My Top 2000 Songs #1070: Bohemian Rhapsody

August 26, 2025

My Top 2000 Songs #1070: Bohemian Rhapsody

I've deliberately tried to focus this list on songs I still enjoy listening to, avoiding the usual, cliched "classics," the universally acclaimed hits which stuff must Greatest Song lists and which have become relentlessly boring due to decades of radio over-saturation.

But I'll make an exception here. Because--no, I never sit at home, turn on the stereo, and surf over to "Bohemian Rhapsody." At most, I'll occasionally play my home-made Queen compilation CDR in the car--frankly, the only 80 minutes of Queen I'll ever need--and this'll pop up. Or maybe I'm in a rental car without XM and it'll show up (inevitably) on the FM dial. But if that DOES happen... does anyone on the planet change the station? Or get out of the car mid-song? No, of course not.

Anyway, this has the distinction of being the first 7" single I bought. It came out in late 1975, not long after I had first started obsessively listening to the local Top 40 station (WLS-Chicago) on my hand-held transistor radio. It quickly took its spot at #1 on the station's weekly music survey, hot on the heels of other massive hits like C.W. McCall's "Convoy"--the song largely responsible for getting me into pop music (as detailed in my book, in case you haven't picked up a copy)--the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," and Sweet's "Fox On The Run," becoming one of the earliest smash hits of my formative pre-teen years.

And what could be better bait for a 9-year-old with a few quarters of saved allowance than "Bohemian Rhapsody"? It was unlike anything out there, Freddie Mercury at his most operatic, and its 6-minute running length made it a bargain for a kid with a minimal music-buying budget.

Plus you've got the scene in Wayne's World. So here we are.