Fretprints: Queen’s A Night at the Opera

In 1975, Queen was flat broke. Despite the commercial success of Sheer Heart Attack, several hit singles, headlining world tours, and ostensible rock-star accoutrements, an oppressive arrangement with Trident studios and Norman Sheffield could only be remedied with new management. Enter John Reid, Elton John’s manager, who would guide their next phase under a new contract with EMI. Heeding Reid’s dictum, “I’ll take care of the business, you make the best record you can,” Queen began writing material for its fourth album after a two-month tour of Japan that spring. Each member offered originals with the bulk of the music composed by vocalist Freddie Mercury and guitarist Brian May. An extraordinarily innovative band, Queen harnessed myriad influences including hard rock, progressive, classical, jazz, metal, theatre, opera, glam, cabaret, and folk, along with the skills of co-producer Roy Thomas Baker to craft their finest oeuvre, A Night at the Opera. Hailed as Queen’s greatest album, it defined art rock for the world. Sessions occurred in several studios from August through November of 1975, mostly at Rockfield (Wales) and Sarm East with additional time at Scorpio, Lansdowne, and Roundhouse (London). Basic tracks were recorded live at Rockfield, guitars and vocals at Sarm, and overdubs in various locations. The musicians sometimes worked independently or in pairs. With the new 24-track technology, their efforts yielded meticulous arrangements with purposeful overdubs conjoining vocals, guitar, rhythm section, and other varied and sometimes inexplicable sounds. Queen’s emphatic “No Synthesizers” proclamation quelled doubts of anything but an organic production. Throughout, May relied on his homemade Red Special guitar, multiple Vox AC30s, and a “Deacy” one-watt amp built by bassist John Deacon. His mainstay Ovation Pacemaker 1615 12-string was used on several tracks. “You’re My Best Friend” sports some of Brian May’s most exemplary harmonized guitar work. In the closing section, overdubbed guitars fill the arrangement. This example (2:22) depicts the three most prominent voices. Fig. 1A is the highest voice (Gtr. 3), while Figs. 1B and 1C (Gtrs. 1 and 2) are the lower parts. The beautiful diatonic, chord-conscious melodies are enhanced with whole-step and minor-third string bends, finger vibrato, slurs, pinch harmonics (1A), and a lower counterline (1C). “Death on Two Legs” is a heavy-metal tango with theatrical leanings. Mercury’s swipe at Sheffield and Trident, its insolent salvo is reinforced by pulsing piano chords in heavy quarter-note rhythm alluding to the Psycho soundtrack. More than coincidence, the song was originally named “Psycho Legs.” A disturbing intro of piano arpeggiations, guitar-generated effects, and an ominous tritone figure ushers in the enraged storyline driven home by May’s distinctive neoclassic runs initiating the formal arrangement. His metal/classical style, marking a significant step forward in rock vocabulary, and his rock-guitar counterpoint – a specialty – as well as a tango feel punctuated by Taylor’s tom fills animate the track. The arrangement embodies their unique approach to metal, considered “airbrushed” and nuanced by contrast with Zeppelin’s blunt blues-based assault. “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” personifies unconventional rock balladry. A descendant of “Bring Back That Leroy Brown,” it captures a cabaret mood, comparable to Beatles classics “When I’m 64” and “Honey Pie,” explicit in old-time jazz elements, waltz rhythm, Mercury’s show-tune piano accompaniment and affected vocal delivery, satirizing the lifestyle of a mythic traditional Londoner. Baker devised an unusual technique to simulate the period-correct megaphone sound by having Mercury sing in one room while broadcasting his voice elsewhere through headphones placed in a tin can fitted with a microphone. The lampooning lead vocals are offset by exquisite harmony overdubs. May’s orchestral solo complements the arrangement and exemplifies his guitar-choir effect with harmony passages, solo lines, and Vaudevillian finish, a direct segue to “I’m In Love With My Car.” Drummer Roger Taylor’s composition salutes rock’s mythic obsessions with automobiles. Filled with metaphors and double meanings, the song is dedicated to Johnathan Harris, Queen’s tour sound man, and his love affair with high-powered but problematic machines. Taylor assumes lead vocals, presenting potent lyrical imagery over a propulsive half-time