Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor celebrate Bohemian Rhapsody: ‘It really is Freddie’s master work’

Freddie Mercury was a big fan of Christmas. “Yeah, he loved the whole thing,” says his bandmate, Queen drummer Roger Taylor. “You know, the house would have been full of all these decorations. He loved his decorations. And he had a great, unerring eye.” 

Queen had special reason to celebrate 50 years ago, when their creation “Bohemian Rhapsody” changed the world. Number one in the UK for nine weeks between November 1975 and January 1976, it’s the epic that turned the group into global superstars and household names. It’s the third-best selling single in British history. And until Wham! reached the top spot in 2024 with the 40-year-old “Last Christmas”, it had been the only single to be the UK Christmas number one twice in its original form.

It still is, if you don’t count streaming. In saying that, in Britain it’s the most-streamed song that was released in the 1970s, and by September 2025 it had amassed more than 4.4 billion plays globally. Famous fans like Lady Gaga and Axl Rose (who joined Elton John to sing it at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992) attest to its crazy genius.

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So how would Freddie be celebrating the anniversary if he was still around?

Queen guitarist Brian May grins and says, “I think he’d probably open a bottle of Cristal. He would be very, very happy, and I can see that kind of wicked smile on his face, like, yeah, we did it after all, didn’t we?”

“Bohemian Rhapsody” was first released during the economic downturn of the mid-70s, a period of high inflation, energy crises and industrial unrest. Described as the ‘sick man of Europe’, the UK was crying out for a bit of theatrical escapism. But Queen were still surprised at its impact.  

“We thought, this is going to be a nice track for our new album [A Night at the Opera],” says May, “which hopefully is going to save us, because we’re seriously in debt and in a very bad situation as regards management.” 

“We certainly weren’t thinking in terms of number ones, we just felt it was the best song on the album,” adds Taylor. “It was the most arresting, unusual thing.”

“When times are tough, music really can save you, raise your spirits,” says May. “I’ve had so many letters over the years that have said that one of our songs has lifted people out of depression and given them
a new feeling of purpose. 

“So maybe the time was right for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. It’s a mystery, though, and I’m kind of glad it’s a mystery, because nobody really knows where ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ came from. Nobody could have predicted that it would fall upon the general public’s ears at that moment and have such an incredible effect. So I suppose I think ‘Rhapsody’ would have done well at any point but was certainly well timed in a sense of the way people felt. 

“That’s true right now, there’s a lot of despondency too. I look at the wars that are going on again, and
I think, well, maybe I should be doing something about it. Then I think, Brian, basically just get on with doing what you can do. You can’t solve every problem. So I remain a musician.”

Read more:

• Roger Taylor: ‘I just wish I’d got to say goodbye to Freddie’
• How people’s love for Freddie Mercury helped overcome fear of HIV
• How Wham! killed the Christmas number one

‘We felt like it was some kind of acceptance’

May remembers “Bohemian Rhapsody”’s truly remarkable success as “a glorious feeling”.

“All these groups like Slade were perpetually having huge singles. We’d had a bit of a hit with ‘Killer Queen’ [in 1974 it got to number two], but we hadn’t reached the status of being able to get regular big hits. Yeah, we really celebrated. Lots of food, lots of drink.

“We had a lot of people who regarded us as some kind of upstarts, like we weren’t worthy or something. Freddie was particularly attacked by a lot of people just for being the way he was. They thought perhaps he’s pretending to be something that he wasn’t. But that was Freddie, what you saw was actually what you got. 

“And for this thing to be such a giant hit and eventually be above all the Christmas-dedicated records was colossal. We were doing the right thing after all. It was amazing. We really felt like it was some kind of acceptance from the general public as opposed to our fanbase. Suddenly we were celebrated out there in Britain, in our own country.”

“It was a dream come true really,” adds Taylor. “But by the time we got to Christmas it had been number one for so long we’d kind of got used to it.”

Did Queen end up watching the Queen’s speech together?

“In 1975, we did a big London gig [shown live on the BBC from Hammersmith Odeon] on Christmas Eve, and I had a touch of flu,” Taylor says. “I was feeling horrible. I managed to get through that. I woke up the next morning and drove to Cornwall to see my mum.”

“Actually, generally, Christmas was family time,” says May. “So we would split up and go to our families, unless we were working. We were all very close to our families. You know, our mums and dads were still alive at that time. Things were different.”

Of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was helped along by its now-iconic video, saluted famously in the 1992 movie Wayne’s World and parodied by everyone from Blur to The Muppets. It was made quickly and cheaply, with the band recreating the ‘diamond formation’ shot by Mick Rock for the cover of 1974’s Queen II album for the beginning of the clip. Expedience was the motivation. As Taylor explains, “We realised we couldn’t be on Top Of The Pops as we had a tour which was all over the country. We decided the only way we could be on there was to make a film.

“It took four hours at Elstree Studios [in Hertfordshire], where we’d been rehearsing. I’m sure some of our other videos cost a bit more than that one. A few years later Michael Jackson was spending a million bucks at least or more on a video. You know, that’s how important they became. But of course, this was pre-MTV, and MTV sort of grew out of those videos.”

