Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody Meaning
Song Released: 1975
Covered By: Panic! At The Disco (2016), Pentatonix (2017)
Bohemian Rhapsody Lyrics
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...
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This murder is about his own identity done by a mother from a backward culture who especially in those years would look at a gay person as a dirty thing. When he sings mama just killed a man, he really means that. His mom really killed his spirit, perhaps by a fight after finding out he was not the same as the culture she and her husband were from. Familiarity of Farokh Bolsara (Freddie Mercury) with the word Bismilah which is Arabic for "in the name of God" says that he is confronting the culture of the east and culture of Islam (even his parents were not muslim, but Zoroastrian) who are very much against homosexuals. That culture is going to keep and kill him for being gay and the murder of the soul. It is not about Aids, as in those years there was no such concept. It definitely becomes clear when he says towards the end that he cannot stay and he has to leave here (meaning his family).
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I agree with the person on the top listing. Great Song... Don't forget to play the drums and play pokemon
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Using terms from the Quran points to his family life and anyone who reads newspapers suspects that being gay in an Iranian family ain't easy. Somehow the meaning of the lyrics is couched in family conflict about confronting the gay issue and the woman who gave him life. "Momma just killed a man" means just that. I think his mother at some time confronted him about his lifestyle in a way that excludes him from family consideration. It might be best if someone from his culture commented on being a gay son in an immigrant Iranian family in Great Briton during the 1950s and 60s.
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Thank you for these interpretations... I was at a party last night and someone told me this song was about AIDS. Though the person is a great person and the idea of it being about AIDS was really, really cool, I couldn't help but think about how the song was written in the 70s, before doctors had officially recognize AIDS. I was doubting the interpretation but didn't want to seem like a jerk in a party of good people... but I can get into the interpretation of the song being about murder.
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Ok I'm not trying to have the reason in the interpretation of this song; however, if you want to do it, try acid and listen to it. Summarizing, IT TALKS ABOUT THE LOST OF THE EGO.
The meaning of the song is really deep in terms of the understanding of reality, particularly about the duality of the mind of the human being (the way we see ourselves against the way people see us). It has definitely something to do with the first moments of discovery of Mercury's gay or bisexuality.
Also, it is a complain of his life to someone in especial. Would u people believe if I say that he is talking to the "top of the pyramid"? if you know what I mean ;) -
I think it is about murder. A man has committed murder and is confessing to his mother, she then abandons him. I think the songs reflects how he feels after his mother has abandoned him. But a lot of people have said Beelzebub is Satan; he is not. Actually Satan is in charge of hell (Hell's number 1) And Beelzebub San is his second in command (Hell's number 2).
Nobody except Freddie really knows what the song means, we can only guess, and everybody will think something different when they hear it. There's not really a right or wrong answer. But there's no denying the song is awesome and we should just enjoy it and not stress out trying to find what it means. -
The key to understanding the song is when he employs a word BISMILLAH a probably often heard his mother use. In our culture we might say "God help me". I think it is used to mean "Allah please intervene."
Freddie was a homosexual; not an easy thing to be if you live in a traditional Muslim family. He probably heard his mother use this phrase when she considered how family and friends would deal with his sexual orientation. He probably suffered a sort of death under his mother's condemnation when the whole thing went down. Momma just killed a man.
I like to think of the song unfolding from this point of view. -
In reply to SEP 8th 18:37
yes he did not know that it was aids because they did not have the resources to check but my idea is still valid because if he loved the man then he found out he had died for the same reason as all the other gay guys who where dieing from aids at the time he would of blamed himself. -
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Interpretation:
I've always felt the crime in the song doesn't matter. In the moment of reality, it hits him of the action he just committed, he feels depression; The very feeling that probably was part of why the crime was committed to begin with. It's too late though. He's responsible for something he didn't know he had the capability to do, and he's thrown his whole life away in this one moment. He's sad that his mother has to witness this very low part of his life. He reaches in and outwardly tries to explain he knows why and knows better. He knows his life is so messed up, it could only have been better to not have been born at all.
That's it for me. Sure there's more to the song, but as offered in other interpretations, it doesn't really matter, because it still ends...that is not the song...his hope because the fight for "justice" or "revenge" is over powering the fight for mercy.
When I listen to this, I take it so personal, for I am remorseful of my past of a "child" of 21 (I'm 42 now and that age seems so un-adultish). I thought if I confessed and showed I knew the I did something wrong, I would see mercy. No matter how well I try to live my life; no matter how well I try to show I'm a changed person, the chains are still there seemingly never to be released. People don't believe change is possible. So I feel it would have been better to not have been born at all or have been executed. Living life like this is very painful. If people really knew what that pain could do and how in one way, it's been conquered.
I do believe my "poor boy" (lacking in so many things - not necessarily money related) is a huge part of why my life started heading down the wrong path. I feel blessed in the life I've had since then for I think many people would be amazed that I, someone like me, could live such a "upstanding" and "rich" life. But it doesn't matter. -
This is about "ego death" google it lol
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FYI...
"Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango"
A scaracouche is a "boastful coward or buffoon." The fandango is a spanish dance or it is also a term for foolishness...so, the line can be interpreted...
Fool...will you do the foolishness. You might also look at it from the perspective of death being a seductive dance and the coward one of the dancers.
As for, ""Bismillah! No, we will not let you go" The term is used in the Qur'an meaning "In the name of Allah." So..."God, we won't let him go...God let him go."
So, now you know. :) -
Not sure when the singer contracted aids but the part about just killed a man and send shivers dwn my spine bodys aching all the time may mean aids or withdraw leanin more towards aids and he killd the mAn by giving him aids
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Frank Zappa, another wordsmith of acrobatic abilities, memorably warned that most of his lyrics were intended only to trick people into listening to his music, which is what really mattered to him. For the most part, said Frank, "my lyrics are not to be taken internally."
As I understand it, Bohemian Rhapsody began as a little cowboy song Freddie toyed with for a couple of years. Like most gifted musicians, he would play with the melody, trying it in different genres. One day while playing for a friend he stumbled into a quasi-operatic styling, getting more and more dramatic as the friend egged him on, laughing, turning a 3-minute C&W tune into a 6-minute exploration of theatrical music forms. The result is lots of fun to listen to but too obviously over the top to be taken seriously. -
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Guys go back to my Aug 6th interpretation and think. When did Freddie Mercury write the song? 1975. When did he find out he had AIDS? Technically 1987, but he knew he was sick before that. I believe, and people can correct me, that it was in 1984 that he started having symptoms. Being tired on tour and started to get coughing fits. Also, it was during this year he told Barbara to stay away from him after he cut himself.
In addition, it was during this time that more and more gay men were dying of AIDS. My understanding is HIV was officially discovered (labeled in 1983) and until that time there was this sense of puzzlement in the gay community, and I assume they talked amongst each other.
So, Freddie could of no way, I repeat there is no way Freddie Mercury wrote this song about AIDS.
Again, it his coming out song.
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