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Rating: Figaro here, Figaro there. Figaro low, Figaro high + Rebel Rebel you've torn your dress + any slow piece. What do these pieces have in common? Until 1975, nothing for everyone. Since 1975, music for everyone.
“A Night at the Opera” with “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the explicit manifesto of how music, unlike the labels that are wrongfully or rightfully imposed on it, escapes classifications and Freddie is its Mercury, the messenger between the Gods and us, embodying this concept in the most apex manner. Colossal album.
1) “Death on two Legs… dedicated to”. We're not so dull that we don't realize the beginning is already something different. That difficult arpeggio on black keys in F# on Freddie's piano, that guitar that screams an ambulance, that stealthy intro from Brian, that direct accusation to Trident manager Nelson whom the piece is dedicated to ("bloodsucker, big shot, leech, old mule, pompous, "death on two legs") already makes us understand what intentions the Queen have. That of breaking everything and reaching the top. A screaming heavy piece.
2) “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon”. Relax boys! There's the usual Freddie who will take you with his magic into more relaxing and 30s atmospheres. A dandy traveling around the world all week who finds relief on Sunday afternoon through a very simple and swing musical setup that will lift the smile even on the most stuck-up modernist fan of Britney Spears.
3) “I'm in Love with my car”. Roger Taylor's greatest song. Mastodonic, immense, roaring and it should deserve even more honors than it has already received. The drummer was a lover of speed and cars. This is true eulogy. It showcases an extremely high voice supported by Mercury's choirs. Taylor's level as a singer-songwriter was never reached again. Chills at 300 km/h!!!
4) “You're my best friend”. Obviously, the deacon of Queen, aka John Deacon, who had terribly failed as a songwriter on the previous album, this time had realized that writing a song is a tough task. Well. It's such a sweet, melodic, and dreamy piece that it not only deserved a dignified place in the Greatest Hits approved by all countries (there were different choices per country) but also a music video was made, which was unusual at the time (Boh Rhap will be the first official music video in music history). The theme of friendship will always be dear to the bassist and with this song, you will celebrate it too. Deacon deserves a summa cum laude for his degree as a songwriter!
5) "’39". Brian venturing into country-folk? Yes, guys and the experiment is a success! This is because the entire album aims to give that brushstroke of ancient and eternal that only classic and traditional pieces can guarantee. If in addition, we add historical-realistic themes like in this case, the positive result is guaranteed. If it wasn't for Brian's voice, this song would fit perfectly.
6) “Sweet Lady”. The most elusive piece of the entire album perhaps because it's the least melodic but with great potential. A May track with many Taylor variations and beautiful progressions with slowdowns. One of those pieces that aren't loved at first listen but with time. You won't regret it.
7) “Seaside rendezvous”. A very fast ballad, without strumming, and highly melodic and carefree as only Freddie Mercury could craft. He still continues that retro taste of a few decades earlier. How Mercury loved life! From this moment on the singer will not let anything escape him in terms of fun. Love song, happy song, eternal song.
8) “The prophet song”. Terrifying! It stems from a dream of Brian but very much reflects the nightmare of the ballad of the "old sailor" in Coleridge where dark voyages, a sense of fate breathing on the shoulder, apocalypse, anamorphic figure of this “wise man” that we must “listen to” to avoid catastrophe. And that central part, let's say it?, where the music stops and there are dozens of perfectly intertwined operatic choirs by Freddie! 8 minutes of song where you'll be holding your breath. Opera, opera, encyclopedic opera!!!!
9) “Love of my life”. These guys really gave it their all with this album. But just listen to that voice, that well-crafted, clever, and composed piano score and that expression of Freddie Mercury! We are on the highest levels. A very "gay" love song if we want to with the use of soft falsettos and slight hints of Brian's harp. It's not the usual C chord progression, this is the emblem of Freddie's more romantic vein. Live then, Brian will match Freddie's piano difficulty with the guitar and it will become a less gentle but more collective cohesion piece. The audience in every part of the globe will sing it without Freddie's help. When we get to this point, we have understood everything...
10) “Good company”. Perhaps the flabbiest piece of the entire album. This too is very rhymed and cheerful and reminiscent of bygone years. Sung again by Brian, it makes us smile also for the execution with the ukulele. Too simplistic to be in “A night at the opera” but perhaps it's also a strategic fortune that it is placed just before the supreme work of art, "Bohemian Rhapsody".
11) “Bohemian Rhapsody”. I thank God for appointing Freddie Mercury to give us the most beautiful song ever… Forgive me but I have no other words.