hard-rock groove in 3/4. The track is distinguished by powerful drum fills, revving of his Alfa Romeo, backing vocals, and May’s power chording, driving riffs, contrapuntal runs, and wailing/melodious counterlines. Issued as the B-side of “Bohemian Rhapsody” it made Taylor fabulously rich while introducing the thorny matter of royalty sharing. “Bohemian Rhapsody” remains Queen’s epic, and deserved an epic guitar solo. May responded with a monumental statement (2:36) functioning as both an instrumental bridge to the operatic section and a bold guitar flight, boasting his patented fusion of classical melodicism and hard-rock intensity. His tone is a unique combination of overdriven edge-of-feedback Vox AC30 and an out-of-phase neck-plus-middle pickup setting that creates a screaming (but controlled) sound. May blends familiar rock-guitar mannerisms with elegant diatonic lines (in the uncommon key of Eb) to produce one of the genre’s most moving moments. “You’re My Best Friend” is Deacon’s first hit single and one of Queen’s most popular and enduring songs. He handled electric piano (a Wurlitzer EP200) when Mercury deferred or insisted on playing only grand piano. Mercury’s lead vocal and intricately crafted harmony vocal parts for the band are complemented by the song’s swing feel, and May’s thoughtfully orchestrated parts, comprising some of his finest harmony guitar work, which grows from a simple duet in the interlude to a tapestry of five guitars in the outro. The single was released June 18, 1976, and reached #7 in England, #16 in America, and was backed with May’s “39” to address royalty-sharing issues created with “Rhapsody”/“Car.” May’s homage to space travel and sci-fi, “’39” evokes the spirit of songs like “Space Oddity” but develops an earthbound country/folk atmosphere informed by Americana, accentuated by acoustic 12-string. May’s lead vocals, Deacon’s upright bass, minimal percussion, and bluegrass-style backing vocals further deepen the impression. May weaves electric guitar into the largely acoustic arrangement to produce an unusual orchestral interlude with stratospheric high notes reminiscent of pedal-steel. “Sweet Lady” reflects May’s desire for a hard-rock number, revisiting the band’s origins. His guitar-centric approach offset opera’s increasingly diverse and inscrutable tangents. Compared to the delicacy and malleable quality of other numbers, this track is muscular and unwavering. However, Queen’s quirky sophistication is extant in the 3/4 hard-rock groove that is hardly a waltz, and the heavy riff at 1:00 has a looping, oblong feel akin to Zep’s adventurous moments. May’s solo is an inspired rock flight – one of his strongest lead outings, distinguished by careening, interlaced guitars, decorative pinch harmonics, and harmonized riff episodes dissolving into the fade-out. “Seaside Rendezvous,” Mercury’s retrospective art song, recalls English music-hall/Roaring ’20s style. He sings all vocal parts and plays acoustic piano as well as adapted tack-piano for a quaint touch. Mercury and Taylor overdubbed vocal imitations of kazoo and brass (trumpets, trombones, tuba), and Taylor added sound effects, including bells, triangle, slide-whistle, and the imaginative finger-thimble tapping during the tap-dancing interlude. The third section of “Bo Rhap” (4:07) is introduced with a driving metallic riff (composed by Mercury on piano and arranged for guitar by May). Depicting Queen’s hard-rock side, the figure is set in 12/8 meter, developing a shuffling feel akin to later Iron Maiden pieces. The aggressive funk-flavored, heavily accented syncopations add another dimension. May’s power chording (4:14) in measures 5-12 provides a glimpse of his rock rhythm playing. Note his emblematic use of heavy root-fifth voicings peppered with effective single-note fills and connective licks. “The Prophet’s Song,” May’s answer to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is a lengthy opus inspired by his dream of armageddon. The 8:25 piece is one of Queen’s most elaborate. Arranged in segments, it exudes a progressive-rock ethos underscored by May’s acoustic/electric guitar orchestration, mood shifts, feel changes, and terraced dynamics, and Mercury’s extended harmonized canon/solo vocal improvisations. May used drop-D tuning to lend a heavier timbre, applied wah effects to his solo, and harnessed a Tokai Hummingbird F120 and a toy koto to further color the arrangement. “Love of My Life” remains Queen’s quintessential love ballad. Mercury recorded the classical-tinged piano