3. Years in the Making
Freddy Mercury wrote the song in his home in London. Which was different from the other songs that were typically written in the studio. He actually wrote the whole song on telephone books and scraps of paper, like a true creative genius.
According to Mercury’s friend Chris Smith (a keyboard player in Smile ), Mercury first started developing “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the late 1960s; 1968 to be exact. He used to play parts of songs he was writing at the piano. He came up with an opening line “Mama, just killed a man” but didn’t yet have a melody. He originally referred to his work in progress as “The Cowboy Song.”