Bohemian Rhapsody
The music of this film is not newly written; it is a record that weaves back into sound real moments of creation and performance.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people behind it ⏳🌊
- ComposerFreddie Mercury
Built the framework of the songs with piano and voice.
- ComposerBrian May
Handled the guitar arrangements, drawing a distinctive tone from a guitar he built himself.
- ComposerRoger Taylor
Played drums and wrote some of the songs.
- Lead actorRami Malek
Won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Freddie Mercury.
- DirectorBryan Singer
The credited director, who took great care in re-creating the live performances.
- ProducerGraham King
The producer who carried this film through a long development to completion.
I. Where the songs were born
(Subject) This film follows the songs left behind by the rock band Queen. Rather than tracing a single life, it portrays the circumstances in which each song was made and the stages over which it traveled. (Structure) Most of the film's score was not newly composed. It simply uses recordings Queen actually made, either exactly as released or rearranged in sequence to fit the drama. The film's music is therefore not one person's invention but what Freddie Mercury, Brian May and the other members built up together over many years. (Authenticity) The production team checked the record on the order in which each song was recorded, the way the instruments were layered, even where the props sat on the live stage, and reproduced it all. The music was not a fictional ornament but a passage that carried a real creative process onto the stage. (Roles) Mercury was the one who raised a song's skeleton with piano and voice; May was the one who gave it texture with the sound of his guitar. This difference between the two surfaces naturally in the many scenes where songs take shape.
II. First sounds in the rehearsal room
(Meeting) One by one, young musicians gather from a London art college and the local band scene. The film doesn't make a spectacle of that first meeting; it opens instead with people of different tastes finding a common sound in a rehearsal room. (Ensemble) The early songs stand out for their guitar riffs and multilayered vocal harmonies. Stacking many voices in a short span would later harden into the band's signature, and the film uses a studio scene to show the moment that method is first tried. (Declaration) In the scene where the band settles on its name and logo, the music briefly stops and the symbol takes the lead. But the early song that follows gives that symbol a sound, letting the audience hear first what kind of music this band means to make. (Growth) As the stage moves from clubs to large venues, the playing grows steadily thicker. The way a sound that began with one guitar comes to be layered across many tracks is the first clue to how eagerly this band embraced studio technology.
A song that represents the band's early sound, heard during the film's first rehearsal scene.
- The opening guitar riff (a short, repeated melodic fragment) foreshadows the way this band would come to use the guitar like a voice.
- It is striking that multitrack recording (overdubbing), stacking voices in layers to build harmony, was already in use at this stage.
- It was no great commercial hit, but it is said to be the early song the members themselves were proudest of.
- Its fast tempo and thick guitar sound hold the prototype of what would become stadium rock.
With its finely polished arrangement, it marks the point where the band draws near to popular success.
- Piano and guitar take turns leading, showing a band that does not lean on any single instrument.
- The lyrics speak in a far more sophisticated and dramatic voice than before, and the music follows suit with an elegant progression.
- Its short, clear structure, ideal for radio play, is said to have made it the band's first major hit.
III. A gamble on an unfamiliar form
(Ambition) After its success, the band attempts a longer, stranger kind of song. The film lingers on the song being recorded piece by piece in the studio, stressing that this was not a song sung straight through but a work completed by stacking layer on layer. (Persuasion) The new song begins quietly as a ballad, passes through a section where its character abruptly changes, and returns to the sound of a rock band. The producers and the record label clash over this unfamiliar structure, and the film sets that conflict side by side with the song's gradual completion. (Layering) The scene in which voices are recorded over one another hundreds of times is among the most painstaking in the film. It re-creates on screen the real story of layering so many takes that the tape wore thin, and turns the very process of sound accumulating into a spectacle. (Release) When the finished song first plays on the radio, the film pauses to catch its breath. It shows the moment this strange song reaches the public only through the band members' faces, conveying without words what a gamble it had been for them.
A signature song in which a ballad, an operatic section and a rock passage run on within a single track; the story of its creation is the film's central event.
- The opening, a piano ballad, takes on the voice of a storyteller, laying the groundwork for the sharp turns to come.