tracks at Rockfield, overdubbed lead and backing vocals at Sarm, and May added acoustic 12-string chords and intricate parts on a real harp – an instrument he’d never played. The glissando arpeggios were recorded in individual segments and the instrument was re-tuned between takes. May’s parts are sparse, colorful, and effective. He suggests a cello line and recorder before launching into an elegant neoclassical solo laden with feedback then reaching a climax in dramatic harmonized guitars overlapped with lead licks and cello-effect parts. “Good Company” channels May’s retro jazz roots, acknowledging Dixieland, swing, and other traditional styles. He sings lead and background vocal, then added ukulele (a Genuine Aloha banjo uke) and electric guitar. Notable are his guitar impressions of clarinet, horn sections, and a highly structured solo where he emulates converging wind instruments with the Red Special and wah plugged into the Deacy amp. The first fruit of opera was “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which married Mercury’s fatalistic storyline and compositional vision to May’s colorful guitar orchestrations and the supportive Deacon/Taylor rhythm. Bolstered by the high-art implications of a promo video the six-minute epic achieved grandiose proportions. Estimated to have taken a laborious three weeks to produce, “Bo Rhap” features an operatic section requiring more than 180 vocal overdubs and enough guitar parts to rival a full orchestra. The tightly integrated, large-scale work is arranged in four sections essentially joining four songs. The first contains an unaccompanied harmony-vocal intro, Mercury’s lead vocals with measured piano accompaniment, and two slow-rock verses with bass, drums, and guitar. These build gradually to May’s compositional solo that acts as a transition. The second section is the famous mini-opera movement (recorded at Scorpio) and appropriately vocal-dominated. The third is a hard-rock riff-based song in 12/8, and the fourth is the recap and coda, a reinterpreted return of verse/intro elements. May carefully places his guitar in this massive, carefully-assembled structure, entering lightly in the second verse with false harmonics (strings plucked behind the bridge) before playing a strong counterline that leads to his landmark guitar solo. Blending the lyricism and elegance of classical music with the power and intensity of metal, his exquisite melodic statement acts as an instrumental bridge to the whimsical operatic section. In the hard-rock section, the 12/8 meter establishes a metallic shuffle groove – more rhythmically urgent with heavy power chording and emphatic syncopations, and louder than the subdued 4/4 ballad intro, verses and solo, and quite different from the shifting sonorities and quirkiness of the operatic portion. May used at least three AC30s and various pickup combinations on his Red Special for the main guitar parts and the Deacy for the harmonized melody in the coda. Despite its length, the song was their first #1 hit in England. In ’76, Brian Wilson praised it as “the most competitive thing to come along in ages.” It enjoyed renewed popularity in 1992 with its inclusion in the Wayne’s World soundtrack and again in 2018 when it was a focal point in the biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. May’s instrumental interpretation of “God Save the Queen,” recorded at Trident in 1974, served as a fitting finale. The British national anthem is rendered with his guitar choir and Taylor’s orchestral cymbals and timpani. Harmony guitar reached a new pinnacle with the multiple guitar parts, each acting like a separate choral voice with similar phrasing and vibrato. This version was played at the end of every Queen concert from 1974 to ’86, while the band took bows. On June 3, 2002, May and Taylor performed it live on the roof of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the 50-year reign of Queen Elizabeth I, assuring its preeminence as one of British rock’s most regal moments. Wolf Marshall is the founder and original Editor-In-Chief of GuitarOne magazine. A respected author and columnist, he has been influential in contemporary music education since the early 1980s. His latest book is Jazz Guitar Course: Mastering the Jazz Language. Others include 101 Must-Know Rock Licks, B.B. King: the Definitive Collection, and Best of Jazz Guitar. A list credits can be found at wolfmarshall.com. This article originally appeared in VG’s September 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.