Wednesday 23 November 2022

thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me (10. 328)

Beginning on this day in 1975 and lasting for nine weeks, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, the six-minute, multi-part musical suite referred by author Freddie Mercury as a “mock opera” released as a lead single (B-side, “I’m in Love with My Car”) from their studio album A Night at the Opera hit the top of UK’s charts. For the promotional video—credited with spurring on the complementary medium—and for the band’s UK tour, Mercury played on a Bechstein concert grand piano, which was—according to lore—the same one that Paul McCartney used for recording “Hey Jude” and David Bowie’s “Hunky Dory.”