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The ballad begins with Freddie Mercury's single voice singing "Mama, just killed a man, / Put a gun against his head, / Pulled my trigger now he's dead." He next follows up with a sorrowful regret that seems to be more for ruining his own life than ending another's, "Mama, life had just begun, / But now I've gone and thrown it all away." The backing arrangement is quite sparse in the first half of the ballad; only piano and bass, no guitars or backing vocals. The entrance of drums is held back until the end of the second phrase. Backing vocals enter on the downbeat of the third phrase. In the fourth phrase the guitar solo starts, backed by the harmony of the third phrase. In the fifth phrase the guitar plays contradictory to the melody. The solo itself takes over the leading role from the vocals at its climax. Its tune goes higher and higher with momentary step-backs while the rhythm guitars play downward figures. At the end of the guitar solo, the ballad is over and immediately goes into the opera section. .
This is definitely the most extravagant section of the song and is what gives Bohemian Rhapsody its character. The opera section can be divided into five smaller subsections. The first of which is from the beginning to "Thunder bolt and lightning very, very firght"ning me." The first musical sound of the opera section is a light piano playing the same short accented note, which picks up the tempo to about double of what it was before. This plays alone for two measures until the solo vocal starts with "I see a little silhouetto of a man." Harmonized vocals enter on the fourth beat of the fourth measure, there is no syncopation being used. The last phrase adds extra voices in both the low and the high range, and the bass and drums come in. The next subsection of the opera section is from "Galileo" to "Magnifico." The first two measures feature a call/response-like vocal arrangement with each singer singing at least an octave away from each other.
