80 years until Spring: 1976

Every day from now until Spring, I will play a song from each year from 1940-2020. I’ll also write a little bit about the song and why I chose it to represent that year.

While 1975 was the year “Bohemian Rhapsody” broke out in the UK, it didn’t really reach the American shores until 1976. While the song went number one just about everywhere, in the U.S. it peaked at a respectable but disappointing #9 on the Billboard Record Charts. But it was definitely number one in my book. The first time I heard it, I freaked out!!  Wow, it was so different from everything else on the radio. Bombastic and yet majestic, “Bohemian Rhapsody”  still has it potency  nearly45 years later.

The song has actually made the American Top 40 three times. In 1976, 1992 (when it was featured in the film “Wayne’s World” and nearly made it all the way to #2) and then again breaking into the Top 30 in 2016. The song was featured on the album “A night at the Opera” which took the title from a film by the Marx Brothers. I loved all the song’s on the album, with a song called “39” being my second favorite. Check it out sometime if you haven’t heard it before.