When rock band Queen reigned supreme

Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is the biggest-selling UK single of all time if you don't count charity records. And just as it was riding high in the charts, Queen came to Bristol to play two sell-out gigs 50 years ago this month. Eugene Byrne is betting that'll make some readers feel very old ...

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Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality The reality is that that song was at Number One in the UK charts fifty years ago this week, and there it would remain over the Christmas period and into January. Bismillah! No, it will not let us go ...

To some people, Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the greatest songs of all time, ever.

To others it's the epitome of the pretentious, pompous, preening self-importance of 1970s rock, a scene dominated by strutting blokes.

(Every last UK Number One single in 1975 was from a male band or male singers apart from one - Tammy Wynette's Stand by Your Man, a song which wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of feminism.)

But if you're going to be snobbish, you're in a minority. The numbers are not on your side. It sold millions of singles worldwide and not long ago it was rated the most-streamed song from the 20th century. By one measure, it's the third-biggest selling UK single of all time, beaten only by Elton John's Princess Diana tribute Candle in the Wind 1997 and Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas?.

Proceeds from the two latter recordings went to charity, so you might say that sales were artificially boosted by the generosity of buyers. In which case you could say that Bohemian Rhapsody, purchased only by people who liked or loved it, is the most popular UK song of the 20th century, or certainly the second half of it.