Few rock frontmen embody excess, intensity, and raw emotion like Axl Rose. Yet when Rose speaks about his influences, his tone shifts from defiant to reverent. At the very top of that list sits Queen, and above all, their legendary singer Freddie Mercury. Rose has openly admitted that Mercury’s lyrics and fearlessness were a lifeline during his youth—guiding him toward music when he had little else to hold on to.
While Queen are most often defined by the towering success of Bohemian Rhapsody, Axl Rose has consistently argued that their true artistic depth lies beyond the radio staples. The song he believes best proves this point is The Prophet’s Song—a sprawling, dark, and deeply mystical track from the 1975 album A Night at the Opera.
A Song Ahead of Its Time
Rose’s admiration for The Prophet’s Song crystallized during preparations for the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, an emotionally charged event honoring Mercury’s legacy after his death. While Rose ultimately performed Bohemian Rhapsody onstage alongside Elton John, his private conversations revealed a deeper obsession with Queen’s more experimental work.
To Rose, The Prophet’s Song is nothing less than a masterclass. Its most famous section—a haunting vocal canon built entirely from Mercury’s layered voice—creates an almost ritualistic atmosphere. For a singer renowned for his own complex harmonies and vocal overdubs on albums like Use Your Illusion, Rose saw this moment as revolutionary. It demonstrated that the human voice could be both instrument and architecture.
Though the song was written by Brian May, Rose viewed Mercury’s performance as transcendent. Unlike the operatic drama of Bohemian Rhapsody, The Prophet’s Song leans into something heavier and more ominous. Its apocalyptic lyrics, shifting tempos, and sense of impending doom feel closer to progressive rock and early heavy metal than pop-rock—a direction Rose believes directly influenced the evolution of hard rock.
Freddie Mercury: The Blueprint
Axl Rose has often described Mercury as his greatest teacher—not because Queen followed rules, but because they broke all of them. Their willingness to blend opera, folk, metal, gospel, and pure bombast gave Rose permission to ignore genre boundaries. That philosophy is deeply embedded in Guns N’ Roses’ DNA.
The sprawling structure of November Rain, a song Rose spent nearly a decade refining, shares a clear lineage with the ambition of A Night at the Opera. Like Mercury, Rose refused to compress emotion into neat formulas. Songs could be long. They could be strange. They could demand patience.
A Legacy Beyond the Hits
By championing The Prophet’s Song, Axl Rose has helped reframe Queen’s legacy for generations raised on their greatest hits compilations. His message is simple but powerful: Queen were not just pop icons—they were architects of a dark, complex, and intellectually daring musical universe.
To Rose, this underappreciated track stands as proof that Freddie Mercury’s genius extended far beyond chart success. Sometimes, the most prophetic art isn’t what everyone sings along to—it’s what waits quietly in the shadows, challenging those willing to listen more closely.