie mercury sings to open your eyes look up to the skies and see for mercury redemption can be found by opening himself up to the truth by embracing his identity in the next lines we see mercury characterizing himself i'm just a poor boy i need no sympathy because i'm easy come easy go little high little low this speaks to the innocence and helplessness that mercury feels in a world that he's unfamiliar with and if we choose to read bisexuality into the song we can also read this line as freddy embracing that identity the introduction ends on a reiteration of mercury's helplessness in the world anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to me the second movement of bohemian rhapsody was the first part that mercury wrote as far back as the late 1960s half a decade before bohemian rhapsody would be released mercury was chipping away at a piece that he called the cowboy song it's a fitting name given that the lyrics of this section play out with all the melodrama and tragedy of a classic western film and it's worth noting that the archetype of the cowboy is one that has resonated with queer men for a long time the cowboy represents a model of masculinity that isn't based around sexuality it allows room for queerness however the life of the cowboy is also hard and isolating a sad reality that all too many queer men must face when living in a homophobic society the verses that sprung out of the cowboy song are the most grounded of bohemian rhapsody they plainly tell the story of a murderer confessing to his mother mama just killed a man put a gun against his head pulled my trigger now he's dead the hero tells his mother to be strong as he prepares to face his fate exile or a noose here we get a thread connected to the intro the character's nihilism when facing the winds of fate if i'm not back again this time tomorrow carry on carry on as if nothing really matters as with everything in the song this verse is filled with potential double meanings the idea of killing a man putting a gun against his head could also represent sleeping with somebody especially given the phallic imagery of guns the confession to mercury's mother mirrors a conversation that most queer people must have with their parents at some point or another coming out can feel like a fatalistic act especially to those with families that might not accept them for many queer people including mercury embracing your true identity means killing off your former self in the next verse our protagonist is racked with guilt and fear for his impending mortality he has shivers down his spine his body is aching all the time but he knows what he must do goodbye everybody i've got to go gotta leave you all behind and face the truth with one more farewell to his mother mercury steps out to face his fate gripped by fear of the consequences i don't wanna die i sometimes wish i'd never been born at all on those lines we launch into brian may's iconic guitar solo a musical passage that seems to represent a transition from one state of being to another and leaves us in the song's most famous movement the operatic break at first glance this section might seem like a pile of nonsense and mercury has called it such before but freddie mercury was also a keen opera fan and with a close reading many of his references begin to seem more deliberate if we pull the pieces together the operatic break seems like a kind of judgment before the hero is set off to the afterlife or to be reborn we open on a little silhouetto of a man perhaps identified in the next line as scaramouche the character of scaramouche comes from commedia dellarte a form of italian theater that developed in the 16th century comedia dellarte consisted of whimsical witty scenes containing a cast of stock characters that the audience would be familiar with scaramouche was a boastful clown and trickster often partnering or quarreling with another character called harlequin like scaramouche harlequin was a clown and a trickster but rather than being villainous he's witty and comical filled with a ravenous sexual appetite harlequin is one of the most iconic comedia dellarte roles and has endured long past the form's heyday he is most often seen dressed in a checkerboard pattern an outfit that mercury himself would begin to dawn on the stage in 1977 to me i think these two characters represent mercury before and after he has reckoned with his identity one of scaramucci's defining traits is cowardice something reflected in the operatic breakdown thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me the cowardly trickster of scaramouche is mercury's imposter syndrome it's his old self trying to convince him to look away from queerness out of fear for the consequences for mercury and many other queer people the consequences are tied up in religion this is where we might find meaning in the repetitions of galileo's name due to his scientific discoveries galileo was persecuted by the catholic church a fate met by many queer people as well later in the section we get repetitions of bismillah an arabic phrase meaning in the name of god this is spoken in response to mercury's pleas of easy come easy go will you let me go mercury is begging for his life and his eternal soul the operatic section ends with this fear stated plainly bialzebub has a devil put aside for me in killing his old self and acknowledging his queerness mercury fears that he'll be damned forever that he'll be shunned from society it's a religious fear and a fear that comes from living in a world that has systemically disenfranchised queer communities for centuries like scaramucci and harlequin freddy's inner selves are dueling with each other on a backdrop of fear and anxiety but in the end mercury triumphs he and his bandmates come through with explosive instrumentals freddie mercury embraces his true identity and we enter the rock section mercury has realized that the issue is not his queerness it's the society that rejects his queerness instead of cowering from that society he faces it head-on with rage and defiance so you think you can stone me and spit in my eye so you think you can love me and leave me to die when we read mercury's queerness into the song the line about stoning becomes particularly powerful stoning has been a favorite punishment of abrahamic religions for centuries but in the end freddie decides to stand defiant of any and all expectations that a hateful society might have of him he chose to embrace his true self and he became an icon for it the last movement of the song ends where we began freddie mercury sings nothing really matters to me and while the words are the same the meaning is different in the intro the sentiment brings fear and pressure but in the outro it's a statement of peace and freedom mercury has realized that in the end people's minds are not going to change and his own identity isn't going to change so there's no use hanging on in fear armed with this knowledge freddie mercury completes his magnificent transformation and ascends to rock godhood and with that good friends we finish our reading i hope that it has been enlightening for you and i hope that perhaps you may have seen yourself in the cards i know that i did if you were entertained by this evening spectacle please subscribe to get word of the next show and if you weren't if the reading didn't resonate with you well isn't that the beauty of a great song after all it's not what's printed on the cards it's what the dealer makes of it if you were enthralled by tonight's show and found yourself wanting to learn your own tricks may i recommend you try out 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Channel: Polyphonic

Views: 118,347

Rating: 4.9447069 out of 5

Keywords: polyphonic, music, video essay

Id: DNwOzN-CIsw

Length: 14min 47sec (887 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/BGReading]

Pretty self explanatory title if you ask me. Literally a bohemians rhapsody