A Night at the Opera

The tour for Sheer Heart Attack ended at the Budokan in Tokyo on 1 May 1975. Still on a small wage from Trident, Queen had been in serious financial trouble since the start of the year; the lawyer Jim Beach negotiated them out of the deal, freeing them to make the next album. After three weeks of writing and rehearsal at Penrhos Court in Herefordshire, recording began at Rockfield in Wales on 24 August 1975 and moved through five more studios before the album was finished in early November. Roy Thomas Baker co-produced, with Mike Stone engineering. The title came from the Marx Brothers' 1935 film, and Brian May later called the record "Queen's Sgt Peppers". Freddie Mercury's opener, "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)", is a bitter attack on a business associate, completed right up against the release date. John Deacon's "You're My Best Friend" was the first of his songs released as a single, and on "Seaside Rendezvous" Mercury and Roger Taylor supply the woodwind and brass parts with their voices alone. The long "The Prophet's Song" came to May while he lay feverish with hepatitis, and uses a toy koto. On Mercury's "Love of My Life" May plays harp and a Gibson Hummingbird he had bought in Japan that spring. "Bohemian Rhapsody", in six sections, was mostly written at Mercury's home in Holland Park; its operatic section alone took a week to record. May's arrangement of "God Save the Queen" closes the album. The cover gave Mercury's crest, now in colour, pride of place, and the gatefold carried the lyrics. Kenny Everett played "Bohemian Rhapsody" fourteen times in two days before its release, and the single stayed at No. 1 in Britain for nine weeks from 29 November 1975. The album followed on 21 November 1975, reached No. 1 on 27 December, spent four weeks at the top and became their first platinum album. In America it climbed to No. 4, and in 1976 "Bohemian Rhapsody" reached No. 9, their first US top-ten single. In Japan it came out on 21 December 1975 and reached No. 9, and when the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody became a hit, it was the most-shipped Queen studio album there.