Way!

While flicking through the TV channels, I stumbled upon the Bo Rhap video which I must have seen hundreds of times.

But this morning I watched it properly and some of the sensations I encountered in 1975 resurfaced.

I first heard it one Sunday afternoon while doing my home work and listening to Annie Nightingale's Radio 1 show. I was a Queen fan so when she said this was the new single i put pen down and listened. But she made a mistake and played at least two songs off the new album. which one was the single? The slow one I presumed and then there was an album track with an operatic bit and a great heavy ending?

It seriously wasn't until at school the next day that I was told "no that's the whole song". But it's 6 minutes long!

Then there was the video! Never seen anything like that before and the effects and everything were awesome. (I know today they look very basic but this was 30 years ago!) We tuned in every Thursday night to watch Top of the Pops just to see it. And that was the only time you would see it each week. And therefore you absorbed every detail, nuance and pose. Freddies overhand piano playing, Brian and Freddie's outfits, Brian's guitar solo, the operatic effects "how did they do that?" and then the ending with the live bombastic bit, dry ice, smoke and everything. All would be discussed with real enthusiasm just because there really was nothing like it on TOTP at the time.

Then there were the lyrics! At Youth Club we would try and sing the whole song. Who killed who? What's a fandango? My best friend Grahame was convinced Freddie sang "Hit me when the wind blows"!

This morning for six minutes I was 16 again.