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A Day At The Races (album)

A Day at the Races
A Day at the Races (Queen).jpg
Studio album by Queen
Released 10 December 1976
Recorded July – November 1976
Studio The Manor, Sarm East, Wessex
Genre Hard rock
Length 44:24
Label EMI, Parlophone (Europe)
Elektra (1976), Hollywood (1991) (US)
Producer Queen
Queen chronology
A Night at the Opera
(1975)
A Day at the Races
(1976)
News of the World
(1977)
Singles from A Day at the Races
  1. "Somebody to Love"
    Released: 12 November 1976
  2. "Tie Your Mother Down"
    Released: 4 March 1977
  3. "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)"
    Released: 25 March 1977 (Japan only)
  4. "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy (Queen's First EP)"
    Released: 20 May 1977
  5. "Long Away"
    Released: 7 June 1977 (US, Canada, New Zealand only)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 3.5/5 stars
Chicago Tribune 3/4 stars
Encyclopedia of Popular Music 3/5 stars
Pitchfork Media 6.6/10
PopMatters 7/10
Q 3/5 stars
Rolling Stone Magazine 2/5 stars
The Rolling Stone Album Guide 2/5 stars
Uncut 3/5 stars

A Day at the Races is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 10 December 1976. It was the band's first completely self-produced album, and the first not to feature producer Roy Thomas Baker. Recorded at Sarm East, The Manor and Wessex Studios in England, A Day at the Races was engineered by Mike Stone. The title of the album followed suit with its predecessor A Night at the Opera, taking its name from the subsequent film by the Marx Brothers.

The album peaked at #1 in the UK, Japan and the Netherlands. It reached #5 on the US Billboard 200 and was Queen's fifth album to ship gold in the US, and subsequently reached platinum status in the same country.

A Day at the Races was voted the 67th greatest album of all time in a national 2006 BBC poll.

"Tie Your Mother Down" was written in Tenerife, when May was working on his PhD in Astronomy in early 1968. He wrote it on Spanish guitar and thought he'd change the title and chorus later on, but Mercury liked it and they kept it that way.

The song is preceded, first, by a multi-tracked guitar part reminiscent of the song "White Man," then by a one-minute instrumental intro using a Shepard tone harmonium figure, which is actually a reprise of the ending of "Teo Torriatte": this was intended to create a "circle" in the album. The ascending scale was created by recording a descending scale on a harmonium and playing it backwards for the record.

The main bulk of the song can be described as heavy blues rock, featuring aggressive vocals by lead singer Mercury as well as a slide guitar solo by May, who also provided most of the backing vocals.


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