- The operatic middle section is said to have been built through overdubbing, voices layered hundreds of times, and is cited as a classic example of a handful of singers producing the sound of a choir.
- The shift into rock in the final section is a rare structure in which a song's character changes completely within itself, and its unusual length and form for popular music are still talked about.
- It is widely told that on release, radio stations balked at its length, but once it went out on the air, the public's response overturned the broadcasters' fears.
IV. Scattering and coming back together
(Rift) As success piles up, so does the distance between the members. The film shows this period not through dramatic incidents but through the dwindling time they spend playing together. (Solo) Mercury spends more and more time away from the band, working alone, and the quiet ballads that appear in this period contrast with the glamour of the stage. A voice that once filled great arenas now flows low and alone in a small room, and this change in the music stands in for what is happening inside him. (Bond) One song from this period carries feeling for a long-standing relationship. Its arrangement, stripped of the lavish rock sound down to voice and piano, shows by contrast how the band's sound for the stage differs from a sound meant for personal confession. (Reunion) When the estranged members gather again, the playing comes together once more. The moment when instruments that had been scattered lock into place within a single song shows that these were people who could truly reconcile only through music.
A ballad that strips away the lavish stage sound, leaving only voice and piano, set in a scene that looks back on a personal relationship.
- An arrangement pared down to a lone piano accompaniment deliberately contrasts with the thick sound of the earlier songs.
- In concert it is famous as the song the audience often sings in the singer's place, a phenomenon that itself reveals the intimacy between the song and its listeners.
- The studio recording and the live arrangement differ markedly; on stage it was often played again in a slower, more restrained form.
V. Rehearsing for the stage
(Call) When an offer comes to take part in a huge benefit concert, the band gathers in one place for the first time in a long while. The song heard in this scene is one that summons stage and audience alike, foreshadowing the live performance to come. (Practice) The rehearsals, run again and again on a set built to match the real stage, revisit even the smallest details. Setting the piano's position and even the angle of the microphone stand hints that for them this concert was no mere appearance but a final showdown. (Preparation) As the members debate which songs to put in and leave out of a short set, the character of each song is explained. This passage, sorting and placing a song that draws the crowd into singing, a song that calls for clapping, a song that pushes the voice to its limit, is a device that readies the audience to hear the coming performance more fully. (Tension) Just before they take the stage, the music stops and only silence remains. That silence holds the weight of knowing that sounds built up over so many years must be condensed into a few short minutes.
Heard in the rehearsal scene, where the song's character, designed to draw clapping from the crowd, is explained.
- The handclap beat, repeating a short and simple rhythm, served as a device for moving tens of thousands in a large venue as one.
- Its synthesizer-forward sound points in a different direction from the guitar-driven songs of the earlier period, revealing how the band kept reworking its arrangements to suit the times.
- At the real Live Aid concert, the entire crowd clapping the rhythm in unison became a moment that is still talked about.
VI. An afternoon at Wembley
(Entrance) Before tens of thousands, a single piano and a voice are set down. The song follows a structure that begins small and gradually spreads outward, a calculated design meant to draw the audience's response directly into sound. (Chorus) Where the crowd claps and shouts along with the voice, the line between stage and stands begins to blur. This passage, which turns tens of thousands into a single voice with one short, repeated rhythm, proves that the band's songs were built from the start as an exchange with the audience. (Climax) Late in the show, several songs run on without a break and the emotional curve surges all at once. The arrangements in this stretch differ subtly from the studio recordings, the gaps between songs compressed to fit the breath of the live performance. (Close) As the allotted time runs out, the music returns to its simplest form. Stripped of every lavish arrangement until only the voice and the roar of the crowd remain, the final passage sums up in sound what this performance was prepared for.
It accompanies the scene in which the band, in the studio, builds and records a rhythm of stomps and claps for the audience to join in.
- A rhythm made of nothing but a stomp and two claps, designed so anyone can follow it without an instrument, is a very simple yet powerful example.
- This rhythmic pattern repeats almost without variation throughout the song, and the repetition itself becomes the force that binds the crowd together.
