Bohemian Rhapsody Analysis

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MUS105 History Analysis Assignment 1 Bohemian Rhapsody Bohemian Rhapsody (written and arranged by Queen’s lead vocalist and pianist, Freddy Mercury) had a great impact on the world, and to this day very few popular songs are as musically perceptive and as brilliantly constructed. The song’s frequent referencing in popular culture has made its success endure several decades, but compositionally, it is just as attentive and rewarding as any art music from the 20th century. The lyrics within the introduction have many different interpretations which guides the context of the rest of the piece. The most popular interpretation is that the protagonist is confessing to his mother that he killed a man, and he clearly regrets it once he faces his own punishment or death. The song starts with thick A Capella vocal harmonies based around the cycle of fourths (as shown above) for the first four bars. The A Capella sings “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” which shows characteristics of renaissance music, and sets an eerie and mystical mood, which may describe the confusion between reality and fantasy that the protagonist is feeling. The A Capella and solo voice are homophonic in texture from bar 5 to 7. Then in bar 8 the solo voice branches off singing “I’m just a poor boy I need no sympathy”, which shows the seclusion of the protagonist and that he feels he doesn’t deserve anybody’s sympathy for the crime that he has committed. The A Capella and Solo Voice change three times between homophonic and polyphonic making it feel as though the protagonist’s conscience is validating his feelings. After May’s brief guitar solo, which served as a dramatic answer to the Ballad section, a chromatic descent leads us into the opera section. A Major chords make the 2 bars preceding the vocals, less serious than the previous section, as typical in Italian Operettas. But

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