It’s 50 years (50 effing years!) since Bohemian Rhapsody was unleashed into an unsuspecting world. Despite their other hits, I suspect this is the track that propelled Queen into the rock pantheon and largely sustains their position to this day (apparently is the most streamed 20th century song – it would have taken me a while to guess that).
It divides opinions, as the attached article says, although I suspect a straw poll of AWers would be firmly on the side of the haters. I still tend to sing along in my head when it comes on and I’m sort of neutral- if I never hear it again I wouldn’t care, but do admire its originality and bonkersness. What think you..?
No, I won’t, thanks.
As I’ve said before I love the run in grooves and the run out grooves it’s the bit in the middle I can’t stand.
I’m a bit like yersel’, Nige – I wouldn’t seek it out, but I wouldn’t turn it off if it came on the wireless. No hardship at all if I never heard it again, but I certainly don’t hate it.
The article in the OP makes the point that everyone reading the words, ‘Is this the real life …’ will go on to play the entire song in their heads. It is of course still an astounding achievement but most of us don’t need to hear it ever again because it’s so engrained in us.
There is a podcast hosted by Bill Bailey on BBC Sounds which follows Queen from BR through Live Aid to Freddie’s Death (and beyond – Adam Lambert is one of the interviewees, though very much in the ‘Freddie’s Legacy’ vein). I’m not a great fan of Queen having played the Greatest Hits to death in my teens, but I’m glad they’ve always been there.
It’s bloody brilliant.
I still recall with clarity the moment I first heard it, exactly where I was and how it struck me.
I can’t think of another piece that has ever had that memory-etching effect, except perhaps the third movement of the Brahms violin concerto.
I completely agree. It’s a masterpiece.
I wouldn’t volunteer this negative unless solicited but no the band does nothing for me and that song does nothing for me either.
I did enjoy Queen at Live Aid but was that them or the good old British singalong?
It’s just brilliant. I’d definitely a Greatest Hits guy, but those I love. As Albert King once said, ‘If he don’t dig this, he got a hole in his soul.’
I doubt he said it about anything by Queen, mind.
Now you’re just being pedantic. Albert lived long enough to hear it, so he might have done.
This version might have, had he been around..
Brilliant! Those Postmodern Jukebox chaps are jolly good, aren’t they?
If it comes on the radio in the car these days, my wife and I give it the full Wayne’s World routine to embarrass the kids in the back. They also are young enough to get a laugh from the “spare him his life from his burnt sausages”, line. So I still have a soft spot for it.
I once had a go on a piano in Sarm West studio that I was told was the one used for Bohemian Rhapsody – whether it was or not. I can’t play piano.
Piano story/myth sys the piano on BoRhap is the same one in Trident used for Your Song and Starman
(I’ve also heard Hey Jude added to the tale)
I’m sure Teenage Fanclub told me they used it on Geand Prix.
You should buy some tampons.
If the ads are to be beleved, you’ll soon not only be playing the piano, but also riding horses and doing all sorts of other stuff you couldn’t do before
I loved it at the time but haven’t played it in decades. Having bought Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera that was enough and I never bought another except for the first greatest hits. I still play Sheer Heart Attack now and then and always enjoy it but never the other two.
Bohemian Rhapsody’s 50th birthday seems to be a great opportunity for journalists to knock out a piece to fulfill an obligation to file an article.
The song has instant name recognition and, as noted above, it divides opinion, so an article on it is guaranteed clickbait.
The Spectator had a piece on 27 October entitled “Admit it: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is terrible”, with the subheading referring to the song as irritating and overblown. Suffice to say, opinion BTL was divided.
If the Shittator thinks it’s terrible, that’s a very strong reason to think otherwise.
It wasn’t an editorial piece and, like I said, opinions BTL were mixed.
They’d never have got away with that headline in the New Statesman – Kate would never have allowed it.
I was 9. During its nine week stay at number 1, I learned all the words. I had a long walk home from school, so I’d sing it to help pass the time.
I’m all in favour of vaulting ambition. Basically, it squared the circle of being a prog hit single. Happy to hear it.
I never suffer from overexposure (oooh, Moose!) as I’m rarely in the company of music that I haven’t specifically chosen myself.
It’s one of those songs no one can really, properly *hear* anymore, but if you step back from it it’s blatantly a total masterpiece.
