Chords for Queen - Story of Bohemian Rhapsody ( Roy Thomas Baker ) ♫

After he delivered the finished track to EMI,
Roy Thomas Baker has come here to take Bohemian Rhapsody apart.
[Bb] _ [Em] _ I've lost it.
OK, I've [Eb] lost another Galileo.
_ [E] There's another Galileo missing.
_ _ [N] _
This is the original 24-track tape in its original box.
It's now so fragile that it has to be baked in an oven
before it can be played, or it will disintegrate.
And here's Freddie's doodles on the sleeve notes,
which he did at the time Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded.
The lightning, very, very frightening me
The original mix, when we were doing it manually,
it was a case of I was sitting approximately here
controlling the drums, bass, piano, guitars.
[Gm] Then about here was Freddie, and he had control over the vocals.
He would be switching vocals on and off and doing it that way.
Let me push up _ _ [Eb] the_
[Bb] Carry on, [Cm] carry on, he [Abm] said nothing [Eb] really matters.
So this is the piano.
[B] _
[Bb] _ This is the piano solo.
This was actually done live by Freddie as we were doing the track.
So _ when you [Gm] listen to the piano track,
you can just about hear some of the drums [Cm] in the background
because it was all done in one room.
It wasn't done in a separate room.
We [F] put covers over the piano to try [Bb] and deaden down the sound of the other instruments.
But [Gm] the bass, you can hear the bass in the background, you can hear the drums.
[Cm] The drums, _ [B] [Eb] then, [A] _ _ this is the drums [F] on their own. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ OK, now we're_
Stalagmus, Stalagmus, will you do the [Ab] bandango?
[G]
Now John, [Ebm] who's on bass, we spread the bass over three channels. _
_ And we had the [Bb] drums [Ebm] [B] and bass together, [Gm] piano.
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
This [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [B] _
[Gm] is the [F] solo from Brian.
_ [Ebm] That was also recorded on one [E] track.
It wasn't done on [B] multiple tracks.
It was just [Eb] one track. _ _
[Cm] _ I _ _ [G] _ _ [Gb] _
[Abm] _ _ [Gb] _ _ [A] _ [B] _ [N] wanted to make a little tune that would be a sort of counterpart to the main melody.
I didn't want to just play the melody.
It could all have been so different, couldn't it?
So I can remember singing it to Freddie and him going,
Oh, yeah, that'll be good.
And I think certainly my best stuff is born that way.
It's much better for me to hear it in my head and then try and play it
than sit down with a guitar and sort of let the fingers do it.
The fingers tend to be a little predictable,
unless they're being led by the brain.
We were sort of getting off on the, on how far can we take this, you know,
and how big can we make those harmonies, and let's make a wall of sound.
There really is a wall, and it starts down there and it goes right up.
So really we were sort of quite interested in seeing how far you could actually go
before it became totally ridiculous, or the limits of the technology stopped you.
OK, this is the little Galileo section,
which is between high vocal from Roger and low from Freddie.
So this is Roger's track first.
We _ _ _ used to joke about the pliers under the frock, you know.
We were lucky.
We had a very good chemistry when it came to vocals.
I mean, Brian could get down quite low.
Fred had this incredibly powerful voice through the middle,
and I was very good on all the high stuff.
So we all sang every part.
Also now you're about to hear the upper section, only the vocals.
No backing track at all. _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Dm] _ _ [E] _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
[E] _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ [Fm] _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Eb] You _ _ _
_ [F] _ [C] _ [Bb] _ think you [Ebm] can stone me and spit in my [N] eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here
John volunteered not to sing, cos I don't think he liked his own vocals.
He wasn't going to get an argument from any of us, including the band.
So basically it was the three guys.
It was Freddie, Brian and Roger who would sing.
This is going to be a rare scenario now.
We're going to be playing the instrumentation of the opera section without the opera.
Just purely the track.
And the track consists of drums, bass, Freddie on piano
and Roger's overdub of a timpani.
There's a few stumbled notes here which obviously weren't supposed to be heard.
Now you might hear them.
[Dm] _ [Db] _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ [Eb] _ [Ab] _ [D] _ [Gm] _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ [B] _ [B] You think you [E] can stone me and [B] spit in my eye
[D] _ [B] The thing about Freddie was it was far [E] more organised than [A] he lets on.
He'd have [Ab] little scraps of paper everywhere with little things and little Galileos here.
So it was all [B] written down on, you know, just on paper and pencil.
It seemed like it was a bit haphazard, but it wasn't.
[E] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _ _ [G] _
[D] _ [C] Those times it wasn't easy.
It was very, very hard.
But we didn't mind because we knew we were setting certain trends
that then [B] eventually technology caught up with us.
So that was pretty good. _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [B] _ _ [Dbm] _