How many days did Queen spend recording “Bohemian Rhapsody”’s core sections?
Queen booked Rockfield Studios for three weeks in 1975; “Bohemian Rhapsody” alone took 17 days. Freddie Mercury stacked his own voice with Brian May’s and Roger Taylor’s until the 24-track tape looked like a black corduroy of sound. The “Galileo” section required so many bounces that the oxide began wearing thin, forcing engineer Mike Stone to splice in safety copies. EMI balked at a six-minute single; DJ Kenny Everett played snippets on air “by accident” 14 times in two days, generating demand that made the label cave. The song reached No. 1 twice, 16 years apart.