It’s simultaneously weirdly poignant and personal, but also totally general and triumphal. It’s a terrible idea on paper, but so brilliantly executed you don’t notice. You can start singing it a Capella in pretty much any social situation and someone will join in, and that someone could be of any age. It sparks massed singalongs like the below, popping up in the most unexpected places.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel a bit jaded about this country. About the tendency to parochialism, the islander mentality, the fuckwittery that has grown men painting flags on roundabouts.
But then I remember that for pretty much my entire life, the nation’s favourite song, probably by some distance, has been a six minute long Rock opera fronted by one of the most voraciously Gay men to ever live, with loads of high pitched sections and the prominent line “scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango”, and that whole pubs full of people will gladly howl along to said song. And fuck it, that makes me feel really quite proud to live here, because it shows that the whole place has a deep tolerance for a certain kind of weird, and a willingness to come together and get a bit silly when conditions are right.
I dare say Bo Rap will outlive us all. It’s almost certainly on course to outlive most of the other music we talk about. And in that long life its ubiquity will grate on some, and make it tough for the rest of us to really hear. But every now and then we will be fortunate enough to really hear it again, just for a moment, and hopefully to be happy that something so unlikely actually exists, and that it happened to us all, together.
Bravo!
Bravo II!
I recently did a pub quiz with some neighbours where one of the rounds was a set of ten cryptic clues where all the answers could be found in the lyrics of BR. Needless to say, every team got full marks regardless of age…
Post of the year!
Plus, love them or not, Queen managed to repeat the trick of putting out songs that were really quite odd, but somehow able to get into the psyche.
Huzzah! One for the Bingo!
That video was really rather moving. I know Lord Frederick of Mercury, as Smash Hits sometimes called him, has left us, but I’m sure that for any lyricist or composer, having a field/stadium full of people singing your creation back to you, word for word, and even singing along to a guitar solo, must always be thrilling. Even Freddie must have sometimes got a real rush from it no matter how many times it happened.
The idea of having such an impact among so many people for so long is one of the reasons I occasionally dream of being a rock star. That plus the money, the women, the shenanigans, etc…
The video below is Love Of My Life from their last tour in Japan in 1985. I think Freddie seems genuinely moved at just how good the audience is at singing the song perfectly despite it being in a foreign language.
It’s such a beautiful melody & lyrics. Imagine having a song like that in your repertoire, not even a single… my mum adored Fred and that song was one of her favourites.
Yes, well said. It’s bonkers and strange, there’s nothing else like it, and yet practically everybody in the country could at least hum a bit of it or recognise some of the lyrics.
I never need to hear it again, and a few Queen albums is plenty for me, but Freddie and chums will always have a place in my heart for having the sheer bravado to pull off such an unusual song in a business largely dominated by 3-minute pap sung by bland acts who are quickly forgotten.
Oh I love it. It’s one of a kind, brilliantly creative with its hooks, arrangements and overall over-the-top-ness. Waynes’s World got it exactly right – its ridiculous, hilarious, and utterly irresistible.
I loved it then – bought it with my pocket money along with All Around My Hat (go figure) – and I still love it now. It’s indelible, it’s undeniable.
On reflection, my lukewarm comment above omits how great I thought it was when I was 14. I still think it’s great really, when I hear it – I’m just aware that I don’t choose to put it on and listen to it any more. But that probably says more about my changing tastes over the last 50-odd years than anything about Bohemian Rhapsody…to my detriment, perhaps.
I was four when it came out and it seemed like a Big Deal. The video! The operatic bit! The rocking out! The fact that it was No 1 for ever! I actually chipped a tooth being pushed into a wall as we did the fandango around the playground to it.
Although I went on to become quite the Queen fan (first band I ever saw), I could take or leave Bohemian Rhapsody, possibly because it was so overplayed. Why couldn’t DLT just play The Prophet Song for a change?
However, me and my wife listened to it really closely the other day and when it finished I couldn’t help but be in awe of its vaulting ambition and supreme confidence. Freddie must have put the lid down on his piano that evening and thought: that’s it, that’s the classic, the one people will still talk about in 50 years’ time. It’s not even that its constituent parts are that good (apart from the guitar solo, every note and cadence of which is memorable), just that they had the brass balls to put them all together and say: this what we want as the first single off our album. It’s a monumental achievement, up there with Good Vibrations, The Dark Side of the Moon or Le Freak for me.
