![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Brian-May-Dr-Brian-May-Guitarist-Astrophysicist-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credit: Far Out \/ Denis Pellerin)<\/p>\n
Tue 14 October 2025 21:01, UK <\/p>\n
There are few artists that can manage to do a fraction of what Queen<\/a> did on \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n The song may not have been everyone\u2019s idea of a mainstream hit, but by layering all these sections on top of each other, the band walked away with the kind of epic tune that could rival virtually anything to come from their peers. This is the kind of tune that is talked about in the same way that \u2018Stairway to Heaven\u2019 is, but Brian May knew that this was far from the only time they could stretch outside their comfort zone.<\/p>\n Hell, the whole point of Queen was to not stay too comfortable for too long, and that meant taking chances at every single turn. Not everything was going to necessarily hit the mark. Hot Space exists, after all, but in their mind, it was better to experiment and have a few clunkers than go through their musical lives rehashing the same kind of hit that they had when \u2018Killer Queen\u2019 came out.<\/p>\n But as long as the band will be talked about, A Night at the Opera will forever be their magnum opus. While not all of the band\u2019s best material lands on this album, it does offer a smorgasbord of sounds that take everything that made Queen \u2018QUEEN\u2019 and put it into one package. There\u2019s \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019, of course, but there are also pop marvels like \u2018You\u2019re My Best Friend\u2019, the hard rockers like \u2018Sweet Lady\u2019 and even the folksy ditty \u201839\u2019, which may be one of the most ambitious folk songs put to tape.<\/p>\n Then again, was anyone really expecting anything else to follow \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019? When you make a record that great, there\u2019s almost nothing that could follow it, and while May\u2019s rendition of \u2018God Save the Queen\u2019 does put a nice bow on top of everything, he felt that he had already written his own answer to Mercury\u2019s ambitious track when he came out with \u2018The Prophet\u2019s Song\u2019.<\/p>\n When first listening to the track, though, it doesn\u2019t really have the same kind of structure as \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 or anything. There are more than a few moments where the main theme comes back, but if it did have more set structures than what you\u2019d find in their epic piece, May knew that the harmonies were what would put them over the edge. From the panning to the different layers, the band created a virtual choir of their own voices, and May felt that it was more than worthy of competing with their epic.<\/p>\n \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 stands alone most of the time, but it\u2019s nice to know there was more to explore in May\u2019s mind, saying<\/a>, \u201cThe context that you have to view \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 in [is] very long, very complex\u2026. There was a song that was equally long and equally complex on the other side called \u2018The Prophet\u2019s Song.\u2019\u2026\u00a0 I think you then get to the point where it\u2019s all done and you think, \u2018Wow! We\u2019ll unleash this on the public, and what is going to happen?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n And as much as there might be fear in releasing those songs unto the public, there\u2019s also a bit of an adrenaline rush that comes with giving people what they don\u2019t know they want. They only knew Queen as the band that made the most layered songs known to man, but both \u2018The Prophet\u2019s Song\u2019 and \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 put them in a category that no one else could have anticipated.<\/p>\n