Freddie Mercury 'Bohemian Rhapsody' Working Lyrics

Fragments on airline paper

Mercury had been carrying pieces of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' around for years. He began developing the song in the late 1960s, and its most famous line, 'Mama, just killed a man,' grew out of an earlier piece he called 'The Cowboy Song.' Brian May later recalled that Mercury came into the studio with little pieces of paper on which he had worked out every line.

This manuscript is the largest surviving set of those papers. It runs to 15 pages in pencil and black and blue ballpoint, each on a leaf of British Midland Airways stationery printed with a 1974 calendar. The catalog dated it about 1974 in its title and about 1975 in its description; the 1974 calendar gives the earliest possible date.

The first pages hold an early draft of the opening section under a different title. Mercury wrote 'Mongolian Rhapsody,' then crossed out 'Mongolian' and wrote 'Bohemian.' Alternate lines appear that never made the record, such as 'Time for good-byes now, is this reality,' along with fragments that did, like 'Nothing really matters to me.'

Freddie Mercury

Farrokh Bulsara was born on September 5, 1946, in Stone Town, Zanzibar. In London he worked for a time as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport before Queen took off. In 1969 he met Mary Austin, who worked at the Biba boutique in Kensington; their romance ended in December 1976, but she remained his closest friend.

Queen recorded 'Bohemian Rhapsody' between August and September 1975 across studios including Rockfield in Monmouth and several in London. The opera section alone was built from about 180 vocal overdubs, so many that the analog master tape began to wear. The song runs 5 minutes 55 seconds and cost GBP 4,500. Producer Roy Thomas Baker said the band originally planned only a couple of 'Galileos,' but the section kept growing in the studio.

Mercury refused to cut it for radio: it would go out in its entirety or not at all. London disc jockey Kenny Everett played it 14 times in two days, and the demand forced the release. It spent nine weeks at No. 1 in Britain over 1975-76, Queen's first chart-topper there, and peaked at No. 9 in the United States in its first run.

What the draft shows

The manuscript traces the song section by section. Two pages hold the introduction with the alternative title and a later sketch of vocal lines in blue ballpoint. Four pages carry successive drafts of the ballad, including an abandoned set of verses that begins 'Mama, Thare's a war began, / I've got to leave tonight,' spelling as Mercury wrote it.

The operatic section starts as a page of scattered words, 'Galileo,' 'Fandango,' 'Bismillah,' 'thunderbolt and lightning,' and then becomes a worked draft on the next page. Seven further pages lay out the backing harmonies for the introduction, the operatic section and the outro, with draft lyrics for the hard-rock section penciled in.

Buying the pages did not buy the song. The sale terms state that no right to reproduce the lyrics, or even to exhibit the pages in public, passed with the manuscript without the written consent of Queen's production company.

Garden Lodge to the saleroom

Mercury died on November 24, 1991, at Garden Lodge, his eight-bedroom Georgian house in Kensington. He left the house to Mary Austin, telling her, 'You would have been my wife, and it would have been yours anyway.' For more than three decades she kept his belongings there.

In April 2023 she announced she would sell about 1,500 of them. 'For many years now, I have had the joy and privilege of living surrounded by all the wonderful things that Freddie sought out and so loved,' she said. The collection, titled Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own, toured New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong, went on show in London from August 4, and was sold in six auctions in September.

The lyrics led the opening evening sale on September 6, 2023, in London. Against an estimate of GBP 800,000 to 1,200,000, they sold for GBP 1,379,000, reported at the time as $1,740,712. The Yamaha grand piano on which Mercury composed the song, bought in 1975 for GBP 1,000, sold in the same series for GBP 1,742,000, and the crown and cloak from the finale of Queen's 1986 tour for GBP 635,000.

Other lyric drafts in the evening sale show the scale of the premium: 'We Are the Champions' made GBP 317,000, 'Don't Stop Me Now' GBP 317,500, 'Killer Queen' GBP 279,400 and 'Somebody to Love' GBP 241,300. Every lot in that sale sold.

The song that kept coming back

'Bohemian Rhapsody' returned to No. 1 in Britain for five weeks after its 1991 re-release, following Mercury's death, and reached No. 2 in the United States in 1992 after the headbanging scene in Wayne's World. That year the video won Queen an MTV Video Music Award for best video from a film.

It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004, became the most-streamed song of the 20th century in December 2018 and was certified Diamond in the United States in 2021. By 2018 it had sold more than 2.5 million copies in Britain and more than 6 million worldwide.

Mercury never explained what it meant, and said listeners should make up their own minds. The 15 sheets are the nearest thing to his working notes: a record of a song being built, revised and, in the abandoned verses, partly thrown away.

The numbers

Release

October 31, 1975, lead single from A Night at the Opera

Length

5:55

Opera section

About 180 vocal overdubs

Recording cost

GBP 4,500

UK No. 1

9 weeks in 1975-76; 5 more weeks after the 1991 re-release

US peak

No. 9 in 1975-76; No. 2 in 1992

Manuscript

15 leaves, 290 x 204 mm

Timeline

1. Sep 5, 1946

   Farrokh Bulsara, later Freddie Mercury, is born in Stone Town, Zanzibar.

2. 1969

   Mercury meets Mary Austin in Kensington.

3. 1974

   Mercury drafts the song on British Midland Airways stationery printed with a 1974 calendar.

4. Aug 1975

   Recording begins at Rockfield and several London studios.

5. Oct 31, 1975

   'Bohemian Rhapsody' is released as a single.

6. Nov 10, 1975

   The promotional video is filmed in about four hours.

7. Nov 24, 1991

   Mercury dies at Garden Lodge; the house and its contents pass to Mary Austin.

8. 1992

   Wayne's World sends the song to No. 2 in the United States.

9. 2004

   The song enters the Grammy Hall of Fame.

10. Dec 2018

    It becomes the most-streamed song of the 20th century.

11. Apr 2023

    Mary Austin announces the sale of about 1,500 of Mercury's belongings.

12. Aug 4, 2023

    The collection goes on public view in London.

13. Sep 6, 2023

    The manuscript sells at auction in London for GBP 1,379,000.

The world in 1975

• Feb 11, 1975

  Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to lead the Conservative Party.

• Feb 28, 1975

  The Moorgate tube crash kills 43 people in London.

• Jun 5, 1975

  British voters back continued membership of the European Economic Community, 67 percent in favor.

• Jun 9, 1975

  Parliament's proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time.

• Sep 19, 1975

  Fawlty Towers premieres on BBC Two.

• Nov 3, 1975

  The Queen opens a North Sea oil pipeline.

• Nov 6, 1975

  The Sex Pistols play their first public show.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Freddie Mercury 'Bohemian Rhapsody' Working Lyrics is number 51 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (102 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The song's first title on paper was 'Mongolian Rhapsody.'
• The draft includes abandoned verses beginning 'Mama, Thare's a war began, I've got to leave tonight.'
• The operatic section began as a page of loose words: Galileo, Fandango, Bismillah.
• Mercury once worked as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport.
• A disc jockey played the unreleased song 14 times in two days.
• The buyer got the paper, not the song: no right to reproduce or publicly show it came with the sale.
• Mercury bought the piano he wrote it on for GBP 1,000 in 1975; it sold in the same 2023 series for GBP 1,742,000.