- Widely used as a stadium chant at sporting events, the song is a rare case of music leaving the concert hall to become a tool of everyday cheering.
It closes the live show, placed where it can sum up the entire performance of that day.
- The way the range climbs and the harmonies thicken toward the chorus shows that the song is designed to push its emotion steadily higher as it nears the end.
- The audience's singing, absent from the original studio recording, sounds in the live version practically like part of the song, showing that it was always meant to be completed together with the crowd.
- Its very placement as the show's final song sums up in music the spirit in which that day's performance was prepared.
VII. After leaving the theater
(Silence) After the concert ends, the film holds back its sound for a long while. Set against the density that filled the screen moments before, this silence gives the audience time to reflect on what they have just seen. (Resonance) The song that plays again over the credits revisits a melody already heard in the film, now in a different arrangement. This passage, in which the same tune returns in new clothes, shows exactly how the band's songs have survived over time by being continually rearranged. (Legacy) Beyond the film, the songs it contains are still sung as anthems in stadiums and at large concerts. The stage the film depicts is merely one scene in that legacy; the life of the songs themselves continues long after we leave the theater. (Connection) As an attempt to recreate a great stage through music, this work sits alongside “The Greatest Showman” and “Rocketman,” discussed earlier. Yet this film takes a different path, following recordings that actually existed rather than newly written songs.
Lesser-known stories
The singing voice in the film's musical scenes does not belong to one person. The sound team has said they blended Rami Malek's own voice, Freddie Mercury's original recordings, and recreated vocals by the Canadian singer Marc Martel, depending on the scene. Thanks to this combination, the voice never breaks awkwardly where dialogue flows into song. The film shows Mercury telling the band about his health just before the Live Aid performance, but several biographers note that his actual diagnosis came later. Mercury himself made it public only in 1991, in a statement issued the day before he died. It is often cited as a prime example of the chronology being compressed for dramatic effect. The guitar Brian May plays on stage is said to be one he carved by hand as a teenager with his father from the wood of a fireplace mantel, and he still uses it in performance today. Much of the distinctive guitar tone heard in the film comes from this homemade instrument. The filmmakers have said that the Live Aid recreation was matched frame by frame against footage of the actual concert, down to the position of the piano and the angle of the microphone stands. As a result, the sequence is so precisely aligned that it is hard to tell apart even when set beside the real performance footage.
Glossary notes 📚🔎
Overdubbing (multitrack recording)
(In film·musical theater music) A method in which, rather than everyone playing at once, voices or instruments are recorded one at a time and layered on top of one another. Think of it as similar to recording each singer of a round separately and then listening to them all combined afterward.
Call and response (calling and answering)
(Literal meaning) In English, call means to summon and response means to answer. It refers to a pattern in which one side makes a sound first and the other answers, either repeating it or replying differently. (In film·musical theater music) A pattern in which a singer shouts a short phrase and the audience or other performers echo it or answer back. It works the same way as a gym teacher calling out a chant and the whole class shouting it back.
Bridge (transition)
(Literal meaning) The English word bridge refers to a passage that links one side with the other. (In film·musical theater music) A section that briefly shifts the mood before the song's familiar chorus repeats, carrying it into the next passage. It plays a role like the paragraph in a storybook that quietly foreshadows the next event before a chapter ends.
Dynamics (loudness and softness)
(In film·musical theater music) The term for how quietly or how loudly music is played. It is used so that the music swells as the story's emotion grows and subsides as the tension eases. It is like speaking softly, then gradually raising your voice to shout the words you most want to stress.
Riff
(Literal meaning) The English riff is thought to come from a word close in meaning to repetition. (In film·musical theater music) A short fragment of melody or rhythm repeated again and again throughout a song. Just as a recurring sound effect in a game calls a scene or character to mind, a riff grows more memorable the more it repeats, fixing the song in the listener's memory.
A cappella
(Literal meaning) The Italian a cappella means 'in the manner of the chapel,' and originally referred to church chant sung without instruments. (In film·musical theater music) A song or passage sung by voices alone, with no instrumental accompaniment. Picture the moment a choir finds its harmony with nothing but their voices.