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Radio 4 listeners have chosen Queen’s opera-headbanger as their favourite Desert Island piece of pop; I explain all in a feature for the BBC News Magazine, What is a Bohemian Rhapsody?:

“Freddie Mercury used a piano as the headboard of his bed. The double-jointed Mercury would awake with inspiration, reach up and back behind his head and play what he’d heard in his dreams. This was how Bohemian Rhapsody began.”

Update [22 Jun]: Here is Scott Simon of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday yakking with me about Bismillah and Scaramouche:

• Other florid lyrics I have enjoyed dissecting: Flowers In The Rain; A Whiter Shade Of Pale.
• More American public radio below; I discuss Daniel Powter’s Bad Day [article here] with John Schaefer on WNYC’s Soundcheck.

• Photo taken at the Alhambra in Andalucía‎ and included in tribute to Dr Matthew Beaumont‘s evocation of Moorish architecture. [More Beaumont in his book with Patrick Keiller, Chris Petit, Iain Sinclair et al, Restless Cities.]