Queen

Prelude: The Ears of Babes

“My class loves this song!”

This is my daughter. She’s referring to her elementary school class of 10 and 11 year-olds. She says this as we are driving down the highway a few weeks ago, listening to Queen‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which has just come on the radio.

Lyrics

Freddie Mercury

I reply: “Your class loves this song? When do they hear it?”

“Yes. B___’s dad plays it for us on his phone when we go on field trips.”

“What part of it do they like?”

“All the ‘Galileo, Galileo, Figaro’ stuff.”

“Do they sing the other parts, too?”

“I don’t know… Everybody just kind of mumbles along until we get to that part.”

When my daughter and I had this conversation, I was already planning to write this post, partly because of a Facebook exchange I had a few years ago with a friend from high school. She had said that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was “always a winner” for sing-a-longs on family road trips. I was curious as to who took lead vocals on the “Mama, just killed a man,” parts. Was it her kids?

She replied, “We all sing all parts. I don’t think my kids even hear the words they sing, although they clearly know what they mean. I think they are desensitized to violence and other things in music.” Hmm… Maybe. In any event, I’m sure we’re not the only ones with kids rocking out to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the car. (This is a found video on YouTube):

Is this the real life, is this just fantasy?

“Bohemian Rhapsody” both is and is not a murder ballad. In addition to giving us a moment to think about the relationship of murder ballads to children’s musical imagination, the song also sheds light on the function of murder ballads as proxy narratives. They are the stories we sing instead of the real stories we have to tell.

I’ll return to the theme of children and murder ballads in a few moments, and we’ll get the help of The Muppets for that part (yes, The Muppets). In the meantime, we’ll give “Bohemian Rhapsody” a good listen and find that these two aspects, murder ballads and children on the one hand and proxy narratives on the other, are not so far apart from one another.

Found meme

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Comments

Bohemian Rhapsody — 3 Comments

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Trish Beckman on Feb 10, 2015 at 7:01 am said:

I once sang in a production of BoRhap for Good Friday. It maps well as a passion opera too. Judas just killed a man after the kiss. The Jesus of Matthew tormented by it and wishing it would pass but finally his time has come. Pilate’s wife urging to let him go. The mixed identity. Choral scenes for the crowds. It really worked.
Kimberly Deneris on Feb 9, 2015 at 11:12 pm said:

Thanks, Ken, for this piece on “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Most persuasive to me is the argument for the influence of Camus’ The Stranger on the song, but I thoroughly enjoyed the “participation” video, and the idea of Bohemian Rhapsody as a childhood fantasy of violence. It is to violence as “Ring-around-the-Rosy” is to plague, perhaps, because even though still so strongly identified with the original artist, Freddie Mercury, the longevity and popularity of “Bohemian Rhapsody” does make it feel as though it belongs to everyone, and that is why “you can’t not sing along.”