"It’s a lot more complicated in many ways than Bohemian Rhapsody": Queen's most celebrated song marks its 50th anniversary today, but Roger Taylor and Brian May say that several songs they released in the years beforehand were arguably even more ambitious

Bohemian Rhapsody picture disc.

Today marks 50 years – half a century! – since Queen first released Bohemian Rhapsody. To celebrate the occasion they are to upload a special five-part series of their The Greatest YouTube series looking at the track and its parent album, A Night At The Opera.

Because we’ve all heard it hundreds, probably thousands, of times, it can be hard these days to place Bohemian Rhapsody in its original context, but in the interviews for the episode, Brian May and Roger Taylor have attempted to do so. The song, they explain, wasn’t the first time that the band had attempted a multi-part epic.