It’s one of rock’s best-known and strangest songs: a six-minute radio hit that begins as a piano ballad, transitions into a high-pitched opera, then transitions into a headbanger song. Released in 1975, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ sold millions of copies, topped the charts and helped redefine what pop music could be.
But the track’s history could have been very different – at least in one aspect.
An early version of the song by Queen frontman Freddie Mercury suggests that he once considered renaming the anthem: “Mongolian Rhapsody.”
The design is one of thousands of Mercury belongings to be auctioned in September by Sotheby’s on behalf of his friend and heir Mary Austin, who told the BBC she had decided to sell the collection because she needed to ‘put her house in order’. The collection, which has been kept in Mercury’s London home since his death in 1991 from bronchopneumonia due to AIDS, includes stage costumes and furniture, as well as the 15 pages of early drafts of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” On one page, Mercury wrote the words “Mongolian Rhapsody” at the top. He then crossed out that first word and added “Bohemian” above it.
The page will be on display in an exhibition at Sotheby’s New York from Thursday through June 8.
Gabriel Heaton, a book and manuscript specialist at Sotheby’s, said in a recent interview at the London auction house’s storage facility that the drafts made it clear that when writing songs, Mercury played with lyrics and swapped in and out words with similar sounds. “Of course, ‘Bohemian’, ‘Mongolian’, it’s the same rhythm,” he said of the song in question.
Nearly all of the lyrics are written on letterhead from a defunct British airline, British Midland, and some pages are decorated with Mercury’s abstract scribbles. The word “Mongolian” appears nowhere else in the designs, which are estimated to be worth £1.2 million, or about $1.5 million.
Rock history is filled with songs that could have been. When the Beatles wrote “Yesterday,” they famously gave it the working title of “Scrambled Eggs.” But the potential alternate title for “Bohemian Rhapsody” has been unknown since the song premiered nearly 50 years ago and has not been mentioned in any prominent Queen biographies.
Mark Blake, the author of several books about Queen, said in a phone interview that the alternate title was a “fun fact” but didn’t surprise him. Queen, like most bands, often had “joke titles for things” that were later changed, he said. The group’s “Under Pressure” featuring David Bowie was originally called “People on Streets,” he said.
Jim Jenkins, one of Queen’s official biographers, said he had never heard of the idea of the “Mongolian Rhapsody” either, even though he had known Mercury for years. The singer “never liked to explain” his lyrics or titles, Jenkins added. “He left it to our interpretation.”
The Sotheby’s sale includes some of Mercury’s designs for other Queen hits, including “Somebody to Love,” “We Are the Champions,” and “Killer Queen.” They all show Mercury searching for words to make his lyrics sing, sometimes trying out multiple lines.
His changes to “Bohemian Rhapsody” are among the most notable. In the final version of the song, a verse begins with the lines:
Mom
I just killed a man
Put a gun to his head
Pulled the trigger, now he’s dead.
But in an earlier draft, Mercury writes:
Mom
A war has started
I have to leave tonight
I must stand and fight.
Another page looks like a word cloud, with Mercury scribbling dozens of words and phrases, including “fandango,” “lightnings and lighting,” and “belladonna.” Heaton said the page appeared to be Mercury trying out options for the operatic part of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Mercury made it clear in interviews that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was difficult to write. “It didn’t just come out of the blue,” Mercury once said, according to “Freddie Mercury: A Life, in His Own Words,” a collection of interview excerpts. “Certain songs require that kind of pompous flair. I had to work like crazy.”
The band’s guitarist, Brian May, and drummer, Roger Taylor, declined to comment on the design of “Mongolian Rhapsody”. In a 2002 documentary, May recalled the moment Mercury suggested the title “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “You never quite knew if Freddie was joking or what,” May said. “Some of his ideas turned out not to be serious, but it stuck.”
Heaton said the final title had a certain mysterious character to it, but it was hard to say how important it had been to the song’s success and enduring appeal.
There is ample evidence of both in the forthcoming sale. The other items Sotheby’s will be auctioning in September include a gold record for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a plaque marking the band’s Grammy nominations for the song, and an MTV award presented to Mercury posthumously after the song the movie ‘Wayne’s World’ was shown.
Jenkins, Queen’s biographer, said he was confident “Bohemian Rhapsody” would have been a hit regardless of its title, but Mercury’s final choice was better.
“I remember when it came out wondering what a bohemian was and looking it up,” he said.