Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

NEEDLE CRACKLES

# Is this the real life...? #

We were suddenly in a sort of golden place.

# Is this just fantasy...? #

We were sort of getting off on how far can we take this?

It's nearly 30 years old and still one of the world's best loved songs.

# Scaramouch, Scaramouch... #

It's the biggest single of the century.

# Thunderbolt and lightning... #

I never heard anything like it.

For the first time ever, this is the full story behind Bohemian Rhapsody.

We're on a journey of discovery back to the studio with the band.

The man who put it together is going to take it apart.

I've lost it.

OK, I've lost another Galileo.

# Will not let you go! Let me go!... #

We're going to find out how they made THAT video.

And you get this feedback that trails across.

# No, no, no, no

# Oh, mama mia, mama mia... # Mama mia, let me go.

And we'll be asking

some of the greatest literary minds in the country

what the song is all about.

Beelzebub does seem to make some sense!

# Me-e-e-e... #

# Dun-dun-dun! #

Great stuff!

"Mama, I killed a man."

Wow! OK, I'm there! What happened?

"Nothing happened! We all went off singing nonsense.

"Scaramouch, can you do the fandango?" No!

It hurts me now, when I hear the song, it hurts.

# Any way the wind blows... #

1975.

History is made as the Americans and Russians meet in space.

Saigon falls and Vietnam is finally over.

At home, unemployment hits the one million mark

as Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to lead the Tory Party.

Jaws is a box-office smash.

And Queen release the single that will catapult them to stardom

and provide inspiration for a new generation of rockers.

# So you think you can love me and leave me to die?

# Oh, baby-y-y... #

Axl Rose performed the song at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert

after the singer's death in 1991.

He was joined by a host of stars who'd grown up with Queen.

# Your mommy and your daddy gonna plague me till I die... #

1975, I was working in a factory in Sheffield

and daydreaming about wanting to be in a band

that could produce material of the quality of Bohemian Rhapsody.

# All your love tonight... #

I was obsessed with getting all the music that band put out.

It was a huge part of my whole growing up.

# Whoa, yeah! #

Even the band of the moment owe a huge debt to Queen.

Bohemian Rhapsody is the Holy Grail.

There's only that. There's nothing else anywhere near it.

If you ask anybody, "Honestly, do you like Bohemian Rhapsody?"

if they say no, they're lying.

The release of Bohemian Rhapsody defied all logic.

It was a song that broke all the rules.

For a start, it was six minutes long...

..and it had an opera section.

# I see a little silhouetto of a man

# Scaramouch, Scaramouch Will you do the fandango...? #

Nothing like it had been heard before

and there's been nothing like it since. But people loved it.

It went to number one and stayed there for nine weeks.

# Magnifico-o-o-o... #

But Queen weren't a new band.

It had taken them almost five years to get there.

The year before, they'd had their first success

with Seven Seas Of Rhye.

Long lost from the BBC archive,

this Top Of The Pops performance was videoed by a fan.

Freddie's distinctive style was taking shape even then.

# Seven seas of Rhye... #

They always were different

to everybody else that was around at the time.

They always projected this image of

being the big, huge rock stars

even when they hadn't got two ha'pennies to rub together.

Queen even turned to women's fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.

I was well known as doing theatrical-type women's outfits,

and I think it showed quite an extraordinary sense of thought

that they came to me.

But it wasn't just the rock star look that Queen were perfecting.

Their unique sound was also beginning to take shape...

..thanks to their producer, Roy Thomas Baker.

Working with Queen meant, be pure definition,

you were working out of the zone.

Being told by Freddie and the guys,

"Queen II - we've got nothing to lose,

"just put anything in there,

"any idea you come up with, just give it a go."

# Once upon a time an old man told me a fable

# When the piper is gone and the soup is cold... #

# She keeps her Moet et Chandon in a pretty cabinet... #

Queen camped it up even more for their third single, Killer Queen,