I look, and I find, I still love you

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is woven into the fabric of pop culture for eternity. Not bad for a near-six-minute epic featuring an extended operatic interlude with no chorus, and definitely no sleighbells. You won’t hear it on any festive compilations. Yet for many, it’s synonymous with the season, now evoking memories both happy and sad. 

When Freddie Mercury died aged just 45 from an AIDS-related illness on 24 November 1991, the decision was taken to re-release “Bohemian Rhapsody” in time for Christmas. A vehicle to raise money for the Terrence Higgins Trust, they benefitted hugely when it was issued as a double A-side alongside the almost unbearably poignant “These Are the Days of Our Lives”. 

Sixteen years after its initial success, “Bohemian Rhapsody” performed the remarkable feat of hitting the festive top spot again, this time for five weeks, but the mood was markedly different. 

The wave of sympathy after Mercury’s death was almost overwhelming. May confirms that it wasn’t a difficult decision to pay tribute in this way.  

“I think it was obvious, it really is Freddie’s master work, and it was the biggest and, yeah, I don’t think there was any discussion,” he says, visibly emotional. “Everybody just thought, this is a good idea. We should put it out again as a memorial to Freddie. 

“And of course, it sold massively and went straight back to number one, and we donated all the profits, which came to about a million pounds, to the Terrence Higgins Trust for AIDS, and later we set up the Mercury Phoenix Trust. So it just felt like the right thing. And then, of course, it’s not a great joy, it’s a very different feeling, because we’ve lost Freddie, and that’s an unforgettable thing. It still is unforgettable.

“It’s something which we deal with every day. Freddie had that quality. He did connect, and it was very evident in the live shows. He had that way of making everybody feel like he was talking to them. It’s a wonderful talent that he had. And I think a lot of people didn’t realise what they were going to feel like when he passed, it affected people more than they expected. 

“Well, obviously for us, it was devastating, and perhaps we should have been prepared, but we weren’t. I think we were in complete disbelief that it would actually happen. You know, it can’t happen to Freddie, our pal. So it took us a long time to process.”

We’re still talking about this song he brought to you, 50 years on. How would Freddie feel about that?

Taylor answers, “Well, he always used to joke in response to critics, oh, our music is entirely disposable, you know, like a used tissue. We just throw it away after it’s done. But of course, that’s not true. He’d be thrilled that his work and our work is still relevant today, all these years later. I mean, Brian and I are constantly amazed by it, and very grateful.”

“He would absolutely be happy that it’s still out there,” adds May. “And it’s still appreciated in an amazingly connective way. But people don’t regard it as a fossil. They regard it as something very much alive and fresh. And I love that. And luckily for us, our music seems to have that property, but ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, particularly, every time you hear it, I think it sounds new.” 

The show must go on

Queen are still looking to the future. Although there’s no new music planned, a remix of the band’s classic 1986 power ballad “Who Wants to Live Forever” recently soundtracked the trailer for the long-awaited final season of Stranger Things, and both May and Taylor see exciting possibilities beyond the horizon. 

These plans include Freddie and bass player John Deacon. The latter retired from music in 1997 and lives a quiet life. But as the writer of anthems such as “Another One Bites the Dust” and “I Want to Break Free” (two of Queen’s most-streamed songs, with more than a million listens combined daily) his impact on popular culture – not to mention his bank balance – remains sturdy. 

“We haven’t finished yet,” Taylor confirms. “We can play fine, but we are getting older, and so we’re just looking at all the options, especially with the incredible technology we have now which is literally changing by the day. You can have some quite interesting ideas, which are a little different, but we’re really just talking about it at the moment.”

An Abba-style experience could be on the cards. Taylor went to see the group’s Voyage show and says, “I had a good time. I enjoyed it. I didn’t find the actual projections that convincing. I do think technology now has come so much further since the Abba show started, I think a lot more can be done.”

“Freddie is still alive through the music that we listen to all the time,” says May. “In a sense, John is still with us in the same way, but now we have so many other opportunities. I mean things that are immersive, like The Sphere in Las Vegas, it will be possible to give people the experience very closely of what things were like for us when we were Freddie, John, Brian and Roger. And that really appeals to me.

“It wouldn’t be just playing old footage or whatever. it would be creating Queen as if we were creating it today. I’m very taken with the idea that we can be the original Queen again.”

But for now, another way of remembering Freddie at this time of year is listening to Queen’s very own bespoke festive song “Thank God It’s Christmas”, which tends to get forgotten in the wake of the behemoth that is “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It was a minor hit in 1984, the year Wham!’s “Last Christmas”, was pipped to the top slot by Band Aid. 

May says, “At the time we just thought, we don’t have a Christmas song, wouldn’t it be nice to have one. It’s very simple, you can’t think of anything further away from ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ than that track. 

“But it has great charm I think, and in a way it gets stronger every year. I love hearing Freddie’s voice on it more and more. It’s just absolute pure beauty.”

Brian May and Talia Dean’s Christmas single Praise Your Name is out now.

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