Queen’s Greatest Hits has become the first rock album officially allowed for sale in Iran. From the BBC.
The cassette, costing less than $1 (55 pence), comes complete with translated lyrics and an explanatory leaflet. It tells Queen fans that Bohemian Rhapsody is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution he calls God in Arabic, “Bismillah”, and so regains his soul from Satan.
According to the BBC article, Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury had Iranian ancestors. Via Marginal Revolutions.
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Just going from memory, his real name was Farouk. Besides the “Bismillah” line in “Rhapsody,” they had an entire song called “Mustapha,” which is full of what sounds like Arabic to me.
If you listen to the beginning of side 2 of the Live Killers album, you can hear the crowd chanting for “Mustapha.” Freddy starts singing it, but then goes into “Rhapsody.”
And so the circle is complete
Yeah, Farrokh Bulsara. It’s a Persian name, although his parents were British — diplomats or something, which was why he was born in Zanzibar.