I don’t think Brian May gets enough credit for his guitar solos on Queen hits. Other guitarists may have seen the guitar break as an opportunity to stamp their genius all over the song, whether it needed it or not. He on the other hand, tended to craft a solo that would complement and elevate the song. So on Killer Queen, you get a baroque flight of fancy, while on Crazy Little Thing Called Love you get some rock & roll. And so on. My favourite is on the outro of a single that wasn’t actually a big hit, Spread You Wings, it captures the song’s theme of thwarted ambition very well.
That’s a good point. I recall a documentary about guitarists in which Brian downplayed his skills and sort of implied that he just played what the song required. He came across as the very opposite of the flashy rock god.
I imagine that anybody in a band with Freddie might be overshadowed a bit, but Brian seems able to make his mark with some very nice solos that do their job very well and don’t overstay their welcome.
Exactly right. He’s especially great on “Seven Seas of Rhye” where he layers harmony guitars under the vocals, does his Echoplex tricks and cheekily plays a “grandiose” fanfare after “I challenged the mighty Titan and his troubadours”. Sensational inventive lead playing to which no one else could come close.
I’m of the opinion that solos shouldn’t exist unless they make the song more exciting. Brian May’s parts are more than widdly-widdly nonsense; they’re compositions in their own right, and often so memorable they can be sung along to, which is rare indeed. I love the aforementioned Spread Your Wings outro but for me the great lost Queen song with maximum hard rock Brian is It’s Late. In fairness, that one is a bit widdly-widdly but what a well constructed song.
It may have been that same doc mentioned above, but it was said Taylor and Deacon provide the bedrock, Brian added the flourishes, and Freddie did the showing off. All working together in the service of the song.
Without doubt a superbly skilled guitarist, but his wasp in a bottle tone is what often makes Queen a tough listen for me.
Another vote for The Prophet Song. Well heavy!
I can’t believe I was 17 when it came out. I thought I was much younger.
The video was incredible. Its multi-imaging was a first, I think. However, my abiding memory is of it being played repeatedly at school discos, because of its popularity. The problem is you can’t dance to it apart from head-banging in the middle section.
You mime the video, surely. Crossed arms etc. Well we did in our school disco!
Perfectly harmless, and understandably popular in it’s time but now I DON’T NEED TO EVER HEAR IT AGAIN (see “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, “Stairway to Heaven”, “Bat Out of Hell”, “Freebird”, and anything by Abba or ELO. Let’s add “Slade’s “Merry Christmas Everybody”, and “School’s Out” to the list).
I’m with you on ABBA, the Slade singles and ELO but my stadium rock playlist is an essential for long car journeys. You’ll be dissing “Carry on wayward son” next.
Stick with dad rock albums. Dont be Tommy Saxondale’s neighbour.
Brilliantly performed load of nonsense. The main song is ok, before it degenerates into all that Galileo crap. I was on a Boys Brigade weekend camping trip soon after it came out and Geoff Kemp had it on a cassette, no doubt taped off the radio, and he played it over and over again, so I was sick of it by early 1976. The bastard then went on to marry the delectable Julie Jones from our school year who I had quite a crush on. I think they are still together, whereabouts of the cassette are unknown
Funnily @dai I too was on a camping trip a 25 mile overnight hike with The Scouts. I remember it was in deep winter. It was just one other scout and myself we arrived at the campsite and it was empty. We were the only people there. It was really dificult to get to sleep so I had a portable radio for company. it seemed that everytime I turned the dial the next station would be playing Bohemian Rhapsody a musical ‘Groundgog Day’! I think it’s hard not to enjoy it when it comes at you out of the blue,but not too often.
It’s brilliant, and one of very few songs that even I, who famously can’t remember lyrics if my life depends on it, have managed to learn the lyrics to (without trying to).
I can’t say that I find it has been overplayed – I’m sure it has, but I’ve never been much of a radio listener, and I never had any friends who were Queen fans, so I’ve never had the chance to get sick of it. I love silly lyrics, I love opera, I love pop music; of course I love this song.
Never really been successfully covered has it .. all that multi-tracking and stuff. It was one of those “lightning in a bottle” moments.
And despite Mr Mays presence behind the desk and on guitar, this wasn’t ..
Black Lace, of all acts, covered it on their debut EP, which was oddly produced by Freddie ‘Parrot-face’ Davies, who owned their label.
It’s Creme Brulee!
There was a magnificent piece about them on the OGWT one of the funniest things I’ve seen on TV. Interviewing the manager by his pool in Liversedge as the drizzle fell, and interviewing some punters outside Batley Variety Club etc
Black Lace had form in the unexpected.
Frank Sidebottom also covered it. Yes he did, he really did! Thankyou!
