"Bohemian Rhapsody" - Why is it named Bohemia?

Friends around me have been recommending me to watch "Bohemian Rhapsody". I don't know why, but they seem to be obsessed with this movie.

|Douban score: 8.7 points. Well, it should be good.

|Nominated for Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards. Well! It must be good!

This also aroused my strong interest, and I checked online: Queen, Freddie Mercury, "We Will Rock You", "We Are The Champions", these familiar words occupied most of the pages.

Finally, “Bohemian Rhapsody won the first Brit Award for Best Single” made me realize the origin of the name of the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

But after watching so many of them, what interested me most was not the movie itself.

But it’s the Bohemia in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Why Bohemia?

As far as I know, Bohemia should be a regional name in Europe in a broad sense. It now mainly refers to the central and western regions of the Czech Republic, including Prague.

In a narrow sense, Bohemia also refers to Bohemians, Bohemian style, Bohemian spirit, etc.

Bohemian Rhapsody is just like the word Bohemia, with many components but unique styles.

This six-minute song cleverly combines opera, rock and roll into one. It includes a cappella introduction (0:00-0:49), folk music (0:49-2:40), guitar solo (2:40-3:05), opera (3:05-4:07), rock (4:07-4:54), and the ending outro (4:54-5:55). This song contains endless sadness, and the sadness is lingering with unbridled uninhibitedness.

Why not start from Bohemia and explore the unique sound of "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Since it is necessary to explore, perhaps it is most effective to start from a historical perspective.

Historically, there was a group of wanderers living here, and they were the Gypsies.

It can be said that the Bohemians are a branch of the Gypsies - this is a statement that scholars unanimously agree on.

More than 1,000 years ago, a group of Gypsies left India and came to Europe. They were not welcomed by European nobles and were discriminated against and persecuted.

In order to survive, the Gypsies began to seek protection from the nobles, and gradually, some Gypsies living in the Czech Republic obtained written protection promises from local nobles.

When they wandered to France, they took out a letter of protection, but it was not recognized by the French court, the European hegemon at that time.

Because the place where the signature was signed was in the Czech Republic, which is called La Boheme in French, the French nobles called these gypsies "Bohemians".

Bohemians are a group of people with a strong artistic temperament who live on the margins of society.

They are independent and self-centered, while at the same time they resist the mainstream and oppression.

In modern times, this word has gradually been used to refer to artists who want to live an unconventional life, just like the gypsies in history, who live outside of society, are somewhat mysterious, and maintain their complete self.

Music scholar Sheila Whiteley believes that "the song's title (Bohemian Rhapsody) draws on contemporary rock ideas, combining the bohemian individualism of the genre with the rhapsodical art rock."

Why did Queen name this song Bohemian Rhapsody? Perhaps at that time they could only find this word to perfectly express all the components contained in the song.