WCSX Classic Cuts : Bohemian Rhapsody
WCSX Classic Cuts
Queen: “Bohemian Rhapsody”
The Hook: The band nearly wore through the recording tape trying to put a massive number of vocal parts on it.
Album: A Night at the Opera
Year: 1975
Writer: Freddie Mercury
Stats: Peaked at number-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 when it first came out in 1975. Got to number-two in 1991 after it appeared in the movie Wayne’s World.
Background: Guitarist Brian May explains how Queen’s ambitions when recording the many vocal parts for “Bohemian Rhapsody” nearly outstripped the recording technology of the day.
Queen guitarist Brian May on trying to record all the vocal parts for “Bohemian Rhapsody” back in the days when you had magnetic tape and a limited number of tracks to work with. OC:…disappears altogether. :21
“You had to do a few tracks and then bounce them across and then do a few more and bounce them across. By the time the tape had traveled backward and forward so many times the machines were wearing out the tape. I remember we used to think, ‘My God, where’s all the top gone? Why is it sounding all wooly?’ And then suddenly you’d hold up the tape to the light and you could see daylight though it. It was like, oh my God, quickly rush off and do a dupe before the thing disappears altogether.”