Yes! Seems I must have imagined the opening line – “Is this the real life? Is this just Timperley?”
I think the original self-released cassette might have had that lyric. I have it somewhere…
As a few people have said above, I think it’s an amazing song, and we will probably never see anything like it again, which most probably will please a lot of people.
There aren’t many songs which I can remember hearing for the first time, but this is definitely one of them. I remember being told about it in school, I was 14 at the time, so was listening out for it on Radio 1, as you did in those days. It blew me away, and I bought the single the following weekend, obviously helping it to the number 1 slot.
But this was nothing compared to seeing the video of it on Top of the Pops for the first time. Me and my best friends Jimmy and Alex, two brothers who lived just across the road from me, just sat there mesmerised, watching it in their front room. There were hardly any videos in those days, so we were totally transfixed on the video, but the bit where the rock part came in after the middle section, will live with me forever. For a 14 year old pop obsessed teenager, that rock bit was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen up to that point.
My friend Jimmy died this time last year from a heart attack aged 64. I will give Bo Rap a few listens over this weekend, and think about how wonderful it was to be part of the generation hearing songs like this for the first time.
Raise a glass to your mate Alan and remember the good times. Personally I’d play Bo Rhap in his honour.
There’s Twang, I meant to say exactly that, but forgot to say it. We went on the same musical journey together growing up in the 70s, and seeing and hearing songs like this, and watching TOTP every week together, are memories that will always stay with me. I will certainly raise a glass or two this evening, and remember those wonderful teenage years and my old best friend Jimmy.
I dislike Queen
I’m sure I’m not the first to suggest that its seemingly eternal stay at number one hurried along the arrival of punk.
Probably bollocks, though (pardon my freedom, Mo…).
Post hoc ergo propter hoc strikes again.
mea tiaris mirabilis es
And when it did fall from Number 1, it was replaced by a song which quoted one of the lyrics.
Mamma Mia
Now we’re talking!
Little known fact, the next No 1 after Mamma Mia was by Whitesnske…
If someone sings “Mama…” you all sing “…just killed a man”. Whereas I sing “…thinks I’m living in a convent. A secluded little convent. In the southern part of France.” That’s the difference between us.
I remember being mightily impressed by the record and it’s video at the time but it fairly quickly palled. The use of the song for the car sequence in Wayne’s World was amusing and still causes a little smile when I remember it.
It’s one of those records that is so ingrained that you don’t really need to play it. I was just minutes ago, as I buttered my morning toast, realising just how much of the lyrics I remember despite not playing it or hearing it for quite a few years.
I can’t imagine ever wanting to play it for myself now, but if I was appointed as a wedding DJ by some cruel twist of fate and one or other of the happy couple or one of their parents requested it, then I would be obligated to play it.
Queen have never been a band I was really into after Sheer Heart Attack but as far as Bo Rhap is concerned, what’s not to like? (You do call it Bo Rhap, don’t you?).
I’d question how original it is, mind you aside from the operatic bit. It’s structurally not dissimilar to Stairway To Heaven and 10cc’s Une Nuit a Paris was released a good 6 months before BR was recorded and Queen were almost certainly aware of that track.
I need to listen to Une Nuit a Paris again. It certainly didn’t come from nowhere, and we should remember that the mid 70s was the age of the slightly proggy portmanteau song, like Band on the Run and I’m Mandy Fly Me.
I’ve always thought that The March of the Black Queen on Queen II was the dry run for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Dislike Queen, dislike May’s guitar, dislike Freddie’s voice . Bought Sheer Heart Attack on a whim (remember those silly days?), played it once and sold it for half price the next day.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a bloody masterpiece and at the time the video was absolutely spellbinding.
For me, Bohemian Rhapsody was like an incredible magic trick. The first time heard, it was amazing – and the video only added to that sense of wonder. I wanted to hear it again. However, after many plays, you knew what was coming next, familiar with all the different sections, and while still a fantastic record, it wasn’t necessarily the greatest song.
As Hawkfall says there was a mid seventies run of portmanteau records – John Miles’ Music, David Essex City Lights, and also multi layered production songs – 10cc’s I’m not in Love has worn better for me than Queen.
That said, A Night at the Opera was a present for my 13th birthday & I’m tempted to drag it out – a schoolmate the following term would randomly ask “Was the fin on your back part of the deal?”
Band on the Run too (the song), Macca having also done everything previously with his mates on side 2 of Abbey Road and A Day in the Life
I’d say Back Seat Of My Car is his first In this style.