12) “God save the Queen”. Exactly, indeed! God save the Queen not only in this instrumental version by Brian on guitar replicating the English anthem which he will play a few years ago exactly on the terrace of “Buck House” (reproduced in "cassette" version at the end of concerts) but also save Queen from oblivion. We will have no doubts about this.
“A night at the Opera” is Queen's masterpiece. An immense and stressful, baroque and classical, experimental and poly-stylistic work with those styles of the past not distant from each other but congruent within and that definitively consecrates them in the Olympus of the greats. From now on, with results often fluctuating, nothing will stop them except that evil that will arrest the rhapsodic and bohemian genius in 1991.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...) (03:45)
You suck my blood like a leech
You break the law and you preach
Screw my brain till it hurts
You've taken all my money - and you want more!
Misguided old mule
With your pigheaded rules
With your narrow-minded cronies who are fools of the first division
Death on two legs
You're tearing me apart,
Death on two legs
You never had a heart...of your own
Kill-joy, Bad guy,
Big-talking small fry
You're just an old barrow-boy
Have you found a new toy to replace me,
Can you face me?
But now you can kiss my ass goodbye
Feel good, are you satisfied
Do you feel like suicide (I think you should)
Is your conscience all right
Does it plague you at night
Do you feel good - Feel good!
Talk like a big business tycoon,
But you're just a hot-air balloon,
So no one gives you a damn,
You're just an overgrown school-boy
Let me tan your hide.
A dog with disease,
You're the King of the 'sleaze'
Put your money where your mouth is Mr. Know-all,
Was the fin on your back part of the deal...shark!
Death on two legs
You're tearing me apart
Death on two legs
You never had a heart of your own,
(You never did, right from the start)
Insane, you should be put inside,
You're a sewer-rat decaying in a cesspool of pride
Should be made unemployed
Then make yourself null-and-void,
Make me feel good
I feel good!
02 Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (01:09)
I go out to work on Monday morning
Tuesday I go off to honeymoon
I'll be back again before it's time for sunny-down,
I'll be lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
Bicycling on every Wednesday evening
Thursday I go waltzing to the Zoo
I come from London town, I'm just an ordinary guy,
Fridays I go painting in the Louvre
I'm bound to be proposing on a Saturday night
(There he goes again)
I'll be lazing on a Sunday
Lazing on a Sunday
Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
04 You're My Best Friend (02:54)
Ooo, you make me live
Whatever this world can give to me
It's you, you're all I see
Ooo, you make me live now honey
Ooo, you make me live
You're the best friend that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know that my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
I've been wandering 'round
But I still came back to you
In rain or shine you've stood by me girl
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
Whenever this world is cruel to me
I got you to help me forgive
Ooo, you make me live now honey
Ooo, you make me live
You're the first one when things turn out bad
You know I'll never be lonely
You're my only one
And I love the things
I really love the things that you do
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
You, you're my best friend
05 '39 (03:33)
In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers
In the days when the lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
The sweetest sight ever seen.
And the night followed day
And the story tellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas
Ne'er looked back, never feared, never cried.
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew.
In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue
The Volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the earth is old and grey, little darlin' we'll away
But my love this cannot be
For so many years have gone though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me.
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew.
Don't you hear my call though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you
All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand
For my life
Still ahead
Pity Me.
06 Sweet Lady (04:06)
You call me up and treat me like a dog
You call me up and tear me up inside
You’ve got me on a lead
Oooh you bring me down
You shout around
You don’t believe that I’m alone
Ohh you don't believe me
Sweet lady
Sweet lady
Sweet lady...Stay sweet.
You say
"You call me up and feed me all the lines
"You call me sweet like I’m some kind of cheese
"Waiting on the shelf
"You eat me up
"You hold me down
"I’m just a fool to make you a home, you really do me
"And you say
"Sweet lady
"Sweet lady
"Sweet lady...Stay sweet"
Stay now
My sweet lady
Though it seems like we wait forever
Stay sweet baby
Believe and we’ve got everything we need.
07 Seaside Rendezvous (02:18)
Words and music by Freddie Mercury
Seaside - whenever you stroll along with me I'm merely contemplating what
you feel inside meanwhile I ask you to be my Clementine -
You say you will if you could but you can't - I love you madly -
Let my imagination run away with you gladly -
A brand new angle - highly commendable - Seaside Rendezvous -
I feel so romantic - can we do it again
Can we do it again sometime,
Fantastic, c'est la vie mesdames et messieurs
And at the peak of the season, the
Mediterranean -, this time of year, it's so fashionable.
