One of the world’s greatest rock musicians was undoubtedly Freddie Mercury of the band Queen.
When it came to music, Mercury had his own unique philosophy which he expressed in his own words:
“You can do whatever you like with my image, my music, remix it, re-release it, whatever… just don’t make me boring.”
With that in mind, we’re guessing he probably would’ve enjoyed this unique cover of one of his songs.
Mercury is famous for his flamboyance and wildly unique approach in rock music, both of which left an outstanding mark on people’s hearts. Now, we get to hear one of his famous songs, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” played on an antique fairground organ.
Still, not everybody even knows what a fairground organ is exactly.
Fairground organs are pipe organs designed for commercial public settings for attraction and entertainment. You can casually hear them on merry-go-rounds and often on other fairground attractions. Unlike organs designed to be used indoors, these organs have the capability to give off large volumes of sound that could be heard despite the noise coming from crowds and machinery.
Still, that’s not the only thing that these fairground organs were intended to do. They were originally constructed for the purpose of mimicking an actual musical band. As a result, these organs can perfectly imitate the popular music of the period and came to be known as “band organs” in the United States.
This old machinery is just so majestic that it made the song a hundred times better!
What it took to play these instruments was the insertion of the barrel or musical cylinder sheet for the organ and a press of a button. After that, music would stream out from the pipes! Unlike some barrel organs, you do not have to crank the wheel to produce music. After simply pressing a button, the barrel and the wheel start to roll and together they produce music.
Commenters on YouTube were impressed that the machine still worked—and that people were still watching performances on it 100 years later!
The song was played on a 1905 81-key Marenghi organ. Considering the age of the organ, it’s hard to believe it could still give out such a marvelous sounding tune! Listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” here is such a fresh experience, especially with the wonderful acoustics of the room it was in.
The barrel was expectedly long and complicated—because come on, it’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”! Alexey Rom, the music arranger responsible for this sheet, was amazing for recreating this actual piece in such a peculiar way. It certainly took him a ton of work, but it was so worth it in the end because the people loved it so much.
Rom has had all kinds of fun and epic musical adventures.
If you liked this performance, be sure to check out Rom’s other videos on YouTube!
His content is usually about playing his mechanical musical arrangements in antique organs like this one. This particular video has reached 8.8 million views and 221,000 likes since it was published on YouTube five years ago. To this day, the views are still rolling in and new comments keep popping up every day!
Hopefully, this band organ will continue to rock and Queen’s music will still be heard for the next generations to come. Check out the full video below:
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