On his own, yes you are correct
I remember that 1975 ended with Queen basically declaring victory: the TV concert on Christmas Eve. We were at my nan’s house, who usually asked for the tv to be switched off if anything that was pop music came on (unless it was the Beatles!)
We all sat transfixed. They were mesmerising on stage. At the end, even my nan said “they’re very good.” Although she went back to her beloved Beethoven when listening to music by choice.
They were very good, I reckon. A few years later I saw Queen with my mum, who herself became a huge fan for the rest of her life. We played Teo Torriate at her funeral.
Roger Taylor thanking the crowd for “a fab year” in that concert is as 1975 as a space hopper or Raleigh chopper.
If we took away all the overblown, pretentious songs with odd structures and questionable lyrics we’d all be the poorer for it, indeed we’d lose some of the best of pop music. That was what was good about the seventies, you could really experiment and be adventurous. This song is pretty commercial in many ways. It’s not exactly Stockhausen. I’m not really that fussed about the rest of Queen but this one is a winner.
I used to work at Sotheby’s, at the time Freddie’s estate came up for sale in 2003. One of my tasks was to produce a couple of essays for the site and accompanying book, promoting some of the high profile lots. One such item was the Yamaha piano he wrote BR on. The other was the actual first draft, scribbled on the back of a British Midland coach timetable. He’d kept it safe, until his death.
I’d always quite liked Bohemian Rhapsody, even though growing up it was considered the absolute height of naff. I always felt that when they did Live Aid, part of the reason their set worked so well was that they abandoned Bohemian Rhapsody before the midsection and wisely cut to Radio Gaga, giving everyone a taste, but not trying the audience’s patience with the bismillahs and fandangos etc.
Anyway, I was given this gig and felt pretty lucky to be able to spend hours in the warehouses with boxes and boxes of stuff from Garden Lodge and of course, seeing those lyrics and others in vitrine, as well as random flotsam and jetsam from his house. we had everything – from encrusted miniature spoons in plastic baggies to a solid silver moustache comb, and boxes and boxes of M&S socks.,
I bought a copy of ‘Greatest Hits’ and began really listening to it. It’s so strange a song, that when I properly listened – not half heard in the background but really listened to it – it made me burst out laughing. It’s just so preposterous. And it’s wonderfully sculpted, the sequential rises and falls, the dark perilous mid section, the celestial redemption and resigned finale. It was so precisely tooled and assembled.
I quoted from an interview with Roy Thomas Baker in which he described how he’d gone full George Martin for the recording – putting John Deacon’s bass amp in a concrete pipe for extra thump, overdubbing so many times the tape started wearing thin. Sgt Pepper was a touchstone for everyone going into the album and I’ve often wondered at the structural similarities between this and A Day In The Life.
I also spoke to Tim Rice, who described first hearing it on the car radio driving through East Grinstead in a blizzard. There’s a memory for you. He also went on to comment on its innate theatricality and how this gave a general trend in pop at the time some sort of greater formal definition and structural integrity. He went on to work with Freddie years later and still feels had he not died, there was a great opera in him. But as everyone from Rice to Bjorn Ulvaeus, Jim Steinman, Brian Wilson and others have said at one time or another – all of whom know how to knock out a melody – this clearly was something special. And I reckon it still is.
Great story. The other thing about the recording was they apparently didn’t have it all written down, it was in Freddie’s head and they recorded it in the order you hear it. “Right, the next bit goes like this” etc. So it got longer and longer and they could see radio disappearing over the horizon and Freddie was all “never mind that. Now there’s an opera bit”. As said above, what a wonderful time when something so mad could be made and be a real hit rather than a focus grouped assembly of other previous ideas.
And funny how such a cut and shut of so many different parts should now sound so obvious. What was seen as heroically uncommercial has become so mainstream it’s considered a standard.
Interesting stuff! I think they never did the Bismillahs live, using the recording if the song was played in full
During their early tours, they would do the Live Aid approach of only playing the initial piano part as part of a medley (you can see them doing this on the 1975 Hammersmith show). They eventually moved, as you say, to leaving the stage and playing the opera piece on tape before returning for the heavy part. You can hear this on the Live Killers album. The audience would sing along and provide the Bismillahs. I’m guessing that they may not have had the confidence to do this at Live Aid as it wasn’t their crowd, so they reverted to the medley approach. Probably a mistake in the end, I expect the Live Aid crowd may have gone for it in a similar way to the Green Day fans.
