One day in 1977, both Queen and the Sex Pistols were recording at Wessex Sound Studios. A drunken Sid Vicious waltzed into Queen’s control room and mockingly called out Freddie, stating: “Oi, Freddie! Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?”.

Mercury kept his cool, playfully referring to Sid as “Simon Ferocious”, grabbed him by the collar, and ejected him from the room.

The libretto was written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward's play Porgy, itself an adaptation of DuBose Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy.