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. anonymous

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   Jun 13th 2012 !⃝

   Freddy Mercury has left his female partner for his first homosexual affair at the time he was writing the song. The man killed in the song is a metaphor, it is the death of the straight man he was. He has to "face the truth" and cries for "spare him his life for this monstrosity", that is his sexual choice that is seen as deviant for others. "mama mia, let me go" : might refer to his woman, not his mother. Please let me go, carry on if I'm not back this time tomorrow. It's a farewell song.
2. anonymous

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   Jun 12th 2012 !⃝

   (English isn't my mother tongue)
   In my opinion, it's about a man writing a letter to explain his suicide:
   
   "Mama, I just killed a man,
   Put a gun against his head"
   
   Notice the way he kills the man, 'against his head', common way to commit suicide
   
   "Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead"
   
   Notice the possessive adjective 'my trigger', he's hidding the true meaning out of modesty, but he's subtly giving hints
   
   "Mama, life had just begun,
   But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away"
   Mama ooo,
   Didn’t mean to make you cry-
   If I’m not back again this time tomorrow-
   Carry on,carry on,as if nothing really matters"
   
   By the time she read this, he'll be dead
   
   "Too late,my time has come,
   Sends shivers down my spine-
   Body’s aching all the time,
   Goodbye everybody-I’ve got to go-
   Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth-
   Mama oooo- (any way the wind blows)"
   
   That's the end of the letter. No idea if he commits suicide or not, what comes after is ambiguous.
3. anonymous

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   May 21st 2012 !⃝

   this bohemian rhapsody is all about faruk turning into freddie, dont forget where freddie came from,turkisch ,means moslim, so mamma i killed a men,means that he´s not man anymore cause he is homosexual and that is forbidden by his mothers religion and in gods eyes,he is what he is and he is fighting whit his consience,he just wanted to be exepted for what he is and tha family around him want except it and let him go scaramouche is freddie whit his moustachedancing naked the portugese fandango
4. anonymous

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   May 8th 2012 !⃝

   "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango" can be translated as "Oh boastful coward, oh boastful coward, will you dance the fandango(a Spanish dance done in triple time(to lazy to xplain what triple time is. look it up yourselfs.))"
   
   Any way i'm making no assumption as to the meaning behind it. that's for you ppl to do. iv'e done my part, time for ya'll ot do yours ^_^. GOOD LUCK!!!
   
   P.S i loved it if ya'll could interprit that line for me. all i did was translation. THANKS
5. anonymous

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   May 1st 2012 !⃝

   Perhaps "pulled my trigger now he's dead" is a metaphor for a homosexual transmission of the Aids virus. His confession of guilt for a murder that he feels he caused (and yet was unaware of) to a trusting maternal figure is magnified by the knowing that he is also condemned to die, without clemency, to this horribly cruel disease. Heroically, he never makes reference to his receiving the virus by another, but shares with us his remorse for the death sentence he inadvertently gave to someone that he had once been close to.
6. anonymous

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   Apr 23rd 2012 !⃝

   its about him being gay and no accepts him he thinks he is going to hell for being gay
7. anonymous

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   Apr 16th 2012 !⃝

   well i read it, and i have no idea how u came up with all that. but great job! i would have never thought of that... :p
8. anonymous

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   Mar 28th 2012 !⃝

   Dude, IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING! Bohemian means artistic, rhapsody means a disconnected series of statements composed under excitement. It is supposed to be random!
9. Patrickzzzz

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   Mar 9th 2012 !⃝

   The song, as it says, is about Galileo. The one prosecuted by Cardinal Bellarmine. The fandango is a dance in triple metre, with the first being Copernicus, the second being an astronimer named Tadeas Hajeck who collected and published Copernicus's theory, and who is from Bohemia of all places, and Galileo, who killed off mankinds self proclaimed perception of himself {herself} as being at the center of the universe. And Galileo did this with a mere blink of the eye, that is, by looking into a telescope and observing that the moons of jupiter were not going around the earth, as they should if the earth was the center of everything, but were going around jupiter. This proved Copernicus's theory, and triggered a firestorm of religious indignation, which culminated in the trial Galileo and his possilbe execution for heresay. Bellarmines input was that no one, not even his mother, his church, his God or the devil, could save him from the gallows. So, instead of facing the truth like a man, Galileo relented and proclaimed that what he saw, he didn't see. He took the cowards way out, and lived, but in reality died as he was never the same afterward. But what the establishment did to Galileo did not matter at all, because his proof lived on until finally accepted as truth even if they spat in his eye. More importantly, who is better remembered today? Bellarmine, the religious spokesman for righteousness, or Galileo, a person then perceived as being possessed by the devil?
10. jackson

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    Feb 29th 2012 !⃝

    I have done a pretty thorough examination of this song "Bohemian Rhapsody" and I must say that it is quite rich with symbolism. Having said that, my theory as to what this song means will more then likely sound the most crazy of all but please bear with me--and as always...do your own research.
    
    So...where to begin?
    
    Well...with the beginning...
    
    "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..."
    
    When Freddie released his album in Persia, he included a leaflet which introduced the band, had a Persian translation of Bohemian Rhapsody, and in the synopsis for the song, he basically stated that "Bohemian Rhapsody is about a young man who had accidentally killed someone and, like Faust * and sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution, he calls on the God of the Muslims, (Bismillah), and with the help of angels, regains his soul from Shaitan (satan)."
    
    So, in essense, Bohemian Rhapsody is a religious song about a man who escapes death.
    
    So far, here is my interpretation of the song:
    
    1. While Scaramouche is a jester/joker, he is also the personification of death and if memory serves, is often portrayed as a dark, ominous silhouette (and as we all know, life and death is what's most talked about in the Bohemian Rhapsody song.)
    2. When you analyze the song, you notice that it has a structure to it even though it doesn't make a bit of sense; now, in referencing the thunderbolts of lightning, I think he is associating them with the courtoom of god, Scaramouch, or Galileo.
    3. While Galileo was condemned unfairly by the Catholic church, he was also an astronomer and studied the heavens; and as for Figaro, he is a character in a play who was a gardener and helped a count woo and marry a woman (there are THREE PLAYS associated with Figaro). Magnifico of course, means "magnificent."
    4. An argument ensues where the poor soul pleads for mercy and some of the counsel say "yes" and others "in the name of god (bismillah)--NOO!" How the rest of the story ends should be pretty obvious.
    5. Finally..."open your eyes, look up to the skies and see"--this is a veiled way of saying "If you really want to know what this story is about, look up at the sky and you'll see..."
    
    
    ~ ~ ~
    
    "I'm going to shatter some illusions, it was just one of those pieces I wrote for the album...there were a few contenders – we were thinking of [of calling it] The Prophets Song at one point – but then 'Bohemian Rhapsody' seemed the one."
    
    "Bohemian Rhapsody" didn't just come out of thin air. I did a bit of research although it was tongue-in-cheek and mock opera."
11. anonymous

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    Feb 10th 2012 !⃝

    SEX. IT'S ABOUT SEX.
12. anonymous

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    Jan 24th 2012 !⃝

    The song is NOT about aids. Freddy Mercury got diagnosed with aids in the spring of 1987. The song was written in 1975!!!! For all of you who can't count, that's 12 years difference!! Bohemian Rhapsody was written 12 years before he was diagnosed!!!
13. UndiscoveredGenius

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    Jan 14th 2012 !⃝

    I know the year of the song's release and Freddie Mercury's untimely HIV-related death don't make sense chronologically, but I've always been intrigued by the parallels fortold by the song and how his life later tragically played out.
    
    When I hear the song, I picture a young man who just embarked on an adventurous, nontraditional life - I see this as the ultimate Bohemian. Questioning reality itself, morals, standards, living in the moment and then out of nowhere he realizes that he has crossed paths with some sinister life-changing force that (for a few lines) seems to drain all resolve and hope from the protagonist. He seems to have accepted death in its cruel inevitability, and resigned himself to the fact that this disease/hardship/cessation of his lifestyle will mean his soul will cease to exist and there is no use in resistance.
    
    Then the beat picks up as he lifts his head to ask: Why should I give up now? Who is ever defeated that never admits or acknowledges his defeat? And the listener is ecstatic to realize that whatever this unnamed evil is, he will fight it with every cell in his afflicted person! As the electric guitar soars with his spirits, he gives it his all and stares death in the face and screams I am not afraid. And it seems to work, until the lights begin to dim with the track, back into the mindset that "Nothing Really Matters".
    
    It might seem that this man has been fundamentally, unavoidably beaten. But the stunningly beautiful theme of the song is the concept of immortality. The true Bohemian celebrated a nomadic, noncommittal existance to begin with. He defies reason and conventionality, and therefore as long as his ideas/art/music persevere, he cannot die. The song comes full circle just as does life.
    
    That's always been my take on it, anyway.
14. anonymous

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    Jan 1st 2012 !⃝

    i think it means all the above. heck it changes to how you are feeling. i first heard it and thought it was random. Heard it again thought it was about a murder. then I sined badly and it had the meaning of giving up. Later i was suicidal I thought it was about that. The best thing is this song saved me so Its just amazing.
15. anonymous

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    Dec 29th 2011 !⃝

    People analyze this sort of thing too much. Bohemian Rhapsody was a song written for the sake of writing a song. Which worked fantastically. Freddie Mercury himself admitted that it was basically random, rhyming nonsense.
    
    However, I do think the song is similar to Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin in structure:
    
    1. Both songs start of slow and mellow. Bohemian Rhapsody takes more after a ballad and Stairway to a folk song.
    
    2. The start of the second verse of Bohemian Rhapsody becomes slightly more intense than the first. In Stairway to Heaven, it is after the second verse that the song starts building intensity and speed.
    
    3. The operatic section is the next part where the song intensifies. For Bohemian Rhapsody it is the harmonized vocals which add intensity whereas in Stairway to Heaven it is the introduction of the drums.
    
    4. Both songs become rockier in their final parts. The only difference is that in Bohemian Rhapsody the guitar solo occurs after the verse "so you think you can stone me" whereas in Stairway to Heaven the guitar solo comes before.
    
    5. Both songs return to the mellowness of their introductions.
    
    Just listen to both songs back to back and you'll see what I mean.

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