What is the meaning behind “So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die?”? Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
- by imrk
- March 25, 2023
In the first lines of the “rock” section of the song, the speaker strikes a defiant tone, shedding the pleading and self-pity of the song’s earlier movements. Stoning is a form of capital punishment in which members of a community throw stones at an offender until they are killed. It is usually associated with the punishment of sinners in Abrahamic religious societies, and makes frequent appearances in the Old Testament. While the Bible commands stoning for a variety of sins ranging from idolatry to cursing God to wizardry to touching Mount Sinai while God was giving Moses the Ten Commandments , it is never mentioned in conjunction with homosexuality. While stoning is never mentioned in the Quran, some hadiths , or words of the Prophet Muhammad, prescribed it as punishment for “sexual deviance”, and it has been revived in several Islamic countries. Freddie Mercury may have been aware of this while growing up in predominantly Muslim Zanzibar. Jesus' instruction in John 7:53–8:11 to “let he who is without sin throw the first stone” at a woman caught in the act of adultery is often interpreted as a condemnation of the practice.