“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, the whole story in 144 pages

How does a song lasting almost six minutes, double the length “pleasing” on the radio, manage to become a worldwide hit? How can a noisy mix of so different styles become a rock milestone and continue to collect records?

In his book, published by Caissa Italia, Borgognone starts from the origins of Freddie Mercury and Queen and follows their path up to “A Night at the Opera”, and then tells everything there is to know about “Bohemian Rhapsody”: the compositional peculiarities of lyrics and music, the packaging, the diffusion strategies, the most curious anecdotes, the climb to the charts in 1975, the success of Live Aid, the return to the top of the sales rankings in 1991, the year of its author’s death, and then in 2018, with the biopic on Mercury’s life.

I met Paolo Borgognone to ask him how his book was born.