I’m thinking this morning about cultural touchstones — those songs and movies and TV shows and whathaveyou that somehow, magically, take hold with a generation (or the populace in general), and forever remind of a particular moment in time.

I’m thinking about this because of the inimitable, deathless (for better or for worse) “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which came up on my scan this morning. There’s truly nothing else like it in pop music, is there? It is epic in length and scope, it is bizarre and fascinating, and the fact that it ever made it onto the radio — let alone managed to stay there for three decades and counting — is fairly shocking. We, the mass consumers, are not generally so keen on originality and weirdness.

The song was apparently a hit from the get-go, amazingly enough, so I assume some of its staying power is due to its original impact and popularity. But I’ve got to guess (and Wikipedia is backing me up) that Wayne’s World gave it new life in the early 1990s.

Wayne’s World, of course, is one of my cultural touchstones, and certainly my first thought upon hearing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I can’t say for certain that I first saw the movie with MamaKitt, but I have this idea that I did — that we caught it in the somewhat down-at-heel downtown theater where we saw so many movies together over the years, and that we laughed our asses off. (I may just be extrapolating my strong association with the “Wayne’s World” SNL sketch and MK to the movie, though; as she has written, she did such a good Garth impression that she once played him in a high school skit.)

At any rate: For me — and, I suspect, so many of my generation — “Bohemian Rhapsody” means Wayne and Garth and buddies in a car, cruising and singing and banging their heads.

But … today when I heard “BR,” I thought of this instead. (Sorry, can’t find a clip that’ll let me embed here.)

Will this be the new cultural touchstone? Is it good / powerful / entertaining / epic enough to last in the collective pop consciousness? Will today’s youngsters think of “Glee” whenever they hear “Bohemian Rhapsody”? Can I — now an oldster of 36 — even begin to guess at what today’s teens and twentysomethings are going to register as significant moments in pop culture?

Probably not. I am curious about these kinds of questions, though. And I do think Freddie Mercury probably got a good heavenly kick out of the ridicu-fabulousness of the “Glee” take on his tune.