I’ve never been a fan of Queen or Bo Rao,.
However, a few weeks ago ne Saturday night Mrs KFD and I were watching the Last Night of the Proms. We hadn’t planned to watch the whole thing but the quality of the music and the musicianship was so stupendous we just didn’t change channel.
Then suddenly , out of the blue, the orchestra launched into Bohemian Rhapsody giving it all they welly they had. And i just sat there with a big grin on my face enjoying every second of it. As did all the musicians and the audience.
Perhaps it’s best not to be too categorical about what you like or don’t like?
I’m a little worried about where this Bohemian open-mindedness will lead.
Next week I’ll be raving about about Boney M’s Rasputin after remembering a wild night with the a gaggle of Siberian streetwalkers at a Boney gig in Murmansk.
I am unironically of the opinion that Boney M’s Rasputin is one of the best disco pop songs ever recorded, so I’ll be expecting at least 2000 words on the subject!
I’m here for it.
@Locust It is! and as for that bassline on ‘Daddy Cool’ – where Krautrock goes pure disco.
And don’t forget that the mighty Boneys/the mighty M (you decide) were the progenitors of the Good Friday Agreement with their coruscating condemnation of the Troubles, Belfast.
I actually think Belfast is a corker. Genuinely.
Oh yes…don’t get me wrong, I think Boney M have a bloody marvellous collection of singles, and I also have a soft spot for the album Nightflight To Venus.
I’m with huge Freddie fan Norma Waterson on this one.
I’m more interested in the perception of songs that get played a lot.
This one… erm… yes, but I wouldn’t imagine I hear it more than three times a year. You’re far more likely to hear Don’t Stop Me Now.
I haven’t heard Stairway to Heaven for thirty years.
The omnipresent song from this era has to be Mr. Blue Sky, which I’ll comfortably have been in the presence of thirty times in 2025. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, too and, of course, Sweet Caroline. Oh, and b****** Fleetwood Mac, can’t move for ’em. Still, puts the no-hits clash in their place.
Every now and then I’m on a coach with young people (late teens to mid-30s, yikes… it’s football) and I think they know one hundred songs and ‘only’ one hundred songs in the whole history of pop music, which they repeat over and over again. It’s bizarre.
I’ve bought about two hundred songs in the whole history of pop music in the last calendar month.
From working on a radio station, I can tell you that bloody ELO, ABBA and F Mac are perennially playlisted because of the perception, rightly or wrongly, that they are inoffensive and popular. Interestingly, Queen don’t get much play as they are probably too rocky (our station manager doesn’t like rock much).
I am always intrigued by what supermarkets play – I’ve heard Steely Dan and all sorts of good stuff in our Tesco.
I was convinced the Co-op were playing Teenage Kicks.
Turns out it was my phone ringing and I didn’t realise.
I saw this done live at the weekend, and the whole thing rocked. Such a great song.
I love that in their biopic they had Mike Myers (who in Wayne World obviously adored it) slagging it off. Btitish self-deprecation at its best. Kudos.
It’s one of the few big hits to have a tritone key change (the largest one possible musically) in it. Kudos again.
I remember it from the 70s when it along with Killer Queen as silly, arch pop songs with a bit of pretension. I’d never seen the video in its entirety until last week prompted by the short attention sp thread., though I was familiar with many of its prominent imagery from the 4 heads in shadow singing. It’s become a bit of an institution that everyone knows and have sung, as The Kleptones illustrate
here
Enjoy (or not).
I rather like Graham Norton’s version from Father Ted:
I thought I’d seen this version of the Afterword but I can’t find it.
Despite my dislike of the song I do like this version.
Just to say that this is my first ever hamper….just in time for Christmas too!
Put aside some devilled turkey for Boxing Day.
You should try hosting a Wordle thread – it’s a doddle.
So many hampers it’s getting tricky finding storage space for ’em.
Some great comments for both sides of ‘the argument’. For me, it is a well-written song with some excellent instrumental passages and I can understand it’s huge popularity. On the other hand, if I never heard it again I wouldn’t worry. I also can’t hear the line about thunderbolt and lighting being very, very frightening without immediately thinking about Carl Douglas’s Kung Fu Fighting smash hit. The following Galileo bit it also a bit rubbish. But overall, and I were on Juke Box Jury, I’d give it a three or possibly four.
Thunderbolts and lightning can clearly kick the arse of Kung Fu…’very, very’ meets ‘a little bit’ – I mean, is it even a contest?