I feel like dancing - in the rain,
Can I have a volunteer -
Dancing - what a damn jolly good idea -
It's such a jollification - as a matter of fact, so tres charmant my dear -
Underneath the moonlight - together we'll sail across the sea -
Reminiscing every night - Meantime - I ask you to be my Valentine
You say you have to tell your daddy if you can - I'll be your Valentino -
We'll ride upon an omnibus and then the casino -
Get a new facial - start a sensational -
Seaside Rendezvous - so adorable,
Seaside Rendezvous -
Seaside Rendezvous -
08 The Prophet's Song (08:23)
Oh Oh people of the earth
Listen to the warning
The seer he said
Beware the storm that gathers here
Listen to the wise man.
I dreamed I saw on a moonlit stair
Spreading his hands on the multitude there
A man who cried for a love gone stale
And ice cold hearts of charity bare.
I watched as fear took the old men's gaze
Hopes of the young in troubled graves
I see no day, I heard him say
So grey is the face of every mortal.
Oh Oh people on the earth
Listen to the warning
The prophet he said
For soon the cold of night will fall
Summoned by your own hand.
Oh Oh children of the land
Quicken to the new life
Take my hand
Fly and find the new green bough
Return like the white dove.
He told of death as a bone white haze
Taking the lost and the unloved babe
Late too late all the wretches run
These kings of beasts now counting their days.
From mother's love is the son estranged
Married his own his precious gain
The earth will shake in two will break
And death all around will be your dow'ry
Oh Oh people of the earth
Listen to the warning the seer he said
For those who hear and mark my words
Listen to the good plan.
Oh Oh - and two by two my human zoo
They'll be
Running for to come
Running for to come
Out of the rain
Flee for your life
Who heed me not, let all your treasure make you
Fear for your life
Deceive you not the fires of hell will take you
Should death await you.
Oh Oh people can you hear me?
Oh People can you hear me?
And now I know, and now I know
And now I know, and now I know
And now I know, that you can hear me
The Earth will shake and two will break...
The Earth will shake and two will break...
The Earth will shake and two will break...
And now I know, and now I know...
And now I know, and now I know...
And now I know, and now I know...
And now I know, and now I know...
Listen to the wise, listen to the wise
Listen to the wise, listen to the wise man
Come here, Aye you
Come here, Aye you
Come here.....
Listen to the man, listen to the man
Listen to the man, listen to the man
Man......
God give you grace to purge this place
And peace all around may be your fortune.
Oh Oh children of the land
Love is still the answer, take my hand
The vision fades, a voice I hear
"Listen to the Madman!"
But still I fear and still I dare not
Laugh at the Madman.
10 Bohemian Rhapsody (05:57)
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.
Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see.
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low,
Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me,
To me
Mama, just killed a man,
Put a gun against his head,
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun,
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooh,
Didn’t mean to make you cry.
If I’m not back again this time tomorrow,
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters.
Too late, my time has come,
Sends shivers down my spine
Body’s aching all the time,
Goodbye everybody, I’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooh, (any way the wind blows)
I don’t want to die,
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all
I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me
Galileo - Galileo
Galileo - Galileo
Galileo - Figaro
Magnifico - ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!
I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me
He’s just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come, easy go,
Will you let me go?
Bismillah! No! We will not let you go! - Let him go!
Bismillah! We will not let you go! - Let him go!
Bismillah! We will not let you go! - Let me go!
Will not let you go! - Let me go!
Will not let you go! - Let me go, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!
No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
Mama Mia, Mama Mia, Mama Mia, let me go
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me!
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?
So you think you can love me and leave me to die?
Ooh baby, can’t do this to me baby
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here
Ooh yeah
Ooh yeah
Nothing really matters,
Anyone can see,
Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters to me
Any way the wind blows
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Other reviews
By 2Torri
Upon the first listen, you will be completely captivated by the genius of these 4 people.
This album contains the most beautiful song a human being has ever created, I am referring to Bohemian Rhapsody.
By Torre Ste
There are no adjectives to describe the ultimate rock opera!
Bohemian Rhapsody? I can’t find other words to describe it, as to understand what is being talked about one must simply listen to it.
By PIXELID
Bohemian Rhapsody disrupts all known musical standards in no time and quickly reaches the top of almost every global chart.
When someone else makes a song that approaches the spectacularity of Bohemian Rhapsody, we can talk.
By piccolojedi1991
"'A Night at the Opera,' absolute masterpiece, an international monument to Glam Rock."
"We have listened to one of the best songs the human mind has ever written, perfect in every way... a unique and simply unforgettable experience."
By ledeep
The album is colorful of many genres, ranging from Scott Joplin’s Rag-Time style to powerful hard rock to psychedelic oriental melodies.
Bohemian Rhapsody musically is one of the most complex in the history of rock and represents the first example of rock opera.
