‘Mongolian Rhapsody’ surfaces a good 48 years on

It’s one of rock’s best-known and strangest songs: a six-minute radio hit that starts out as a piano ballad, becomes a high-pitched opera, then tumbles into a headbanger’s anthem. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, released in 1975, sold millions of copies and helped redefine what pop music could be. But the track’s history could have been different — in one aspect at least.

An early draft of the song by Freddie Mercury, Queen’s frontman, suggests that he once considered giving the anthem a different title: ‘Mongolian Rhapsody’.

The draft is among thousands of Mercury’s belongings that will be auctioned in September by Sotheby’s on behalf of his friend and heir Mary Austin, who is selling the collection as she needed to put her “affairs in order”.

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The collection, which had been kept in Mercury’s London home since his death in 1991, includes 15 pages of early drafts for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

On one page, Mercury wrote the words ‘Mongolian Rhapsody’ near the top. He then crossed out that first word and added ‘Bohemian’ above it.

The drafts make it clear that Mercury played around with lyrics when writing songs, swapping in and out words with similar sounds. Gabriel Heaton, a books and manuscripts specialist at Sotheby’s, said: “Of course ‘Bohemian’, ‘Mongolian’... it’s the same rhythm.”

Almost all of the lyrics are written on stationery from a defunct British airline, and some pages are festooned with Mercury’s abstract doodles. The word ‘Mongolian’ appears nowhere else among the drafts, which are estimated to be worth up to $1.5 million.

Rock history is filled with songs that could have been. But the alternative title for Bohemian Rhapsody has been unknown since the song premiered almost 50 years ago. Mark Blake, the author of several books on Queen, said that the alternative title was a “fun little fact” but didn’t surprise him. Queen often “had joke titles for things” that were later changed. The group’s ‘Under Pressure’ with David Bowie was originally titled ‘People on Streets’, he said.

Jim Jenkins, one of Queen’s official biographers, said he’d never heard of the ‘Mongolian Rhapsody’ idea either, despite knowing Mercury for years. The singer “never liked to explain” his lyrics or titles, Jenkins said. “He left it to our interpretation,” he continued.

Mercury made it clear in interviews that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was tough to write. “Certain songs require that sort of pompous flair. I had to work like crazy,” he had once said.

Jenkins said he was sure ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ would have been a hit regardless of its title, but Mercury’s final choice was better.

“I remember when it came out, wondering what a bohemian was, and looking it up,” he said.